COMM 489: Internship in Communication
Spring 2016
Dr. Jennifer Mize Smith
Office: 102 Fine Arts Center Phone: 270-745-5147
E-Mail: jennifer.mize. Office Hours: M/W 1:00 – 3:00 pm
And by appointment
Course Description
The Department of Communication offers students the opportunity to earn college credit while gaining valuable work experience. The internship course COMM 489 is a supervised internship in a professional position with a designated organization. The internship should provide students with responsibilities and experiences similar to those that are expected in a first job after college graduation. Experiential learning outside of the classroom provides numerous benefits, including the ability to:
· Explore a particular career field
· Gain experience in a professional organizational environment
· Improve your communication skills and knowledge
· Apply principles and theories to real-life work situations
· Meet and network with working professionals, and
· Enhance your personal growth.
Prerequisites
To be eligible for the Communication Internship Program, students must have:
· Attained Junior or Senior class standing
· Declared a major/minor in Corporate and Organizational Communication and/or Communication Studies
· Completed COMM 200 Communication Foundations and COMM 362 Organizational Communication, and
· Completed or be enrolled in COMM 300 Introduction to Communication Research Methods.
Internship Standards *
The Department of Communication Internship Program defines an internship experience as one that meets the following criteria:
· The student works a minimum of 200 hours
· The student assists in and/or performs the majority of work in a professional setting (not remotely or in a home office setting)
· The main purpose of the work is both educational AND contributing to organizational goals, thus benefiting both the student AND the organization
· The student engages in meaningful communication-related activities in which s/he contributes to organizational processes and outcomes
· The student’s position is a temporary placement or entails new responsibilities (i.e., it is not the student’s regular job
· The student reports to site supervisor (may not report directly to a close relative, such as a mother/father, brother/sister, aunt/uncle, or grandparent)
· The student may or may not receive a salary or other compensation
· The student completes all COMM 489 course requirements in a timely manner, including the submission of periodic reports in which s/he analyzes, reflects on, and makes sense of his/her work experiences.
Employer Commitment*
To ensure a successful internship experience, the host organization and site supervisor should make the following commitments:
· Offer a professional work environment in which the intern can participate and interact with other organizational members
· Offer opportunities for the intern to engage in substantive work that contributes to organizational goals
· Provide the appropriate workspace, tools, and any other resources necessary for the intern to complete assigned tasks
· Provide direct supervision and offer regular feedback to help the intern understand expectations and make improvements
· Formally evaluate the intern’s performance by completing the midterm and final evaluation forms (both provided by the intern), and
· Carry business and liability insurance that covers student interns while working both on organizational premises and off-site on behalf of the host organization.
Application Process
To apply for acceptance to the Communication Internship Program, students must complete and submit the following materials to the Director of Internships:
· The Internship Application
· The Employer Learning Contract (signed by your internship supervisor), and
· An unofficial copy of your WKU transcript.
All internships are subject to approval by the Director of Internships. Upon approval, you will be advised on how to register for COMM 489.
Teacher Communication
The best way to contact me is via email (rather than phone). Be sure to include the two dots in my email address – jennifer.mize.. I will make every effort to respond to your email in a timely manner. However, email may not be checked after 5 pm each day, so plan accordingly.
Written Assignment Guidelines
All assignments are available on the COMM 489 Blackboard site. All assignments must be typewritten and submitted on Blackboard through Safe Assign, a plagiarism detection software.
Written work should be in a standard Microsoft Word format including 12 point font, double spacing, and 1 inch margins. In the case of multiple pages, the paper must include a footer located in the bottom right corner with a page number and your name on every page. Written assignments must adhere to APA style guidelines. For help with APA style, see online sources such as http://owl.english.purdue.edu. Effective organization and correct citations of sources are also expected. Errors in APA, as well as spelling and grammar, will result in point deductions.
Course Assignments
· Online Discussion Board
Purpose: To allow you to interact with other student interns
Periodically, you will be asked to contribute to a discussion board on Blackboard in which you can share your experiences (the good and the bad) with other students who are also doing an internship. There are no right or wrong answers. You are expected to give open, honest, and respectful opinions in hopes that you all can empathize with and learn from one another’s successes, challenges, strategies, and mistakes.
· Four-Week Time Reports
Purpose: To document your weekly time schedule and hours worked
At the end of each four-week period, you should complete a Four-Week Time Report that records your hours worked.
· Journal Entries
Purpose: To guide you in applying your coursework to your internship experiences
At the end of each work week, you will be asked to reflect on and make sense of your internship experiences. Questions will guide you to apply particular organizational communication theories and concepts, which you should recall from you classes, primarily COMM 200 and COMM 362.
· Midterm Evaluation
Purpose: To allow you to provide confidential feedback about your experiences, roles, and expectations
Approximately half way through your internship (see schedule for specific deadline), you should complete and submit the Midterm Evaluation (posted and submitted on Blackboard).
