Hello Education and Resilience teams,

It was great to see many of you at the “Sustainability team open house”. We will plan another event next month so we can continue to connect and get to know each other! I am reaching out to revisit a recommendation submitted last spring by the Education team: Edu002 Internship Coordinator. When the iWG deliberated the next steps of this recommendation, it was discussed that there could be value in collaboratively discussing this idea to hear the perspectives from both the Education and Resilience teams.  

I am writing to ask if you are interested in joining this discussion, please complete this Doodle Poll by 2/2. A summary of the recommendation is below and the full recommendation template is linked on the iCAP Portal:

The Education team recommends developing a sustainable communities paid internship program in partnership with local businesses, non-profits, local government agencies, community-based agencies and cultural institutions in Central Illinois. 

The internship program will be designed to build organizational capacity in the Champaign-Urbana / Central Illinois with regard to sustainability and resilience efforts to advance sustainable development and/or climate action goals. This program aims to allow students the flexibility to devise an internship experience that aligns with their specific interests within sustainability. Collaborations between the University and Champaign-Urbana community can be taken advantage of as projects where internships can be generated.

The student interns will be involved in sustainability and community resilience efforts with directed emphasis toward sustainable development goals. Interns will gain real-world, project-based, and pre-professional experience in a workplace setting anywhere from 3 months (summer intern) to 1 year. 

The intern program will also be tasked to provide leadership training as a foundation for real-world, project-based, and pre-professional experiences. Existing campus resources such as leadership development training modules available through Student Union programming should be utilized.

I hope many of you are interested and willing to join the discussion! Thank you and please let me know if you have any questions.

Meredith