The SU ADVANCE undergraduate intern program reflects the university's emphasis on "educating the whole person" and providing excellence in education. During the NSF Third Year Site Visit, NSF program officers indicated that the internship is a strength of the program and noted that a focus on undergraduates (rather than graduate students) is quite unusual for an ADVANCE program.
Over the last five years, we have been fortunate to have a series of talented women undergraduates who have contributed in a variety of ways to our program. These have included psychology, anthropology, sociology, mechanical engineering, and computer science majors. Interns have mostly focused their efforts on website development and helping us to build our on-line library. Other key duties, however, have included research into other ADVANCE programs and work on non-confidential aspects of our qualitative campus-based research. Past interns have described a number of positive impacts from their participation in the internship program.
I have discussions with people—even just during our weekly meeting, I have come to understand the just everyday issues that faculty run into with being employed by the university.
An ADVANCE Intern