From Classroom to Career: Why Adjuncts Are the Missing Link in Internships

In this episode of The Adjunct Files, hosts John Roth and Maggie Hohne are joined by Ashleigh Droz, Director of Internships and Cooperative Programs at Florida Gulf Coast University, interim leader in Career Development Services, and fellow adjunct faculty member.

Ashleigh pulls back the curtain on why internships are one of the university’s most powerful high‑impact practices—and why adjunct faculty are uniquely positioned to lead them. Drawing on her experience working with employers, students, and faculty across disciplines, she makes the case that adjuncts aren’t just instructors—they are co‑educators who already live at the intersection of theory and practice.

The conversation explores:

• Why adjunct faculty make exceptional internship supervisors
• How internships differ from service learning—and when one should become the other
• The importance of clear expectations, meaningful work, and experienced supervision
• Why internships function as a “long interview” and a talent pipeline for employers
• How internships help students test, refine, or even rethink their career paths before graduation

Ashleigh also shares practical advice for adjunct faculty interested in hosting or mentoring interns, including how much lead time to plan, what students actually need to learn beyond technical skills, and how internship design mirrors good course design—with learning outcomes, feedback, and reflection at its core.

This episode is a must‑listen for adjunct faculty who want to deepen their impact, strengthen connections between campus and community, and play a direct role in preparing students for life after graduation.

https://www.fgcu.edu/academics/internships/employer-resources

Wings up—and stay connected.

Theme music composed, performed and produced by James Husni. 

Adjunct Nation is a collaborative podcast under the auspices of The Lucas Center for Faculty Development at FGCU.  You can learn more by clicking on this link:

https://www.fgcu.edu/lucascenter/

Transcript

Welcome to the Adjunct Files.

We're a growing, diverse community who face challenging work in an ever-changing, higher

education landscape.

Your co-hosts for this podcast are with you in this.

I'm John Roth.

Adjunct since 2015 and now a coordinator for Adjunct Faculty at Florida Gulf Coast University.

I'm Maggie Hohne, Adjunct since 2022 and currently work in the Office of First-Year Seminars.

Together we hope to have conversations to empower, support, and elevate Adjunct Faculty.

This conversation today is one to do just that.

Hello everyone.

Welcome back to the Adjunct Files.

John, how are you?

Doing well.

We're coming to the end of the semester and I'm still standing.

We are.

We've made it.

Almost.

The finish line is in sight.

I know, but now it's the summer schedule and then it's the fall and here with simple syllabus.

Now it's like, oh my goodness.

I have to have that done for May 4th for summer and May 15th for the fall.

I think a lot of Adjunct faculty are like, some of them aren't even assigned courses

yet.

So how did they do a syllabus?

Yeah.

We're figuring this out.

But it's been good.

How about you?

Things have been going.

Students, I'm trying to, I've been doing a lot of motivational speaking.

I feel like lately trying to help them get across the finish line and finish strong.

But it's been great so far and then weather's been nice.

Can't complain.

I know.

It's been great.

But what's even better?

Is our guest.

Exactly.

You got it.

Ashley draws.

She is, I don't know how to describe her as a powerhouse, as a, like a Swiss army knife.

Yeah.

She's got so many talents and abilities and she is just always doing things and it's

amazing.

Head of internships and and and and I have a feeling.

So Ashley, please introduce yourself to our podcast audience.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

You're welcome and you are not wrong about the and and and part.

For sure.

Habitat for Humanity.

What else?

Oh gosh.

Well, here at FGCU, I'm the director of internships and cooperative programs.

I am also currently a pretty much the interim director over career development services at

the moment too.

I am also adjunct faculty.

So excited to be on this podcast for that reason.

But yeah, you're right.

I'm on a couple boards locally, Greater Fort Myers chamber, Habitat for Humanity, Aspirations

and Computing.

Yeah.

And somehow she sleeps, but I don't know when I do, you know, that thing that you said

about still standing at the end of the semester, I felt that in my soul.

I can see that.

It's like that's the goal.

