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Co-op program posts record year

By Amy Geiszler-Jones

For the second time in three years, WSU’s cooperative education program set a record for student placements.

The program, which is the largest such program in Kansas and one of the Midwest’s largest, posted 1,288 placements during the past academic year (fall 1997, spring and summer 1998). The last record was 1,242 placements in the 1995-96 academic year.

The 876 students who filled those placements generated 2,165 credit hours and earned approximately $3,670,000 for about 438,000 hours of work. Students may participate in the co-op program for multiple semeters, depending on their area of study.

Providing those placements were 376 employers, ranging from Wichita-based companies to NASA. The number of employers is also up, compared to 350 for the 1996-97 academic year.

The program, which started in 1979, is a prime example of WSU’s metropolitan advantage. Because Wichita is the state’s largest city and Kansas’ business center, the community is a natural resource for the program.

The program offers many attractive features to students and employers. Students can get career experience while earning money and academic credit. Many employers hire former co-op students permanently.

While the program has been successful, it hasn’t been a cakewalk in achieving those record numbers.

“This is a very staff intensive program,” says Connie Dietz, program director, who oversees five coordinators who work with students, employers and faculty. “It takes a lot of time to work with these students. Since we’re putting them in an academic experience, we’re very careful about the positions we put them in.” That means working closely with employers and faculty, as well. Students aren’t actually placed in jobs; they go through an interview process with employers.

“A lot of jobs are eliminated because they are not academically related to what our students need,” says Dietz.

Coordinators are willing to work with colleges to develop and coordinate paid, academic internships. For instance, recently the program started coordinating the effort to place students in The Boeing Co.’s competitive summer internship program.

Some challenges the co-op program faces are a healthy economy and the fact that in some academic colleges co-op credits don’t count toward a degree.

“The robust economy has been a positive and a negative. It’s a positive in that in some areas we have more jobs, more opportunities. It’s a negative in that students find jobs on their own and don’t go through co-op,” Dietz says.

Many of those self-found jobs are not in a student’s area of study, but the wages are appealing. “How do you convince a student to give up or add a second job?” she asks.

Co-op student Christina Henry, left,
and Lori Miller, director of special events
and community relations at WSU, prepare
centerpieces for the Dec. 9 Musical Potpourri.

Inside WSU is published by the Office of University Communications for Wichita State University faculty and staff on Fridays - with an exclusive online version every other Friday - during the fall and spring semesters. Items to be considered for publication should be sent to campus box 62 or amy.geiszler-jones@wichita.edu 10 days before publication.

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Amy Geiszler-Jones

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Matthew Hicks