The real work of academia is done by research assistants: those hardworking, underpaid, never thanked, graduate students; hoping to make a name for themselves, pay a few bills, and somehow keep it all balanced until they graduate.
Our university doesn’t have a formal research assistant program for our scholars, so last year I put together an internship in leadership development. To date, I have been blessed with some very talented and gifted interns who have made my work and life immeasurably easier.
The original posting reads like this:
Health care administrators and managers are often key individuals in leadership development roles. Leadership development courses and talks are often offered via human resources classes, retreats, conference presentations, and other formal and informal channels.
This internship combines both research and practical application of leadership development. It is especially designed for those students who want to include leadership development in their career path, but not necessarily as a college-based faculty member. Students will research and develop their own skills in creative thinking, virtual team leadership, change leadership, and storytelling as a leadership tool.
I should explain that our Master’s program has just over 200 active students and my personal advisee list is just over 40 of those students. Out of our best students, I am fortunate to hand select 3 or 4 each year who work with me in this Administrative Internship.
The first intern in this concept project is still working with me, developing a focused segment of our Change Leadership Seminar on the role of journaling and coaching employee change.
Another of these gifted scholars took on the creation of a presentation to a state wide quality conference on the natural conflicts which exist between the ideas of quality and quality improvement. I’ll present the results of her work again in April.
Interns are not reqired to fetch coffee - but it is always greatly appreciated. Photo Copyright 2008 by Jim Frazier
Working with me now, on the creation of an introductory lecture to our leadership skills, is another of my Interns who is also a dual degree Podiatry student and a military officer. This scholar also took on the difficult challenge of working with me in the classroom during the Storytelling in Health Care Leadership Seminar held in the last few weeks.
And while the ongoing projects continue, new work begins in March with a new Intern as she completes her MPH practicum with Walden University. She will be instrumental in the organization, review and selection of additional reading resources for “We Are What We Eat: The nutrition, policy and public health of America’s diet“. This new addition to the team will be working remotely from New Mexico, and will be helping to develop an iTunes U version of our course as a pilot.
I also confess (with pride) there are moments when I review their collective CV’s and marvel at what each has accomplished to date. I am fortunate that they chose to share their strengths — and my mentorship — as they round out their graduate study.