Just keeps standing.

You can see it in my eyes.

You're just going to keep smiling.

Yeah.

Wave and smile.

Yeah.

There's nothing that coffee you can't help me with.

So and you have some right now in the afternoon.

That would just keep me up till two, three in the morning.

Really?

I mean, yeah, well, I'm old and my metabolism works differently now.

Well, so here's part of the reason for this coffee today is that it's grad fest at the

nest tonight.

So we're here and five 30 to seven 30 tonight will be celebrating.

I think we had almost 450 students RSVP.

So we're going to be celebrating some grads.

That's so cool.

Roll out the blue carpet.

Something adjuncts could participate in in the future if they wanted to come and cheer

on the blue carpet as our students enter grad fest.

It's really fun.

So is it?

I haven't been.

There's a balloon arch and they take over like the whole Cohen ballroom and there's

so many different stations and photo opportunities and employers and professional development

and kumbaya and you can pick up your stoles.

Kumbaya.

Yeah.

Actually, one of the other things you could at least I thought so when I went, you're

not wrong.

You're not wrong.

It's definitely like a feel good event.

Yeah.

So I think the other things they can pick up tonight, which is super exciting in my

world as we now have a career ready chord.

So if students are like if they do an internship course while they're here or if they do certain

kind of career development related things, they may get on the list for a career ready

chord to where it graduations.

So I love that.

Yeah.

The gold standard.

They're gold.

So we're the gold standard and career readiness here at FGCU.

That is amazing.

At the nest.

Yeah.

Everything's at the nest.

We are the nest.

I'm just going to sit back and let you two just go for it.

I think we're in good shape today.

Good thing there's no video on this.

Honestly.

Honestly.

Honestly.

Honestly.

Well, it's great to have you here because I think well, first of all, internships, I'm

learning over the years just how important that is and how it is a hip.

Hips, I guess.

Oh, yeah.

High impact practice.

High impact practice.

And that we are now having it as one of our metrics, right?

Yes.

Metric number 10, which is great for us.

Yeah.

So no pressure.

None whatsoever.

The fate of our university doesn't rest on you or anything.

No, not at all.

You're doing great.

Thank you.

Still standing.

Yeah.

But I think with the idea of adjunct faculty, about 30 to 40 percent of us are full time

or part time professionals outside of the university.

And then another 10 to 20 percent are retired from a profession in some form that there

could be a lot of options for mentoring as well as internships with adjunct faculty.

Definitely.

And wherever they're working.

What are opportunities?

Yeah.

What are some of those?

Yeah.

Well, I love that you kind of brought up those two populations because I think both situations,

whether you're still a professional in industry outside of teaching or if you're retired,

I think that there's a lot that you can give back to students in pretty amazing ways.

I will also say that I do think that adjunct faculty are uniquely qualified to be internship

supervisors themselves.

So whether whatever organization you're a part of outside of FGCU, we call our employers

co-educators when it comes to internships.

And so I think even thinking about it that way to have this professional life and this

organization, this business, this thing that you could start to incorporate student interns

into but then also to have the educational background of what does it take to create

a high quality learning experience actually makes some of our adjuncts some of the best

internship supervisors that I could probably think of which is awesome.

And then we also have a lot of ways that are retired adjunct faculty can give back

to the students career wise too.

We've got mentoring programs all over the place.

So I don't know if you've had anybody on before but in alumni, the School of Entrepreneurship

is starting a mentoring and internship initiative combining them together.

Our LUT for College of Business has a mentoring program.

There's all kinds of ways that they could get involved.

So yeah, I think they're uniquely qualified to contribute to our students career readiness.

So tell us a little more.

Give us the whole sales pitch of why adjunct faculty might want to become an internship

supervisor.

Yeah, okay.

The sales pitch.

Well, buckle up everyone.

Buckle up because I could give you a whole hour presentation on just this.

Well, I would say I do think it's a next level enrichment of your experience here at

FGCU.

