Internships in the College of Arts and Sciences – Faculty Resources

Internships in the College of Arts and Sciences involve at least three parties – the student, a faculty mentor, and a site supervisor – with no conflicts of interest between the student and the site supervisor. For example, a student cannot report directly to a close friend or family member. The faculty mentor should have disciplinary knowledge relevant to the internship experience. Faculty should review the Requirements for Internships in the College of Arts & Sciences.

Internships in the College of Arts and Sciences require a minimum of 40 on-site hours per credit, although additional hours may be required to complete partnerships with the internship site. Academic work for the internship will require additional time, beyond the minimum 40 hours on-site.

Students may be required to register an internship class for academic credit to satisfy their major(s) graduation requirements. Please carefully read the following instructions:

Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) must contact Nancy Carpenter to ensure credit. Students must register their internship through EJN to earn academic credit.

Registration Schedule for College of Arts and Sciences Internship Classes 

Winter & Spring 2025
Registration opens: Monday, November 4
Registration deadline for Winter: Monday, January 6
Registration deadline for Spring: Wednesday, March 26

Summer I & Summer II 2025 
Registration opens: Monday, April 7
Registration deadline for Summer I: Monday, June 2
Registration deadline for Summer II:  Monday, June 30

NOTE: Students must register an internship for credit at the same time they are actively working in the internship.  No retroactive credit will be awarded.

Registering an Internship for Academic Credit

ELR Internships

Internships being completed for ELR units must be pre-approved and mentored by the CAS Director of Internships. These experiences focus on personal and professional development. An ELR Workbook is utilized for this experience to guide learning and accomplishment of learning objectives. These are non-credit-bearing experiences with 40 hours equating to 1 unit. Registration for Fall 2023 runs August 7th – October 10th. NOTE: Students must register an internship for credit at the same time they are actively working in the internship. No retroactive credit will be awarded. For more information about completing an internship to satisfy the ELR requirement, contact CAS Director of Internships, Nancy Carpenter.

Registering Your Internship for ELR Credit

Elements of a High-Quality Internship

According to George Kuh (2008) and others who study high-impact educational practices, high-quality internships:

  • Require considerable student effort;
  • Help students build substantive relationships by placing them in situations that demand interaction with faculty and peers over a substantive amount of time;
  • Place students in contexts in which they have direct contact with people who are different from themselves;
  • Provide students with frequent feedback about their performance;
  • Provide opportunities for students to see how what they are learning works in different settings; and
  • Help students gain a better understanding of self in relation to others.

Learn more about high-quality, high-impact internships

Mentoring an Internship – An Overview of the Process

Although the process might vary slightly in departments with course-based internships, mentoring an internship usually requires the following steps:

  1. Before the student registers for the internship, the faculty mentor and student meet to confirm that the internship meets the academic goals of the program (if applicable – particularly relevant to majors that require internships), to discuss the student’s learning goals for the internship experience, and to outline the academic assignments the student will complete. See the Faculty Guide to the Elon Job Network for tips on helping students search for internships and related career events.
  2. The faculty mentor, the site supervisor, and the student should collaborate on a student learning plan to identify learning opportunities provided in the internship setting. Academic assignments for the internship can support students’ application of disciplinary learning to this internship’s learning opportunities and students’ reflection about these opportunities
  3. When the internship begins, the faculty mentor should be in regular and frequent contact with the student to scaffold the learning experience and to offer feedback on the student’s academic work. The faculty mentor also should have regular contact with the site supervisor to monitor the student’s performance and experience with the organization.
  4. When possible, faculty mentors also should visit the internship site.

Faculty Advisory Committee Workshop Materials

Compensation Policy

The compensation policy for internships is established by the Faculty Handbook in Section II-3. Internships supervised during fall, winter, and spring semesters may be compensated as course-based internships as part of a faculty mentor’s standard teaching load for faculty supervising 10+ hours of student internships or compensated by overload pay for faculty supervising individual interns.

Internships supervised during summer semesters are compensated by pay for all internship hours according to the ratio of 10 student internship hours equals 1 faculty load hour applied to the standard formula for determining summer school compensation.

Review the Faculty Handbook for full guidelines.