MPA PUBLIC INTERNSHIP

Public service internships provide students with work experience to give them a realistic exposure to an organizational/bureaucratic environment and the administrative method. This experience is expected to develop the student's awareness of the internal dynamics of a public organization and of the values and attitudes of public employees pertaining to both their clientele and their administrative and political superiors.

The internship should provide the students the opportunity to become aware of their profession and of the public. Although the intern is expected to handle real work assignments and, consequently, be held accountable for concrete assistance to the employing agency, it should be remembered by the agency supervisor that the major reason for the internship is to provide a learning experience for the intern. Consequently, it is expected that employing agencies will make a systematic effort to expose interns to a variety of duties and experiences which will provide them with genuine on?the?job learning.

Duration and Timing
For obtaining the full six hours of graduate credit, the internship period must consist, at a minimum, of 15 weeks of full?time employment or its equivalent. The internship should be undertaken preferably at the end of the student's academic program.

Placement
Students may seek their own placement with a public service agency or seek the assistance of the MPA Program Director to obtain such placement. In either case, placement must be approved by the Director. Most MPA candidates will serve their internships under the auspices of the Arkansas Public Administration Consortium; a joint program of Arkansas State University, University of Arkansas Little Rock and University of Arkansas Fayetteville. The Consortium (APAC) will assist the placement of the intern, provide unified liaison and supervision, will pay the intern's salary from agency funding, and provide for the intern's performance evaluation. Students whose placement is outside the Consortium's MPA Intern Program, will be subject to direct supervision by the MPA Program Director.

Compensation
The placement agency is strongly encouraged to provide a stipend or a salary to the intern. However, the nonavailability of compensation in no way impinges of the academic validity of the internship experience.

Academic Component
The culminating point of the student's internship is the preparation and submission for faculty review of the INTERNSHIP REPORT. (Please see following).

Procedural Matters
The student intern must register for a total of 3 or 6 hours of POSC 6600: Internship in Public Administration.

The student intern must provide a statement of internship service on organization letterhead signed by the intern’s supervisor at the commencement of the internship experience.

The clinical component of the student's internship is considered fulfilled when the student meets the time duration requirement and when his agency supervisor provides APAC and the MPA Director with a completed performance evaluation form.

The academic component of the student's internship is considered fulfilled when the student's INTERNSHIP REPORT is approved by the MPA faculty.

There is no letter grade for POSC 6600. It is graded, just as the Master's thesis, on a PASS or FAIL basis. The assignment of a "PASS" (normally by the MPA Director) is based on how well the student integrated the academic and clinical components of the internship. Such a perception is generally influenced by both the quality of the report that the student prepares (such as familiarity with literature used in the MPA program) and the performance evaluation by the agency supervisor. The several pages immediately following contain forms which apply to the internship assignment. students placed by the Arkansas Public Administration Consortium (APAC) will be furnished with slightly different forms. Instructions for the Internship Report are the same for all interns.

Work Schedule
The work schedule is to be arranged by the intern and the supervisor. It is expected that the cumulative hours devoted by the intern to his/her assigned work will be no less than the equivalent of fifteen weeks of full time (40 hours per week) employment (i.e., 600 hours).

Supervision
The supervisor will confer on a regular basis with the intern to give directions and aid, and review work performed. The supervisor will also make a systematic effort to expose the intern to the full range of agency operations.

Evaluation
The supervisor, at the end of the student's internship, will prepare an evaluation of the intern.