I think being an adjunct faculty is amazing but one of the ways to continue to get to

know our students to become more involved in their education would be to think about

doing something like a work-based learning experience for them.

There are so many benefits to hosting an intern.

I will be the first one to say I will disclaimer I know that it does take additional work but

part of my job here on campus is to consult with employers who are interested in developing

an internship program.

And so you have support in resources if it is something you'd like to do here at the

university to help walk you through the different steps to create an opportunity.

We also have on our website, we do have an internship handbook for employers that walks

through that whole process.

I've read that.

Oh, we'll link it.

We'll link it.

Yeah, we should.

Great.

Yeah, so there's a lot in there that I am also happy to talk about but it's kind of getting

you thinking about the right questions before getting started.

And I bring that up because there's so much you can do foundationally when you're developing

an internship that it becomes less work as you go along, right?

Adding another, you know, supervisory duty or something like that is of course something

that you would need to work into it.

And I know that there is extra effort and time and stuff that comes with that but the

return that you also get is worth it, right?

Oh, yeah.

And so that's a mutually beneficial experience.

We know, hopefully we know all the ways that a student benefits from an internship but

the list for employers is also endless.

You know, things like adding some more human power, right?

Right.

Yeah.

So once you get a student trained, now all of a sudden you have an extra member of your

staff.

They are supposed to be doing meaningful work in your organization which means they're

actively contributing to what it is.

Right.

Yeah, they're not just observing, they're not doing just kind of the menial stuff.

Yeah.

Right.

Although that's important.

We know that.

But not for our interns.

Not for you.

I think in some ways it could be a very, very, very long interview process.

Absolutely.

So while we can't really promise or guarantee employment at the end of an internship, that

is something that if you look up Fair Labor Standards Act and all that kind of stuff,

we want to make sure that we don't promise it.

However, there are absolutely evaluation points along the way, right?

So at the end of the semester, you meet with your intern.

If you thought it was a good fit, let them know.

If they also thought you were a good fit, there is the opportunity to extend the internship

or extend an offer.

And actually so many students end up taking their first post-graduation full-time employment

at their internship site because they already feel connected.

They already feel like they belong there.

They're already trained in many ways.

And they often feel invested in what it is that you're doing.

So it absolutely is a recruiting pipeline for a lot of people.

So yeah, I mean, they're already integrated into your organization.

So why not have some proven talent?

And when you already see the product, it's so often I think in interviews, you know,

if you can do the dog and pony show and kind of look good, but when you have seen the work

ethic, when you've seen the day-to-day practices, you get a much better feel.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What are some unique ones that we've had here?

Because I was surprised when you approached me about potentially being an intern.

It was like, well, but this is a public university and I'm not like, it doesn't fit with any

of the quote programs or areas.

And you kind of think always in these little categories of how it has, well, it's an accounting

major.

So of course accounting, you know, that type of thing.

So I'm sure there's a lot of just all over the charts.

Yeah.

Options.

Yeah.

So what is really interesting about that is you're right.

Most people think, well, this is what I do.

Therefore, I should look for a major that directly relates to it and see if I can offer

it to those students.

But when we don't have a program here, it almost becomes that much more important that

you do offer an internship because we will have students who are interested.

It might not be, depending on what you do, it may not be a huge pool, right?

But for those students, how important would it be to find something?

So first, I'll give you an example.

I've had a phenomenal student in my internship class several times over the last few years

who's interested in interior design.

We don't have an interior design program here.

Yeah.

Right.

We do digital media design, but we don't have interior design.

So how important is it to that student to find an employer who's willing to do an interior

design internship to complement what she is learning to get that real world experience?

Because if that student isn't engaging in an internship, she will graduate or they or

whoever it is, that particular student, she will graduate without anything to help her

get her first job in interior design.

So what she's truly interested in.

Which she's truly interested in.

But she's here.

Right.

And she's here for you for a reason.

So if you have those unique programs like you do, right?

Yeah.

Then there is probably a student interested in it and who would be a perfect fit for your

organization.

