Dana Student Internship

The Dana program provides educationally relevant opportunities for highly qualified students with financial need. The Dana student work experience takes place during the academic year and/or over the summer. Students may work during the academic year with faculty on special projects or in the local community in not-for-profit organizations. A summer program may also include corporate settings outside the area. Applicants may be current freshmen, sophomores, or juniors who demonstrate financial need. Application must be made annually through the financial aid office. Awards range from $2,545 during the academic year to as much as $3,635 for full-time summer internships. A portion of the award is paid directly to the student over the course of the summer or academic year with the remainder applied to the student's College account. Originally established through a grant from the Charles A. Dana Foundation, the program is intended to help students discover new academic directions while reducing their loan burden.

Requirements:

1. GPA 3.0 or higher
2. Dana placements are awarded only to students currently receiving need-based financial aid from Ithaca College.
3. Awards are generally limited to current freshman, sophomore, and junior students.
4. Student applicants must complete and submit a Dana Internship Proposal Application with two faculty references to the Financial Aid office by the February deadline.
5. Faculty proposals must be completed and returned to the Office of the Provost before the February deadline.
6. Applications are available at  http://www.ithaca.edu/provost/serv-doc.htm, as well as at the Office of Financial Aid.

Proposed projects for Dana Student Interns are invited. These would be projects you would supervise involving a learning/research/work activity important to you, the student, and Ithaca College. You may submit a project proposal for summer or for the next academic year. The application (available online at http://www.ithaca.edu/provost/links.htm) is due in the Office of the Provost/VPAA in February. Notification of project acceptance and identification of an interested student will occur by May 1 or earlier if possible.

Over one thousand students have been served in excellent projects during the fourteen year history of the Dana Student Internship Program. The Dana Program is designed to provide financial assistance to students with financial need through their involvement in educationally valuable work experiences. Dana placements are awarded only to students currently receiving need-based financial aid from Ithaca College. These students may be awarded Dana Internships in addition to other forms of financial aid. Awards are highly competitive and are generally limited to current freshman, sophomore, and junior students with a 3.0 GPA or above. In addition to approving a Dana applicant proposal, the Financial Aid Office representatives on the Dana Review Group determine degrees of eligibility.

The Dana Review Group also reviews projects submitted by faculty, staff, or external sponsors. In the past, several faculty proposals have had strong projects approved, but have not been assigned students because a "match" was not available. To increase the probability of a successful match between a faculty proposal and an eligible student, you are encouraged to discuss your proposal with one or more students who might be eligible, and to have the student(s) coordinate their applications with the faculty proposals. Students seeking internships must submit their application to the Financial Aid Office before the February deadline. In order to ensure a fair review, the Dana Review Group will continue to evaluate the qualifications of student applicants separately from project proposals, but the "match" is obviously much more identifiable if the faculty member and the student have planned together.

The Review Group looks for:

• Educational value of the experience;
• A plan for active mentoring by the supervisor;
• Variety and range of student learning - e.g., is the student learning about a large issue or a complex organization, as well as about his or her own assignment?; and
• Situations in which the student can "own" part of the work, taking personal credit for some product or reflecting through further studies, the nature of the disciplines involved.

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