Real-world results: UC Clermont launches innovative paid internship program

The Cronin Career Scholars program collaborates with on-campus and community organizations to create local internships. Students work part time, learn professional skills and apply what they learn in the classroom to the workplace — in real time. It is the first paid internship program of its kind available to UC Clermont students.

Since January, the college has gained 18 new partners, ranging from local non-profits to the Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center, where students are participating in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Among these organizations, six UC Clermont students were placed in internships this spring, and nine are working as co-ops this summer.

“Internships help place our students graduating with associate degrees on level footing with those earning bachelor’s degrees right now,” said Dana Parker, assistant dean of student and graduate pathways. “The vital hands-on experience gives them a competitive edge.”

“Here at UC Clermont, real-world experience used to be optional,” said Clark. “It’s no longer optional for our students if they want to compete for careers and reach their future goals. Our students need that experience on their resumes to land jobs.”  

The financial foundation for the program comes from donor Dennis Cronin, a local architect and 1970 graduate of UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. Cronin’s ties to the college run deep — his firm, ATA Architects, designed the Student Services Building on the Batavia, Ohio, campus in 2000; his late wife, Barbara, attended literature and philosophy classes at the college, while Dennis enrolled in evening history courses.

After her death in 2015, Cronin worked with Parker, then development director, to create and eventually endow the Barbara R. Cronin Memorial Scholarship. He also spent free time mentoring manufacturing engineering students at the college who were interested in architecture.

When Cronin reached out to Parker again to see how he could best help students, she seized the opportunity. Cronin is a strong advocate for the cooperative education model at UC, having personally benefited from the program as an intern himself and through hosting UC co-ops at his architecture firm.

“You can only learn so much from books. You get on a job and learn there what you can’t learn in the classroom,” Cronin said. “Co-ops became an important part of our company. When Dana told me about this idea — I thought it was a win-win solution for students and local organizations that need interns but can’t afford to pay them.”