I'll also add that even if the focus of your organization doesn't align perfectly with

a major or program that we have here, we talk to students all the time about marrying your

interests, right?

So let's use one of our broader, larger majors on campus as communication, right?

Students can do communication studies, they can do PR.

But so many of them have other interests, like an industry, right?

So the field that they're going into might be public relations, but the industry they

want to go into might be health and wellness, might be travel, might be sports or something

like that.

And so every organization, no matter how big or small, has essential functions that they

need to take care of.

And so you can offer, you know, everybody's got a market.

Everybody has to manage the budget and all this stuff.

If you have areas in your organization where students might fit, even if your industry

doesn't align with their program, you're going to be offering something super valuable to

those students.

What's your internship like?

So I've done, we do a campus ministry internship.

So it's religious studies related in a sense or faith-based.

And so we've had a student working with other college students and helping along with the

actual person who's running the campus ministry.

And I've done a pastoral ministry, one where students want or consider getting a masters

of divinity after they've left here.

And so they come alongside and see what it's like to go to the hospital when somebody is

sick and make those types of care visits.

And then also I've even had them prepare and deliver a message for Sunday morning, which

if they wanted to do that, I'm willing to work through the entire process, which is

a lot of work for both me and for them.

They come away with like, holy cow, you do this every week.

It's like, yeah, it takes- You're not just getting up there off the cuff?

No.

And I'm weird in one sense.

I write out an entire manuscript.

I do not do just like notes.

Bullet points.

Yeah.

Okay.

I make sure that it could be something I'd almost be able to publish as a chapter of a book

or something.

Not that I read it, but that- So you have a copy of every sermon you've ever given?

Not quite.

Sounds like I need to publish an election.

Yeah.

I've got about 20 years' worth.

I've been around for 38 years doing this.

I think we need a collective greatest hits album.

Yes.

I do have one that I've gotten almost to the point where it's a short book because somebody-

my wife and a couple others said that was a great series.

And so I just need one more chapter maybe, but then I don't even know where to take it.

So it's like whatever.

Well, so I'll just say this is a perfect example, right?

Because we have plenty of students who would love to go into a career path like yours, but

we don't have a major than directly.

Yeah.

I've got two students now in my current course, apocalyptic America and Revelation, which is

what a time to teach that, right?

What a time to be alive.

I know.

Maybe you live an interesting time.

They've approached me about the internship already and said, we're interested in this

fall.

Yeah.

So let me put this out there, right?

Yeah.

So you know that the students exist because they get to find you.

So if you weren't offering this internship, that student would be left alone to try to

find it themselves, right?

They'd be reaching out to different organizations.

Cold calling.

Cold calling.

But you have offered them something right here.

You're here on campus, you're accessible.

And so you've brought the opportunity to them.

And a couple others came to me and said they were interested in one, but they want to do

it at their current church, right?

And I said, great talk to them and get them ahold of Ashley because they would be an internship

site.

Exactly.

And it's best if it's paid because I think it's worth the effort for the student that

they should be.

But you can manage that.

It's depending on what the internship looks like and all.

And I have a feeling there's a lot of students who do volunteer work.

We do a lot of service learning here, but it's like it goes from service learning.

At some point it should become an internship.

Like what's that threshold?

Yeah.

Almost like if employers are like, well, we already have so many volunteers that do great

things to that.

We don't really need an intern.

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought this up because we do have what we call the critical components

of internships.

And so there is a very helpful checklist that employers can go through and say, do I have

this in place?

Do I have this in place?

Does my opportunity meet this criteria?

But I'm so glad you brought up service learning.

So here at FGCU we have three offices in my department.

And it is internships, career development services, and service learning.

And we're together for a reason, right?

One of the things that you hit the nail on the head is that there is a point where you

can kind of think of it in two ways, right?

Where the responsibilities of somebody who is getting those service learning hours maybe

tips over into the internship space.

But you also, especially for our nonprofits, I tell students when they're at the service

learning fair.

If you really connect with the mission of one of these places, it may be worthwhile

to ask them if they're willing to create an internship.

