Diane Barrett-Curtis and Joanne Strebeck of Southwestern Michigan College spoke to Dowagiac Rotary Club Oct. 14 about the intern program. (The Daily News/John Eby)

By JOHN EBY

Dowagiac Daily News

Internships Southwestern Michigan College provides require 144 “clock hours,” or 48 hours for each of three credits, Diane Barrett-Curtis and Joanne Strebeck told Dowagiac Rotary Club Thursday noon at Elks Lodge 889.

Many programs require internships, such as graphic design technology, early childhood education and education paraprofessionals.

Graphic designers find internships at newspapers, including Leader Publications, and commercial printers, such as Preferred Printing.

Head Start and doctors’ offices to Salvation Army in Niles have worked with SMC interns.

Barrett-Curtis prefers a work schedule of 10 to 15 hours a week. The supervisor and student together develop goals and objectives.

“I work most closely with the School of Advanced Technology,” Barrett-Curtis said. “That includes precision production, computer-aided design and drafting, welding, construction trades, electrical systems and automotive. Those all require internships, and I’ve been able to place them with manufacturing companies, architectural firms and local dealerships and automotive service centers.”

An accounting student wrote a paper, “It’s More Than Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts” because “we don’t want students to be go-fers, and he found it was more than that.

“Two supervisor evaluations are due during the course of the internship, one halfway and one three-quarters of the way,” with the student writing a paper at the end to reflect on the experience.

“One of the things we’ve found in advisory board meetings,” Barrett-Curtis said, “is that entry-level employees — and not just our students — lack in soft skills. They lack in decisionmaking, they don’t really understand working as part of a team, they aren’t dependable, they don’t show up on time. These are some of the skills we want to instill in students coming out of our internship program. You can have the best hard skills in the world and know exactly how to program a CNC machine to make exactly the part you need, but if don’t show up at work when you’re supposed to and you don’t take direction from your supervisor, you’re not going to be a successful employee.”

Employers “reaffirm” instructors, Strebeck said.

“We know (students) don’t believe us when we say they have to speak well and write well. When a business person says it, a light goes on. We have a couple dozen sites. The City of Dowagiac loves our students, who have worked in the Department of Public Services, in accounting and with Mitch Billingham in IT. Area manufacturing companies have used our interns in office administration, bookkeeping and tax services, public schools and a couple of local banks.”

The women spoke as the guests of attorney Heidi Behnke, who knew Barrett-Curtis not only from her first career as Fourth District Court administrator, but also as the arranger of her husband Ron Matthews’ internship with the City of Niles.

Barrett-Curtis lives in Dowagiac, but coordinates work-based learning from the Niles Area Campus in Milton Township, while Strebeck, a Berrien County native, instructs in the School of Business on SMC’s Dowagiac campus.

“What we really want our students to get from internships is meaningful, hands-on experience,” Strebeck said. ”We want to emphasize lifelong learning. If you think you’re done at an associate degree, you need to wake up and smell the coffee. We want to insure students gain valuable supervised experience with someone nurturing them and mentoring them. We want students to apply classroom theory to real work environments because whoever’s signing the checks is how you’re doing to do it. One of the great things about teaching in an occupational program is that students can readily see while they’re in the classroom uses for it. We really want to strengthen the alliance between the community and the college.”

For an audience that included SMC President Dr. David Mathews, Board of Trustees Chairman Dr. Fred Mathews and retired president David Briegel, Barrett-Curtis described what internships are not.

“Internships are not designed for students to come into a company and be a consultant, giving you advice on marketing. Internships require direct supervision by somebody on your staff who is already doing the type of work the student is going to be learning. There needs to be someone who is going to be a mentor and to check the student’s work. Most interns are unpaid, but I don’t want you to think of them as ‘free labor.’ In fact, the Department of Labor has some pretty rigorous standards to make sure employers aren’t misusing wage and hour guidelines they’ve established,” Barrett-Curtis said.

“One requirement is that they not displace current workers, but works under close supervision of existing staff. The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern, not the company. It’s to give the student hands-on skills because they don’t have any real-world skills on their resume to get a job once they graduate. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern. On occasion, its operations may actually be impeded.”

“If it doesn’t work out,” Strebeck added, “we expect you to communicate that to us immediately. We want it to be a two-way street as far as benefiting the company, but having an intern is not going to save you a lot of money or get a lot of extra work done. You may see some long-term benefits if it frees up some other people. An intern is not entitled to a job at the end. Some companies use internships as a training tool if they expect to have an opening, but there’s no guarantee. The employer and intern both understand there’s no pay for this experience, so most of our internships are unpaid. We do have some companies that offer stipends,” however.

Of relationships between SMC and employers, Barrett-Curtis said, “We want feedback from the business so the college knows if something in the curriculum needs to be adjusted for skills we’re missing. We want to be teaching skills that are expected of an entry-level person.”

Having an intern “can increase the cost-effectiveness of your recruiting and training,” Barrett-Curtis said. “Obviously, if you’re going to have an unpaid intern there for 144 hours, it gives you a little head start on completing entry-level training before that person becomes a full contributing member of your staff. It can give you exposure to new technology because SMC is excellent about keeping up with the most current technologies available in a wide variety of occupational programs.

“An internship gives an extra bump on a student’s resume. Students who participate have an advantage over those who haven’t. It gives them an opportunity to start networking with professionals. Even if the company doesn’t have a job to offer post-graduation, it might have some leads.”