OPPOSITE:
Three students enjoy an early spring afternoon.
subject pertinent to their jobs. In the field of accounting, for example, an individual might choose the required five courses from a number of concentrations, including "Controllership," 'i\dvanced Accounting Theory and Practice," 'i\dvanced Income Tax Problems," 'i\ccounting for Non-Profit Activities," and 'i\ccounting Information Systems. ,,16 Once again, the college considered establishing a law school: the Strategic Planning Committee discussed this possibility. However, a five-month feasibility study begun at the end of 1984 revealed that there were enormous costs involved in setting upa law school-seven to ten million dollars. At the same time, the committee found that law school enrollments all over the nation were declining. The committee advised against the proposal, and college administrators decided once and for all to lay the ghost of the proposed Bryant College law school to rest. 17 The Strategic Planning Committee had recommended development of the internship program. This effort to give students practical experience in business and to strengthen the college's connections with the business community represented a continuing thread in Bryant's history. The committee recognized that there were practical advantages: the student would gain a credential that would be important when he or she applied for a job upon graduation, and the college internship program would make Bryant attractive to incoming students. Prior to this, a student who wanted an internship experience had applied to the department head who had then arranged an internship for the individual. Reports from these early internships were positive, and so college administrators were favorably disposed towards setting up a program. 18 In 1980, Hinda Pollard, a professor of management, became coordinator of the new program. She talked to students interested in an internship, reviewed their academic records, and chose sixty juniors and seniors to be the first interns. Pollard called managers and persuaded them to take on the student interns who wanted work experience in their firms. She screened the jobs offered and ruled out any position that did not provide significant work related to the student's major. The reputation of Bryant College and the students' records were so positive that soon Pollard began to receive requests for student interns: government offices, banks, small businesses, and major companies such as IBM and Textron requested Bryant interns. 19 Students also chose internships with Rhode Island public interest organizations which needed accountants' services. Professor Michael Filippelli, in cooperation with Cap Henry Frank, the director of Accountants for Public Interest (a non-profit group), set up internships for seventy-two Bryant accounting students in twenty-nine agencies. These agencies represented a range of community activities-among them, the Rhode Island Mime Theatre, the Grey Panthers, Rhode Island Early Childhood Research Center, and the YWCA. 20 At first, students worked ten hours a week, but by the mid-eighties, Pollard was developing a structure for the internship which enabled the student to be in the work environment for a longer, more intensive period. The student now worked full-time in a block of weeks before the semester began and also after the semester ended. Each student was advised by a faculty member, met fellow interns in seminars to discuss problems in the workplace, kept a daily work log, and wrote a final paper on some aspect of the learning experience. At least once during the semester, the student was visited at work by the faculty member who sat down with the intern and supervisor to talk over performance. 21 Students found that a corporate culture existed for which no textbook had fully prepared them. Susan Sheplak, who interned in the
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