Adelphi program offers students pay for internship work

Besides a great title to put on her resume - "wish-granting intern" - Hilda Perez got another benefit from her summer internship in the Lake Success office of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Metro New York.

She received paychecks, something fewer college students are seeing these days in the down economy.

Perez, who is entering her senior year as an international studies major, was part of Adelphi University's new Community Fellows Program, which placed 18 students this summer at 16 area nonprofits, a workplace segment not known for its ability to pay.

Students, who applied for the positions and took a one-credit course at Adelphi in nonprofit basics, earned $10 an hour for 30 hours of work a week, with a cap of $3,000 for the summer. That's thanks to new earmarked contributions from donors and funds from the Garden City school's coffers.

Perez, 21, has had unpaid internships and says the income "is a great incentive. Not that people wouldn't work regardless. But it is an incentive," which in her case helped defray the cost of her commute from Riverdale in the Bronx.

The goal of the summer program, to which sophomores and juniors could apply, was to get students engaged in the community and give them "experiential learning" opportunities, said Jonathan Ivanoff, internship coordinator in the school's career center.

Nonprofits had to submit proposals outlining job functions, qualifications and a sense of what the student would learn. The signal, said Ivanoff, was that this wasan educational endeavor, not "just free help." While the Adelphi program, which attracted 31 applicants, matchedstudents regardless of financial need with nonprofits only, controversy has arisen over schools that compensate students in unpaid internships with for-profits, many of which have switched from paid to unpaid in the struggling economy. "In reality, it's enabling employers to take advantage of free labor," said Richard Bottner, president of Intern Bridge Inc., a research and consulting firm based in Acton, Mass.

While university-subsidized internships such as Adelphi's are far from common, they have been on the rise, especially at small private schools, said Sara Lipka, a reporter with The Chronicle of Higher Education in Washington, D.C., who has written on the subject.

Real-work experience in a student's chosen field has become increasingly important in securing a post-college job, and schools are looking to level the playing field for lower-income students when it comes to internships that are otherwise unpaid, she said.

With the nation still recovering from the recession, "there has been, unfortunately, a dramatic decline in paid internships over the last two years or so . . . and there were not that many to begin with," Ivanoff said. Still, Adelphi has seen an increase in unpaid and for-credit internships, with total internship offerings up by 8 percent in the 2009-10 academic year, though most were unpaid.

Besides Make-A-Wish, which grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions, other participants in the Adelphi program included Grassroots Environmental Education in Port Washington, Citizens Campaign for the Environment in Farmingdale, the Girl Scouts of Nassau County in Garden City, and the Suffolk County Coalition Against Domestic Violence in Bay Shore.

At Make-A-Wish, Perez, who recently completed her internship, was involved in all aspects of the wish-granting process: interviewing families, making travel arrangements and checking documentation. She also speaks Spanish.

Most Make-A-Wish recipients ask for trips to Disney World, shopping sprees and computers, said Melaine Francis, director of volunteer resources. The organization does offer unpaid internships throughout the year.

"Kudos to Adelphi that they made this a paid opportunity for students," she said.

Rebecca Benison, 20, a senior from Valley Stream, just finished her work at the Epilepsy Foundation of Long Island, in Garden City. The communications major said she saw that the job description included grant-writing, a skill she wanted to develop. She also learned how to lay out newsletters.

It was "a really good opportunity to branch out," said Benison, who's already looking for a fall internship. So far, she said, she's spotted mostly jobs with no paychecks attached.