Justin Fitzgerald, the director of service learning here, well, director of community

engagement, I think is his title.

But we have had lots of conversations about what is the difference between them.

And service learning, of course, there is a learning component.

It's in the name, right?

But really you're thinking, in that case, you're thinking about an organization, nonprofit

or government agency has need for certain types of skills, right?

Let's say a student has graphic design skills or they have event planning skills, right?

That is a skill that that student can bring and serve that organization with to fill a

gap.

But where it starts to get into internship territory is when the student might not have

a fully developed skill but wants to learn it within the organization.

And the internship becomes a usually much more substantial.

Now we do have students who do tons of service learning hours in one place, but a much more

substantial, immersive time commitment where you become a full, in turn, a full part of

your team.

And that is one of the critical components is that they're doing meaningful work.

They're doing authentic tasks that are considered critical or meaningful to you, achieving

your mission.

And so we can kind of see there's definitely benefit to both and service learning can

absolutely lead to internships.

And they both can lead to a career.

Yes, definitely.

In that field, like nonprofits, there are careers in nonprofit work, right?

Absolutely.

It's not all just volunteer.

In fact, most nonprofits have to have staff that then train and equip, recruit, train

and equip, support volunteers.

There's a lot going on in any of these organizations.

Yeah.

I actually did have a role as a volunteer coordinator at one point.

Did you?

It's a huge, it's, and it can be tough.

Mm hmm.

Absolutely.

Lots of training, lots of coordinating, organizing and the fire.

I remember correctly to in order for it to be like a true internship, a student needs

to be able to work directly underneath somebody with experience in whatever that is, let's

say marketing, yes, or whatever you can't just say, I'd like to hire a marketing intern.

We don't have anybody, but if you could just create some stuff, that'd be awesome.

Right.

Yes.

So this is such an important part.

It is one of the critical components.

We say that the intern has to be supervised by an experienced professional in the field

in which the student is working.

And so a good example of this, Maggie, like you just said, I get lots of calls, especially

these days again, nothing against the employer's calling for this, but a lot of times, you

know, social media is a newer thing that a lot of organizations need.

So I get lots of calls for, we'd like a social media intern.

And so my first question back is, and who currently does social media for your organization?

And they say, nobody.

That's why we need to work.

That's why we need to work.

And if that's the case, that actually tells me it's not an internship.

That is a position that you need to be hiring for.

That's a part-time job.

Yeah, part-time job.

Yeah.

Somebody, you know, contract somebody in, hire someone full-time, just create that role

within your organization.

However, if that person says, oh, our marketing manager or our full-time social media coordinator

or something like that, and that's the person who wants the intern, now we're talking,

right?

Because we're not just kind of throwing the student in the pool and hoping that they

swim, right?

And then all of a sudden, this employer, social media fully depends on the success of the

student who is supposed to be learning how to do social media as a career.

It's just, it's not the learning experience that the student is supposed to be having.

Right.

But if they have someone who's experienced in social media, just to keep going with this

example, then they're going to be able to learn a lot.

And your organization is going to get another pair of hands on the social media so that

you're able to achieve more, you're able to accomplish more, you have some fresh perspectives,

while the student is also getting the benefits of learning from someone who knows what they're

doing.

Coming back to how we get to consult on developing internships, in the presentations that I give

on creating new internship opportunities, I have a slide on where to even start.

And the first question, most people know this one, like if you're thinking about where

could we have an intern in our organization, you can start with for sure, like where do

you need help?

Like where do you have something for a student to do?

But the next question you should be asking yourself is what do I have to teach?

And maybe that's the first question you should be asking yourself.

What do I have to teach?

Because that is going to be the most important indicator of whether or not you can invite

an intern into your organization.

Some of the most important things to teach the students are some of the intangibles

of just how you work with people, how you care about people, how you handle conflict

situations and priorities and time management and all of these things.

Everything, it's all the things that are harder to measure, but come with the profession.

