THE HISTORY OF THE PROGRAM

The Early Years
Experiential learning for business students at Susquehanna University probably began as early as 1900 when business courses were first offered.   Though these courses were part of the curriculum of the “business department”, they were intended to educate and otherwise prepare students for secretarial and bookkeeping positions.   

The business department “expanded” it’s business curriculum a few years later by offering courses in banking.   However, it was not until the 1930’s that a four-year degree program in business administration was offered at SU.  

National programs for students to gain business related experience outside the classroom also began to gain some recognition during the 1930s and 1940s as evidenced by Congressional legislation that provided funding for various types of vocational education. Perhaps motivated by this legislation, one of the business education teachers at SU recognized the need for actual business training and organized an informal program for some of her students to provide secretarial services to local businessmen. Other students with a business background may have obtained summer business related work on their own, or employers may have offered specific summer positions, but during these early years there was no recognized internship program at the University wherein academic credit was offered, grades were assigned, or where businesses specifically interviewed students for internship positions. 

One of our Stein Scholarship receipants at her internship site in the UK.The Formative Years
Business internships were not formalized at Susquehanna until 1956 when Professor Lamar Inners founded an internship program for seniors enrolled in the accounting department.  A one-month program was established in cooperation with two leading accounting firms--Price Waterhouse & Company, and Haskins & Sells, both in New York City.   By 1962 the program was expanded to six weeks, and Lybrand Ross Bros.& Montgomery of Philadelphia was added to the list of participating firms.

Representatives from the accounting firms visited the campus to interview senior accounting students for internships that would start at the beginning of the spring semester (there were two semesters at that time--fall and spring).  If selected, these seniors had to make arrangements with their business faculty members to take compressed class schedules when they returned for the second half of the spring semester.  Most had already satisfied the requirements for an accounting major, therefore the compressed classes were mostly outside their major field.  The internships were for 2 credits, were paid, and were for a specific letter grade.



One of our Stein Scholarship recipients at her
internship site in the UK.
 

For the most part, this practice remained in effect for several years. One change did occur when the university went to a three-term school year (fall, winter, spring). Because of the shorter semesters, the accounting internships could be served during the entire winter semester thereby eliminating the need for the special arrangements that were necessary when internships were served for only a part of a semester. Grading also changed from mostly employer-assigned letter grades to faculty-assigned “pass/fail”. 

The growth of the accounting internship program slowed somewhat in the late 1960s/early1970s, partly because of the growing use of computer technology throughout the business world. Many of the duties that were previously done by interns/trainees became automated and, as a consequence, not as many interns/trainees were required. Probably of greater significance to the internship slowdown was Susquehanna University's return to a two-semester program. Since accounting majors needed more accounting credits to satisfy requirements for the CPA exam, they could ill afford to take time off during the academic school year to serve an internship. (Summer internships were not offered.)

To offset some of the decline in accounting internships, opportunities became available for students in finance and other areas of business administration. In 1966 finance students were offered internships with Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust, and in 1970 a local bank participated in the program. Internships in management were offered by Pennsylvania Blue Shield in Harrisburg and GTE-Sylvania in Montoursville. In retailing, local businesses such as Cole's Hardware, Boscov's, and Hess's of Allentown were added as internship employers. Even an international flavor emerged when SU business students "interned" at Magasin du Nord, a department store in Denmark, Emil Lux, a retail establishment in West Germany, and Nouvelles Galleries, a retailing chain in France.

While the program was beginning to gain some momentum and was even mentioned in SU course catalogs, it's growth still was inhibited somewhat because most internships were served during the academic year with the resultant effect that scheduling accommodation had to be made by faculty. In addition, administration of the program remained decentralized and was therefore largely dependent on the personal initiative of individual business faculty members.

Internships and The Sigmund Weis School of Business
The business internship program remained a decentralized program that was administered as a peripheral “duty”, and on a volunteer basis, by the various business faculty members.  It was not until 1983, when the respective business programs at SU were consolidated into the newly created Sigmund Weis School of Business (SWSB), that the concept of a centrally managed business internship program began to emerge. 

The new Dean of the SWSB was quite enamored with the internship concept and, for a few years, he personally placed students on internships in the Boston and New York City areas. Having  experienced the demands of administering even the few internships he had obtained, he developed an appreciation for the time and effort required to effectively manage an overall internship program.  Accordingly, in 1993, he engaged Dr. Kenneth Fladmark, who had retired that year from a heralded career of teaching in the business program at Susquehanna University, to design and develop a centrally administered SWSB internship program for participation by all business students.  During this developmental period in 1993, 10 students served summer internships, however, the program remained decentralized.

As requested, Dr. Fladmark developed a centralized program, and he was named to the newly created position “SWSB Business Internship Coordinator”.  This was a paid part-time position reporting directly to the Dean.

This new program required the direct involvement of the SWSB faculty.  They were asked to serve, for a stipend, as advisors for each internship that was to be completed for academic credit. In that capacity they were tasked to approve internships for academic merit, to develop requirements that the intern had to satisfy to obtain credits, and to monitor and grade the individual internships.  

Internships were now mostly for the summer, they could be served for academic credit and they were graded by the advising business faculty as either “S” Satisfactory or “U” Unsatisfactory.  The new program became effective for internships that were served during the summer 1994.   

Since 1994, the program has experienced such significant growth that now most SWSB students complete at least one internship before they graduate with their business degree from SU.  The schedule below shows student participation in the program from 1993 to the present (central records of participation were not kept by the SWSB for years prior to 1993, however an archival review of the Registrar's records would likely identify those internships before 1993 that were for-credit). Please see the attached Appendix for a list of names of all students who have completed business internships since 1993.
 

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
10 36 59 57 55 75 68 68 98 116 132 135 140 143 116 132



Note: Beginning in 2007, only jobs that result in the award of academic credit are considered by the University as internships. Prior to 2007 non-credit internships were included in the above reported numbers.
 

The present program content is essentially as it was designed in 1993. In 2002 Ron Keefer, class of 1963, was named Director of the SWSB Internship Program. Recent developments have focused on increasing the use of automation, and standardizing the administrative procedures and processes to better manage this rapidly expanding program. Accomplishments of note include:

 

Experiential learning has become of increasing significance for business schools throughout the education community.  At Susquehanna, it is now an integral part of SU’s  overall Strategic Plan to have every student complete one or more off-campus activities of an approved experiential nature.  For the SWSB, the Business Internship Program is one significant stride toward accomplishing this goal, and it has become a model for other internship programs throughout the University.  

Sources

1.     William S. Clark and Arthur H. Wilson, The Story of Susquehanna University (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1958) 
 

2.      Jean Beamenderfer, History of Business Education at Susquehanna University, 1983 
 

3.      Interviews-Fall 2003

·        Dr. Kenneth Fladmark, Professor Emeritus and Former Coordinator of SWSB Internships, Susquehanna University

·        George Machlan, Former Chairman of the Accounting Department, Susquehanna University

4.      Testimonials of Former Interns

·         Peter Nunn, Class of 1957

·         Ron Keefer, Class of  1963

·         Dean Springman, Class of 1978

Susquehanna University

Last reviewed by Wendy H. Davis
Alicia J. Jackson, Dean, Sigmund Weis School of Business
©2000 Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA 17870-0101
Telephone: 570-372-4454 Fax: 570-372-4491