· Supervisor’s Midterm Evaluation
Purpose: To allow your supervisor to provide feedback about your performance and any areas of needed improvement
Approximately half way through your internship (see schedule for specific deadline), ask your site supervisor to complete the Supervisor’s Midterm Evaluation (posted on Blackboard). S/he may or may not choose to discuss the evaluation with you. Instructions for returning the form are located at the bottom of the form.
· Final Evaluation
Purpose: To allow you to provide confidential feedback about your experiences and any suggestions for the communication internship program
Near the completion of your internship (see schedule for specific deadline), you should complete and submit the Final Evaluation (posted and submitted on Blackboard).
· Supervisor’s Final Evaluation
Purpose: To allow your supervisor to provide final feedback about your performance and any suggestions for the communication internship program
Near the completion of your internship (see schedule for specific deadline), ask your site supervisor to complete the Supervisor’s Final Evaluation (posted on Blackboard). S/he may or may not choose to discuss the evaluation with you. Instructions for returning the form are located at the bottom of the form.
· Consultant’s Report - Imagine that the organization for which you have interned has invited you back to serve as a consultant. Based upon your journal entries, choose three areas in which you can offer suggestions for improvement. Be sure that your suggestions are grounded in communication theory, meaning that you use theory to point out an organizational weakness and to support your recommendations for change. Your analysis should include examples to illustrate the organization’s shortcomings and specific recommendations to help the organization improve. Your 5-6 page paper should be organized as follows:
Introduction: Attention getting statement, followed by a preview statement of the three topic areas you will discuss.
Topic Area 1:
Paragraph 1 – Briefly summarize the organizational theory/concept. Include in-text citations in APA format.
Paragraph 2 – Describe how the organizational theory/concept is present in the organization. Give specific examples.
Paragraph 3 – Evaluate the effectiveness (good/bad, effective/ineffective, appropriate/inappropriate) and describe the outcomes.
Paragraph 4 – Offer recommendations for improvement, using communication theory/concepts to support your suggestions, and discuss how the organization might improve if your recommendations were implemented.
Topic Area 2: Repeat format
Topic Area 3: Repeat format
Conclusion
References
For example, if you choose technology as one area:
Paragraph 1 – Summarize the importance of technology and Media Richness Theory in which the richness of the medium must support the nature and ambiguity level of the message.
Paragraph 2 – Give some examples of how technology is used to communicate with other organizational members (may be employees, customers, etc.). You may pull examples from your journal entry or offer new ones. For example, the boss sent an email to all employees about a major change in the health care policy.
Paragraph 3 – Evaluate the effectiveness of the chosen technology for that particular task and discuss the outcomes (good, bad, who was affected, and how). For example, the health care policy email was lengthy and confusing. Employees were upset and complained among themselves. It caused a decrease in moral and trust of management.
Paragraph 4 – Offer a suggestion for how technology may be used more effectively or more appropriately in the workplace. For example, you might suggest the organization use face-to-face communication for important, complex policy changes like those related to employee health care, allowing employees to interact and ask questions. Perhaps the organization could also provide a list of Frequently Asked Questions, contact numbers, and other resources that employees could access online at any time. You could then discuss how these ideas might prevent conflict, might help reduce and manage employees’ uncertainty, and might even increase employee identification if employees feel like their employer really cares about them as people, not just workers.
Point Distribution
Discussion Board Participation / 30
Four-Week Time Reports / 30
Journal Entries (10 entries) / 200
Midterm Evaluation / 20
Final Evaluation / 20
Consultant’s Report / 200
Total / 500
A = 450-500 B = 400-449 C = 350-399 D = 300-349 F = 299 and below
* These standards and criteria were adapted from Internship Programs at Marist College and the University of Texas-Austin.
COMM 489 COURSE SCHEDULE
Monday 1/25 / Begin Internship (if you haven’t already)
Monday 2/1 / Enjoy getting started!
Monday 2/8 / Journal Entry 1: Getting to Know Your Organization
Monday 2/15 / Journal Entry 2: Organizational Socialization
Monday 2/22 / Journal Entry 3: Organizational Identification
1st Four-Week Time Report
Monday 2/29 / Journal Entry 4: Technology
Monday 3/7 –
Friday 3/11 / Spring Break Week
Monday 3/14 / Back to work!
Midterm Evaluation: Student
Midterm Evaluation: Employer
Monday 3/21 / Journal Entry 5: Employee Communication
2nd Four-Week Time Report
Monday 3/28 / Journal Entry 6: Leadership
Monday 4/4 / Journal Entry 7: Organizational Culture
Monday 4/11 / Journal Entry 8: Power and Control
Monday 4/18 / Journal Entry 9: Realistic Job Preview
3rd Four-Week Time Report
Monday 4/25 / Journal Entry 10: Reflection
Monday 5/2 / Final Evaluation: Student
Final Evaluation: Employer
Monday 5/9 / Consultant’s Report
Final Time Report
Dr. Mize Smith – Spring 2016 Page 1