To be a successful in any profession or career, you have to have all this other stuff that

can't actually be taught just from a textbook.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up too, because in thinking about setting the foundation again

so that you have things to reuse over and over and over again, like just foundational

to your internship are one, of course, they require a little bit of patience for the

exact reason that you just said.

But too, if you start to think about, okay, what gaps can I start to fill for the student?

What are the students hoping to learn?

And it might be professionalism, it might be that workplace culture that you mentioned.

If you can start to put some of those things into your training materials or into your

supervisory feedback or things like that, that's going to help the student.

I've had, well, one, I've had like a million horror stories in my position.

You can only imagine.

Only from both sides.

The things I have seen and heard, yes, from both sides.

But there are very common things that do happen.

I don't get a lot of complaints about students, but when I do, we kind of have to take a step

back and think, okay, where is this even coming from?

I have had an employer call where at the end of a Monday, and they're like, we had our

student here for the first time today, and they didn't show up dressed appropriately

for our workplace.

And so I'm thinking about it.

And my first question is, did you talk to them?

Yeah, did you tell them what your expectations are?

And they're like, well, no, we just assume they knew how to dress.

And I'm like, well, if you'd given that information to the student in their welcome email, here's

things you should know for your first day.

Now the student's going to, like, and then the student didn't do it.

Now we have something to talk about.

Now we have something that we might need to address with the student.

But if you give them that insight, they're often still learning how to look for context

clues in professional environments, even.

So we can't just always assume that they know what they should be doing.

Even just thinking about that, like if you don't give a student your expectations, how

do you expect them to meet?

Correct.

But then once you set that standard, once you have crit training materials, maybe you

have an intern manual by the time you're done.

If you start developing those things, then it's something that you can just hand to

the student.

Exactly.

And so it's a learning process for the organizations.

Yes.

And then the more you go through it, the more material you have that can be reused.

So don't be the first intern with the business.

Although that can be a good experience for students.

But if you think about, you know, as an, as an, I've actually taught over a hundred,

like class sections here at FGCU now these days.

I don't know how that happened, but I've been here for a while.

But if you should started at age four.

Oh, she did.

That's not true.

That's hilarious.

But, you know, if you think about it, the, the, when you're creating a classroom scratch,

you have to start with the syllabus.

You have to start with your plan.

It takes so many hours to teach a class for the first time for you even step in to the

classroom.

But then the next semester, you're like, okay, I might tweak a few things here and there.

I might have to adjust this presentation or that assignment didn't land.

So I might do it.

But by the time you get to the third, fourth, fifth time that you teach a class, you're

spending so much less time on it.

And it's the same thing with an intern.

So if you approach it the same way as you would a class, yeah, solid.

I just think about it too.

How beneficial that might be for the employer to go through that process.

Just through that lens of hiring people onboarding building culture.

These are the expectations and standards.

This is what accountability looks like at these levels and angles.

It seems like it could be a nice reflection exercise because I mean, I exclusively teach

first time in college students.

So I know immediately I cannot assume that you know what's going on at all kind of thing.

But in the workplace, students graduate, they come in there like, why are you wearing jeans?

I went to class every day like this.

I worked at Marshall's and we all wear jeans.

I've never been in a situation or environment like this.

Like how would I know?

Right.

I don't remember going to the office with my parents growing up.

Right.

Right.

I was in school.

Yeah, we absolutely just like.

So if you're not exposed, how would you know?

Right.

Yeah.

But clear expectations clear clear is kind.

Alison Batch Guilfie says that all the time.

Clear is kind.

I actually like this, the way that we're going right now talking about how creating

an internship is very similar to creating a course.

Yeah.

Especially because another one of the critical components, and I think this is why adjuncts

make great internship supervisors, one of the other critical components is you should

have learning outcomes for an internship.

Yeah.

So just like you're planning out what students are going to get by the end of the semester

in your course, we need to do the same thing for an internship.

And so I think that's a really cool place to start to.

And there should be formative assessments along the way.

Exactly.

And some summative towards the end for their sake as well as yours.

