Faculty Information

All courses with a schedule type of Internship or Practicum are managed administratively through the Lougheed Center for Applied Learning internship approval process. This creates centralized liability management, assessment, and reporting for all off-campus credit-bearing applied learning activities outside of teacher education.

For all internships, we are using Handshake to manage these courses. 

A credit-bearing internship is composed of two distinct parts: the on-site work experience, and the academic work to integrate that experience with the learning done in the student's academic program. As such, it has two key mentors: the site supervisor (on-site work), and faculty sponsor (academic work). The roles are defined as follows:

• The student must have a site supervisor who offers training and guides the hands-on, practical learning experience of the internship.
• Students are required to have a faculty sponsor for all credit-bearing internships. The faculty sponsor determines the academic appropriateness of the proposed internship, monitors the student intern’s progress, and assigns a grade for the student's overall internship experience.  
  • The faculty sponsor reviews the internship description and creates a syllabus for the internship. The syllabus must include:
    • Credits for the internship course
    • Student learning outcomes
    • Academic work that relates the site experience to the SLOs
    • Grading rubric
    • Any other campus requirements or expectations as appropriate to the course
  • Faculty sponsors are expected to meet with their student interns, face to face or online, on a regular basis during the internship to provide support, feedback, and academic mentoring.
  • Faculty sponsors assign the grade for the internship based on the rubric in the syllabus. The grade should be assigned with consideration to:
    • The student's academic work
    • Site supervisor evaluations
    • Any additional criteria created by the faculty sponsor

The most important form in the internship process is the Internship Proposal. Students will use the Internship Proposal Template (PDF) template when meeting with their site supervisor and faculty sponsor to gather information about the internship experience. Once complete, the student can copy information from this form to the official Handshake proposal. 

Faculty sponsors may need to assist students in completing their internship proposal. The internship proposal, in concert with the syllabus:

• Details the course the student is enrolling in. The faculty sponsor is the instructor of record for the course, so should assist the student in determining these details - subject code and number, grading system, number of credits, etc.
• Outlines what a student intends to learn and accomplish during the internship.
• Acts as a contract between the student, the internship site supervisor, and SUNY Potsdam. It details mutual intentions and expectations.
• Specifies educational and work-related expectations as well as outlining criteria and techniques for mid-term evaluation and grading at the internship’s conclusion.
• Provides a reference against which progress can be measured.
• Represents a description of learning goals and specific strategies for achieving those goals. An intern is not an employee or a “free agent.” In return for their experiential opportunity, they carry out agreed upon activities and projects. They are negotiating what they want to learn, what the supervisor needs done, and what the faculty sponsor wants the student to demonstrate they have learned.

During summer session, faculty are paid $50 per credit hour to sponsor internships.

During regular semesters, faculty are compensated with professional development funding at a rate of $50 per credit hour. Full information is available on the Lougheed Center for Applied Learning funding page.

Internship Registration Deadlines

Fall 2024 internships - the final date to register is Friday, August 30.  

Spring 2025 internships - the final date to register is Monday, February 10.  

A note about registering internships

Internships are courses, with academic expectations and requirements. They are also opportunities for students to practice professionalism and work ethic with community partners. To ensure the best experience for employers, students, and faculty, and to safeguard the academic integrity of the student learning experience, internships must be registered through established processes. Additionally, internships must always be registered in advance of student work and taught in the term in which the student is gaining the site experience. Internship registration deadlines cannot be infinitely flexible, just as course enrollment cannot be infinitely flexible. 

Students must complete the Late Internship Registration Appeal Form if proposing an internship after the registration deadline

Why are internships approved differently than regular courses, and how does APLE work?

• "Internship" and "practicum" are schedule types, coded into Banner.
  • Example from BearPaws for Fall 2023:
    @GRAPHIC DESIGN INTERNSHIP - 92863 - APLE 491 - 005
    Associated Term: Fall 2023
    Levels: Matriculated Undergraduate, Undergrad Non-Matric
    Internship - Unpaid Schedule Type
    0.000 TO 12.000 Credits
• APLE is a subject code prefix for interdisciplinary applied learning experiences administered by the Lougheed Center for Applied Learning. The curriculum for APLE is managed by the faculty Advisory Board of the LoCAL. 
• APLE 491 is the course for flexible non-departmental or interdisciplinary courses with the schedule type of internship. 
  • In addition to APLE 491, there are dozens of departmental courses that are instruction type Internship (list below is the first 5 from the current catalog).
    • @ACCT 491 - Internship
    • ANTH 470 - Museum Internship
    • @ANTH 490 - Internship in Anthropology
    • @ANTH 491 - Internship in Applied Anthropology
    • ARTS 490 - Senior Art Internship
  • Depending on a student's needs for their degree progress, APLE 491 or a departmental course number may be used.