A University and Corporation Partnership for Student Employees

This paper discusses a partnership between a manufacturing company and a university in which the university provides student employees to the company. This win-win situation has provided work experience to the students and inexpensively expanded the company work force. The unique characteristics of this program are: (1) the university acts as an outsourcing vendor; (2) faculty select the interns, (3) students, faculty and the university benefit financially, and (4) students work in regular full-time positions rather than work created for the intern program. We discuss the contractual arrangement, the selection and training of student workers, and the students' performance as workers. We describe the orientation and awareness program that prepares students for their work experience. The program consists of four sessions: awareness of company and university policies; work ethic and job responsibilities; sexual harassment; and legal and ethical issues of the business work environment. We conclude by suggesting factors that have been important to the success of this arrangement.