Turning 100 and Still Looking to Grow

When it comes to cooperative education, it would seem that UC could be content to rest on well-deserved laurels. After all, the international practice of cooperative education - allowing student to alternate classroom experience with paid, professional work related to their major - had its worldwide start at UC in 1906.

However, while the university's Division of Professional Practice is gearing up for the 100th anniversary of cooperative education in 2006, co-op innovation is not slowing down at UC.

For instance, the systematic expansion of co-op into graduate programs and options for online communications between UC and co-op employers are planned for the near future. These and other innovations were announced as part of an April 21 symposium held at the Kingsgate Marriott that included UC staff and faculty as well as long-time co-op employers.

A focus on the future is vital for co-op at the university, according to Kettil Cedercreutz, associate provost and director of UC's Division of Professional Practice. "We celebrate our past while we speak of and focus on our future. Our students, the employers we work with are, naturally, future focused. So must we be," he said.

Traditionally, according to Cedercreutz, UC's program has focused on national and international co-op placements as part of the undergraduate experience at UC in order to increase students' business, technical and social skills. Now, the Professional Practice team is investigating the expansion of co-op to encompass graduate programs as well.

"We already have graduate co-ops in architecture, and now, other colleges are being brought on board," said Cedercreutz. The integration of graduate programs into co-op will raise the total number of UC students who participate annually in co-op. Currently, that number stands at about 3,200 students who work overseas and across the nation each year. In fact, UC houses the largest cooperative education program at any U.S. public university.

Cheryl Cates, associate director of Professional Practice, said that graduate co-ops will be implemented gradually, adding different programs into the mix one at a time because of staff and logistics considerations. Currently, she said, graduate co-ops are available in some form to students in architecture, environmental engineering and nuclear engineering. Next, co-ops will be offered to master's level students from the College of Business Administration's graduate Information Systems program in 2004.

In order to better serve the co-op employers, some of whom have been involved in UC's cooperative education program since before World War II, the Division of Professional Practice will implement "employer online feedback." The idea is to allow employers to communicate easily and quickly with UC's co-op staff, to provide feedback on what classes and classroom instruction will best serve the needs of industry. The online employer feedback option will first be offered to College of Engineering employers in fall 2003 as a pilot project.