cooperative education
Edited by GEOFFREYDAVIES ALAN L. MCCLELLAND
Origin and Development of Cooperative Education at Thomas More College Sr. M. Casimira Mueller Thomas More College. Fort Mitchell. KY 41017
Education of the traditionally "free" man has always demanded the mental training and harmonious development of the WHOLE person. For this reason, liberal arts institutions have as their eoal the trainine of hroadlv humanistic thinkers and knowle&eahle leaders kith qualities of intellect and of iudeement reauired for decisions that affect not onlv themsllves hut also t'he whole society and the future. In America today, however, it is imperative that the average individual have a practical understanding of "free enterprise" and he more than marginally capable of earning a living for himself and his family. A Cooperative Education Program in a liberal arts college provides a valuable means of endowing otherwise matureeffective intellectuals with the additional confidence of their capabilities and sense of responsibility as enterprising memhers of society. The future of our country will certainly benefit from this dual training of its potential leaders. students are from middle income families a i d must hold part-time johs in order to pay their way through college. Thomas More College is not affiliated with any university, nor does it have an engineering program. Thus, it had no experience whatever with Cooperative Education prior to 1974. Its currently thriving Co-op Program was initiated by the Chemistry Department in that year and spread throughout the college since 1976. Thomas More was the first Colleee in the Northern Kentucky area to initiate cooperative education, and the first liberal arts college in the Greater Cincinnati area to adopt co-oping as a college-wide option. Beginning its program in 1906,the Universitv of Cincinnati was the first institution with this type of program, hut it was only in 1976 that U.C. expanded hevond its engineering and business schools into trial
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(one at Hilton-Davis Chemical Company in Cincinnati and the other a t Sperti Industries in Covington.) During the twenty-eight months that this program operated without fundine. nine students worked a t four different chemical After receiving a $50,000 grant fiom the ~ S r O f f i c eof Health, Education and Welfare during the summer of 1976, two consultants, Wanda Moshacker of the University of Cincinnati and Donald Hunt of the University of Detroit, were invited to Thomas More on July 27, 1976, to discuss estahlishing a Department of Cooperative Education which would serve the whole college. At their suggestion, Sr. M. Casimira Mueller, Chairman of the Chemistry Department, who had initiated the pilot project and who was the only individual at the college at that time having any experience with coopera-
tive education, was asked to sewe for a year as Director of the program in order to organize it, establish policies and procedures, and initiate the practice in other departments of the school. This office of CooperativeEducation at Thomas More College was officially opened on August 2,1976. At Thomas More College the Cooperative Education Program is a truly academic one. Students opting for Co-op Experience in our institution receive this valuahle type of experiential training in addition to the specific program in their
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This feature presents information and commentary on all aspects of extramural work experience as pan of the training of 1 chemistry students at all levels. as well as broader discussions of different mechanisms of career education. Its aim is to publicize efforts to improve the preparation of students for the world of work. Both articles and leners are consideredfor publication Address all correspondence to Dr. Geoffrey Davies, Chemistry Department, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115. GeOHrey Davles obtained his PhD at the University of Birmingham in 1966 under C. F. Wells. Aner postdoctoral work with Drs. K. Kustin (Brandeis). N. Sutin (Brookhaven)and E. F. Caldin (Kent) on fast solution phase reactions, he joined Northeastern University, where he is cunently Associate Rofessor of Chemistry and DiractM of Me Docforal Internship Program in Chemistry (establishedin 1972). His industrial experience an industrial internship and collaborative research with Imperial incide~ Chemical Industries. Aided by a grant from the Dreyfus Foundation, he has actively promoted the establishment of new and effective academic-industrial cooperative programs for chemistry students.
Volume 58 Number 9
September 1981
707
major area of study and the total traditional liberal arts curriculum of courses. The work exnerience of the student is effectively supervised and coordinated with hislher classroom exoerience bv a facultv member of histher maior deoartment who is specifically designated by the chairman as Co-op Coordinator. The learning gained while out on a semester of Co-op Experience is evaluated by this academic faculty member and earns for the student three college credits which become part of the total 128 credit hours reqiired for graduation from Thomas More. Although career counseling is a part of the Co-op student's preparation for his joh, and a course in Professional Development accompanies it, the Cooperative Education Office a t Thomas More is quite different from a placement office. The personnel assisting the Co-op student are all bona fide academic faculty members. The Director of the C.E. Department ranks on the level of a department chairman and participates in the Academic Affairs Committee, the highest academic bodv a t the college. Each of the denartmental coordinators is an active teaching faculty member of the department in which his Co-op students are maiorina. This structure was deliberately established to insure the academic nature of the Co-op Program a t Thomas More. The Co-op Experience courses (work sessions for the students) are maintained by the faculty a t the same level as any of the college laboratory courses with attendant assignments, reports, seminar meetings, etc., and are evaluated and graded hy the Coordinator. T o maintain the proper balance for the program, there is an external Advisory Board of the Cooperative Education De~ a r t m e n comnrised t of men and women of experience and position in industry, business, and government agencies who Durnose have volunteered their services for this . . and who meet quarterly. Although Thomas More Colleae operates on the semester system, the summer sessions of abut fourteen weeks provide a pseudo-third semester for either WORK or STLIDY as required by the co-op student's program. These alternating work and study sessions present very few problems with curricula unless sequential courses are required in the last two years of a department program. With this arrangement an employer always has someone on the job since the two students hired for one position will continue to alternate a t work until their graduation two vears later. The three work sessions of the student constitute one full year of employment. Each Co-op session affords the student the u u ~ o r t u n i t vto earn a salarv a t the same time as helshe meri&college &edits for the as". signments, reports, etc., submitted to the de~artment.In this W.IY the ~ I ~ I ~ , I I J . ~..t.rwIII t l ~ ee n ~ p l lcjr ~ ~.A ~ h m r t\~wogh ~ I , , I,c 1.r111111\11 i - n t . 1 awi~yr n m hi-: her I , t d ; ,ro hmg pcri
