Above: Students who participated in the On Point for College Summer Internship program in years past. (Photos via On Point for College)
Summer is officially here and has arrived much sooner than most of us anticipated. This summer will continue to challenge and push organizations and their staff to think about how to productively engage their students in a mostly virtual world.
As we at NCAN work to provide our members with timely and relevant resources, we had the opportunity to connect with the On Point for College team, based in upstate New York, and hear how they are pushing back against a variety of melts students are experiencing. Read on to learn more about their summer work and why we are inspired by it, and to garner some ideas for your own organization’s summer programming and outreach for students.
By Tealye Pinet, Co-Director of Program, On Point for College
NCAN: Tell us a little bit about On Point for College and the student population you serve.
TP: On Point for College provides college access, success, and career services to low-income, first-generation students from seven counties in the Central New York region, with offices in the cities of Syracuse and Utica. Since its founding in 1999, we have helped more than 2,900 students complete degrees.
Summer is always a hectic, busy time, but this is on track to be the most intense summer ever! Advising, orientations, and internships will all look different this year.
How have you prepared to implement your summer programs and career services differently during the pandemic?
On Point’s approach has always been intensive, in-person assistance provided by mobile advisers. We traveled to campuses around the state of New York to visit students, and held “office hours” at outreach sites like libraries, community centers, and even the mall. We transported students to and from campus during holiday and semester breaks.
In response to the global pandemic in March, we shifted our advisers to working from home. Advisers discovered a major issue during phone calls with our currently enrolled students, as many students did not have laptops or internet service at home. They were in jeopardy of being unable to finish their semesters through the new online platforms their colleges offered.
To help our students get access to laptops, we spread the word about their need through articles in the newspaper and by reaching out to our donors. We were able to purchase refurbished laptops and loan them to students who needed them immediately. Those without internet access were able to use Wi-Fi from library or school parking lots.
What resources and partnerships have you leveraged to continue services to students? What topics are covered in workshop sessions? Overall, what are the goals of the workshop sessions? How do you encourage student participation and engagement?
We began offering services through media that we’d only used sporadically in the past. Our access and success advisers are providing remote advising through various online messaging and conferencing platforms. Our career services staff presented online workshops, by partnering with local employers and a university, which would have normally been offered in person. The workshops covered topics like financial literacy, money management, financial security, budgeting, understanding credit, resume writing, interview and networking skills, work readiness skills, wellness strategies, intro to careers in energy (at National Grid), and education in health careers (at SUNY Upstate Medical University).
The silver lining to these online offerings was that students who would normally have been out of town for the semester were able to participate, whereas only students going to college locally have been able to attend workshops offered in person during the school year.
We are also working with our community partners to create a modified Summer Internship program. Many of our employer partners are working remotely, too. Some of them have stepped up to try a new remote internship model, while others were no longer able to participate due to the effects of the pandemic on their businesses.
On Point is hosting several interns from other local summer internship programs already — they participate in our online staff meetings, and check in with their supervisors through text, phone, and conference platforms.
We are working out the “bugs in the system” so that we can offer advice and support to our employers and students as our own program gets underway next month.
During our summer Summer internship program for On Point students who are placed with other employers, we will continue to provide enrichments as we have in the past on Thursdays or Fridays. During these enrichments, students will learn money management, how to open a bank account, best ways to leverage their internship experience, and how to create or revise their resumes and make a LinkedIn account. Interns are also required to complete a sexual harassment training and participate in a two-hour orientation to learn soft skills such as dressing for success, being prepared for internships, workplace etiquette, remote work etiquette, importance of personal protective equipment (PPE), intern expectations, making a solid first impression, communication skills, time management skills and social media. We find it important to go over these soft skills with the intern prior to the experience to better prepare them for success.
As of late June, our offices are still not open, although our region is progressing through its reopening phases. We are planning our busy summer schedule to continue virtually, at least through the middle of July. We have been conducting online orientation sessions for our summer internship programs this week.
Our earliest new student orientation sessions will be facilitated via webinar, with a combination of pre-recorded videos, advisers taking questions online, and breakout rooms for group activities. We are working with external partners to find local indoor spaces large enough to conduct in-person orientation sessions in August (assuming that such gatherings are permitted by the state at that time) with appropriate social distancing, disinfecting, and mask usage protocols in place. Our conference rooms just aren’t big enough for 25 people to remain six feet apart from each other!
You shared with us that you all are able to help students pay for summer classes. Tell us more about this opportunity. How are students selected?
One thing that didn’t change much (for us) was our summer course scholarship program. We have several generous foundations and corporations who provide limited funds that we use to underwrite tuition and books for students. These are students who need to take summer classes to remain on track for graduation.
This year, our application process shifted to an electronic process, utilizing Google forms instead of paper. But we had almost always paid for the courses through colleges’ online registration and bursar systems, so that wasn’t new. The colleges, however, are only offering online courses, so that is a new experience for our students.
Students who apply are prioritized by class year and need. Those needing the class to graduate are considered first. We also look at the students’ circumstances, for example, if they have lost their financial aid or if they need the class as a prerequisite to stay on track.
What advice do you have for practitioners who have transitioned/are transitioning their programming and support to the virtual environment?
Our best piece of advice for our peers as we all launch into summer is the same as we offer to our students: remain flexible and creative. We’ve had to change our plans so many times over the past few months in response to changing conditions.
As things change so quickly, communication is key. We’ve done a lot of outreach to our students, and have been open to suggestions from them about the best ways to engage them. We’ve also maintained close connections and communication with staff, so everyone is aware of how changes affect their work. We’ve had to ask staff to learn new apps and software, and use technology that is new to some of them. There was a steep learning curve for some folks. Because of that, we made sure to provide trainings and clear procedures to explain how to use the new software/app and how it will be incorporated into our new virtual advising. We created online application forms for students. We also made an online checklist form for advisers, as there are a lot of moving parts to the student orientation process. Advisers felt that a form with a checklist helped everyone to stay on track.
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