INTERNSHIPS
JUS 421
 SYLLABUS
Academic Instructor: Professor Mark Stevens, J.D or any JUS faculty
Administrative (ICSC) Coordinator: Ms. LaRue Chuman
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COURSE DESCRIPTION:
    For the most current course description, refer to the College Catalog.  The JUS internship (as of Fall 2001) is NO LONGER MANDATORY and is an upper-level ELECTIVE available for 3 semester hours or 6 semester hours.  If a student is interested in doing an internship, they will select a site themselves or be recommended to a site by the ICSC administrative coordinator.  There is a good deal of flexibility in what constitutes an appropriate work site, but it should be connected with their field of study, which would normally include: law enforcement agencies, prisons, probation and parole offices, social service organizations, governmental agencies, department store security firms, research institutions or foundations, and judicial, legal, and political offices.  Interns are admitted into the program only by joint permission of an academic instructor and the ICSC Administrative Coordinator.  The course is designed to provide practical on-the-job experiences which augment in-class experiences.  The internship is NOT designed to be a substitute for ordinary or elective coursework, and the internship is designed to follow the school's regular semester scheduling.  The best internships are planned well in advance, as this page indicates.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
1. Knowledge about [the laws] pertaining to [the type of work] the agency does
2. Understanding and appreciation for the daily operations [of the agency]
3. Ability to analyze, synthesize, and generalize about the agency and what was learned in classes.
4. Ability to [self-] assess performance at the agency and skill levels required
5. Ability to [self-] assess whether the agency [or line of work] is a desirable kind of career

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
    For 3 semester hours of credit, each student should complete 200 hours of service to the organization or organizations at their intern site.  This minimum number of hours is necessary in order for 3 academic credit hours to be granted by any collegiate institution.  Your intern site organization may have a requirement for more or less hours.  In a 15 week semester, this works out to about 8 hours a week, and if you are attempting to do the Internship in an 8-week ADP semester, this works out to be about 18 hours a week.  Note that if you sign up for 6 credit hours of Internship, you will have to complete 400 hours of service (which is the equivalent of 20+ hours per week) in the course of a 15 week semester.  In a short 8-week semester, you would have to be working full-time (40+ hours per week) to complete 6 credit hours of Internship.   It is uncommon for a college internship to be more than part-time employment, and indeed, an internship is supposed to be less than part-time employment.  Unless you plan to work for the agency at least part-time (20+ hours a week), play it safe and sign up for no more than 3 credit hours of JUS 421.

    HOURS:  The Cover Sheet will usually be the first form you send in, and it's a worksheet, not a form, actually.  It can be done in pencil and have coffee stains on it, for example.  In it, you (and your site supervisor, if necessary) will figure out an estimate of how many hours you will actually be in contact with the agency. One of the first things we do is check to make sure the number of contact hours is sufficient to cover the number of credit hours you have enrolled in JUS 421 for. The academic instructor or administrative coordinator will be checking to make sure that you and the agency are both committed to these number of hours.

    INDEMNITY:  The next thing you turn in, which is very important, is your waiver, or Indemnity form.  This is important for school insurance purposes.  We don't want anything bad to happen to you, but before you set foot on agency grounds, it's important to clearly understand when one insurance policy ends and another begins. Your agency will probably have you sign a similar form or something dealing with liability.  Either Dr. O'Connor or Ms. Chuman should have filed copy of your indemnity form, and we are periodically audited for them.   

    JOURNAL: From Day One (when you first start thinking about an Internship), you should start to keep a JOURNAL. Try to make at least three (3) entries in it per week.   The journal, when done correctly, makes it easier for your academic instructor to evaluate your internship experience.  Your journal entries should be along the lines of the following:

    1) hours worked
    2) nature of work done
    3) your personal reaction to the work
    4) something you learned today from the work
    5) any problems/concerns/issues/questions encountered or raised

    LEARNING CONTRACT:  Now, let's turn to the Learning Contract, another form you will send in, and in fact, you'll probably find the Business Office won't let you register for an Internship without this form filled out and signed.  And, it has to make sense.  This is the part where someone at the agency should ideally help you fill out the form. It is always preferable for you and your site supervisor to sit down and tailor some individualized objectives. As a last resort, do it yourself or have somebody at NCWC help you.  Then, after you've signed it, have the faculty instructor sign it.  For those who have never done it before, here's how it goes with some examples:

    EVALUATIONS:  You shouldn't have any problems with the Evaluations, either the mid-term Interim Evaluation or the Final Evaluation because all you have to do is point your supervisor at the agency to these web pages, and then they can print them out, and/or mail or email them to either the faculty instructor or administrative coordinator.  It's all right if your site supervisor wants to use one of their agency's forms, but it's better if you can get them to work with our forms, or supplement their forms with ours.

      PAPER:  Finally, let's talk about the 10 page PAPER that you must do for the Internship.  This isn't a writing intensive course, but there is a pretty hefty paper requirement.  You may or may not find the Justice Studies Style Guide and How to Write Term Papers useful, as it's designed for papers of 12 pages or more, but maybe it will help make your paper look more professional.  Try not to let your internship paper simply be a write-up of your journal, and shoot for more than the minimum in page length.  Your internship paper must meet these minimum requirements:

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:
    You are to collect any literature that the agency distributes to the public and any forms (if allowable) that you regularly used in your assignments.  At the completion of the course, be sure to include these documents, any copies of forms you have, your Journal, and your Paper in a final Portfolio, or 1-inch binder.  Samples of these binders from the internships of previous students are available for you to look at in the ICSC office and also in the academic instructor's office.  Normally, these binders are not given back (although if the journal is quite personal, you can have that back), and they become part of the permanent record of the college, much like an Honor's Thesis. 
    In addition, it is the student's responsibility to maintain WEEKLY CONTACT. Emailing the academic instructor will suffice, or leaving a phone message with the ICSC is also OK. The purpose of this requirement is to keep us informed of progress and other relevant aspects of the internship, turning points, warning signs of trouble, etc. This requirement is mandatory. Keep in touch.

    SUMMARY:  All interns must sign various forms provided by the College. The Indemnity form, in particular, must be turned in prior to the start of any work. All of the forms you will need are provided here as hyperlinks. Also, you can always walk into the ICSC at any time and pick up copies of these forms.

[Syllabus][Cover Sheet][Indemnity][Learning Contract][Interim Eval][Final Eval][Paper][Grades]

EVALUATION AND ASSIGNMENT OF GRADES:
    Grades are determined primarily in equal part by the following, with pluses or minuses in letter affected by how well you followed all the non-graded assignment instructions such as weekly contact and so forth.  The criteria or rubrics used to assign numerical scores to assignments depend upon that assignment.  The site supervisor's evaluations are fairly objective, and an easy quantitative assessment based on the number of checks in boxes marked "Excellent."  Your academic instructor's evaluation, on the other hand, is fairly subjective, and based, in part, on such things as the content and tone of voice of telephone conversations between your site supervisor and the academic instructor as to how the internship is going.  The journal and paper are graded against the list of 5 things (listed above) that you should have in your journal, and against the 6 things (listed above) that you should have in your paper.  In addition, papers are evaluated for neatness, freedom from spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, and the REOS grading rubric (Reasoning, Evidence, Organization, and Substance).

1) your site supervisor's evaluations (25%)
2) your journal (25%)
3) your paper (25%)
4) the Academic Instructor's evaluation (25%)