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Welcome and congratulations on your decision to work with a URI intern!  We are delighted you are exploring the possibility of serving as a professional mentor to our students. Your experiences and expertise are extremely valuable to the professional development of our interns. Your participation affords our students the opportunity for personal and professional growth. It is an experience which our students value, and do not take lightly. In fact, we are pleased to say that our student interns have been commended for their diligence, work ethic, and professionalism. We are confident that you will find them an impressive addition to your agency.

This page contains useful information to help you determine if the URI Internship Program meets your agency's needs. Please take a moment to review the content and learn more about working with the students of the University of Rhode Island (URI) and the Office of Experiential Learning and Community Engagement (ELCE)..

Designing a Successful Internship

Your role as the internship supervisor serves as a critical component in helping to assure the experience is beneficial to the student and worthy of college credit. Our primary concern is providing our students with professional learning experiences. The internship employer must supply significant opportunities for development, learning & networking. In order to do this we ask that you:

• Provide hands on learning experience that combines practical application, observation, professional opportunities, and mentorship.
• Assist the students to gain real world experience while at the same time applying theory and lessons learned in the classroom.
• In order to meet URI’s academic standards, each intern must create and fulfill professional learning objectives. Your intern will create and review their objectives with you within the first 2 weeks of the internship. We ask that you provide feedback on the appropriateness of the objective and assist the student in exploring additional and/or different goals if necessary. We also ask that you continue to provide feedback and support the student throughout the semester while they obtain their goals. Please refer to the “Supervisor Brochure” for further information about this assignment.
• To provide the intern with adequate supervision in a reasonably safe environment with the necessary tools and equipment to perform the intended service.
• To meet regularly with the student and provide feedback regarding their performance.
• In addition to providing regular feedback, you will also receive an electronic midterm and final evaluation which can be viewed by following the links below. 

How can your agency benefit from working with a URI intern?

• Our students are upper-class students who have completed a minimum of 2 years of coursework and have a strong academic foundation.
• Our internship is not a requirement for any student; as a result you have the opportunity to work with highly motivated pre-professionals. 
• More and more agencies are viewing interns as a valuable & cost effective approach for recruiting potential employees.
• The results of National Association of Colleges and Employer’s (NACE) 2008 Experiential Education Survey show that emphasis on hiring from the intern program is growing. “Employers reported that nearly 36 percent of the new college graduates they hired from the Class of 2007 came from their own internship programs, up from 30 percent from the Class of 2005”.
• In addition, “Nearly 90 percent of employers who use their programs to hire say they are very or extremely satisfied with their interns, and employers consistently name the internship program as one of the most effective tools they have for hiring new college graduates,”

Required Hours and Internship Dates

 

Semester Dates	Spring 2012	Summer 2012	Fall 2012
Classes Begin	January 23rd 2012	May 21st 2012	Sept 5th 2012
Mid Semester	March 7th 2012		Oct 19th 2012
Classes End	April 30th 2012	July 27th 2012	Dec 10th 2012
Semester Length	Spring – 13 weeks	Summer - 10 weeks	Fall – 13 weeks
Credits Student Earns	Spring	Summer	Fall
3	104 hours	100 hours	104 hours
6	210 hours	200 hours	210 hours
9	315 hours	300 hours	315 hours
12	420 hours	400 hours	420 hours

Credits Earned & Intern Pay

• All students through the URI Internship Program receive 6-12 academic credits for their internship field experience. Students are also required to enroll in a 3 credit internship seminar offered on the Kingston campus and online through Sakai. While we do not require the agency to pay the student intern if the agency has the means to do so, it is appreciated but not a condition of the internship experience. For additional information on paid vs. non paid interns- please visit www.internships.com select "employers" then select "intern manual" and create a membership.

 

• The Department of Labor holds that if all six of the following conditions are met, the student is not considered an employee and not entitled to at least minimum wage and overtime:
• The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school.
• The training is for the benefit of the trainees.
• The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under close observation.
• The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion his operations may actually be impeded.
• The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the completion of the training period.
• The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent training.

Preparing for your intern

• Upon arrival please provide the student with an introduction to your organization, including the structure, polices (both formal & informal), dress code, and agency mission, clientele and confidentiality issues. Orient the intern to their new work environment and safety issues.
• Become familiar with the legal implications of hiring an intern.
• Determine what time and when you will be available during the week for your intern to access you.
• Consider responsibilities that are career related, challenging, and realistic for your intern to complete. Also consider the necessary resources the student will need to do the job successfully.

 

Listing Internship Opportunities with the Office of Experiential Learning and Community Engagement (ELCE)/How do I get started?

URI Career Services provides RhodyNet, a software system which allows employers to post free job/internship opportunities as well as career/job fair information and registration, on-campus interview schedule request and management and a University student/alumni search function. All employers can now post their own positions easily by logging in through the Career Services main homepage.

1. Go to http://career.uri.edu (or click the RhodyNet link below) and click on the Employer part of the RhodyNet login oval in the upper left corner of the page.
2. To create an account for your organization, select "Click here to Register" (under the login boxes), complete contact information, and then post the job. Be sure to complete all mandatory fields (indicated with an *).
3. After a quick approval from Career Services, your position will be live on the site. You can also view and register for job fairs under the Career Events tab and add a job under the "Jobs" tab. 
   
• Once you select your intern, we work cooperatively with you to finalize the internship and support their work performance and learning outcomes throughout the experience.

• It is our goal to recruit and refer students to the internship opportunities listed on RhodyNet. However, due to the elective nature of the program (internships are not mandatory), the Office of Experiential Learning and Community Engagement. cannot guarantee students for any particular semester.

• In addition, if you chose to select a specific student and would prefer not to post on RhodyNet you can bypass the Rhodynet process and complete the supervisor paperwork found in the links below.

 
 

For more in-depth content on each of these topics please refer to the “Supervisor Brochure” below. 
 
 

Supervisor Paperwork

Want an intern?/ New Supervisor

Supervisor Midterm Evaluation Form

Supervisor Final Evaluation Form

RhodyNet

For any questions, concerns, and/or assistance please contact Kim Washor at kwashor@uri.edu or 401-874-4777

 

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