But the formative goes both ways so that you go like, okay, how can we make this a better

internship?

How can we be clearer with our expectations?

How can we be more supportive?

You name it, right?

Oh my gosh.

So much to do.

But you've already done this part for your internship.

Yeah.

But each one is unique.

I also have them set what are the goals?

What is it you want to learn in this internship?

Because everyone is unique.

I do not assume they're going to all go down the same kind of a path because there's such

a variety in religious service if they wanted to go into it.

And some of them are just exploring it to see if it's even something they want to do.

Because I think it's better for them to try out an internship and say, yeah, am I even

comfortable going into a hospital room dealing with somebody who just got diagnosed with

something that they are shocked at and dealing with just the grief, the trauma, the anxiety,

and all of that.

Am I comfortable in that?

Or because until you do it, you don't know how it feels.

Right, right.

Yeah.

And so like exposure therapy.

Yeah.

And you might go like, oh, I like what that guy does over there.

And it's like teaching as well.

Oh, I love that teacher.

I loved being in the classroom.

It's totally different than being the teacher in front of the classroom.

Yes.

As a former kindergarten teacher, I can tell you.

You were a kindergarten teacher?

I can see that.

Yeah.

Only a year.

Only a year.

26 five-year-olds.

Yeah, I was right after I graduated from undergrad and I had a thousand-hour contract.

Two of the teachers at the Children's Center on campus where I went to school.

Where was this?

Cal Poly.

St. Louis.

Oh, my gosh.

Your favorite town in the entire world.

I know.

It is.

Sandler's a bespoke if I could afford to live there.

Yeah.

It's beautiful.

I was a kindergarten teacher while I was finishing up my undergrad.

Two of the teachers left to teach English in Turkey.

And so they called me and they're like, hey, you know our school.

You want to do a thousand-hour contract?

Be our kindergarten teacher?

And I said, absolutely I do.

And?

But it's very different.

I mean, I had already worked there.

But your analogy, I think, is really great.

I teach a lot of career development related things too, not just internships.

In one of my classes we talk about from passion to profession and the difference of

when we actually learn about what something does.

What a position does or what those people do.

One of the examples that I use is how many of you wanted to be a veterinarian when you

were little.

And they're like a ton.

That's a very common, something for a kid to say.

And they're like, oh, why do you want to do that?

And they're like, because I love animals.

But tell me how old you were when you figured out what a veterinarian actually does.

And they're like, oh, yeah, that's when I decided I did not want to do it.

It's very simple analogy for that's what happens in an internship sometimes too.

You can learn about something in the classroom, but until you actually experience it, feel

how your body feels while you're there.

Feel it like what are my thoughts?

What is my experience?

You don't know.

The level of responsibility that can come with a position and you're going, oh my gosh,

that's a lot of weight on my shoulder to feel like these people are looking to me for

a while, right, right.

And you're like, I don't know about that.

Yeah.

And a lot of our students, this is totally normal.

It's not just our students, but a lot of people get their career ideas from things that

they see, movies, TV, law and order.

Yeah, exactly.

Good example, right?

Law and order.

Oh.

Grey's Anatomy, right?

Yeah.

I'm a millennial.

We're dating me here.

I'm a millennial.

And I saw this happen when criminal minds got like CSI, criminal minds.

That was a huge thing.

Everybody wants to be a forensic psychologist or everybody wants to be a crime.

I'm seeing an investigator or something like that.

Well, that, so I wanted to be a behavior analyst, like and go and like interrogate all the

criminals and all this stuff.

And I did two internships at a juvenile detention facility.

And that was it.

I'm good.

Yeah.

I am a.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I knew I was a criminal justice major.

I knew I wasn't going to be a police officer because I don't run.

Anybody that knows me.

I don't run.

Even if I get paid to run, I'm not.

I know.

I don't run.

You're like, pass.

Yeah.

No.

So I was like, okay, the youth, a different angle, case manager.

And then I was also able to work with their behavior analysts that contracted there.

And I did two different internships, nine months total.

And I was like, I'm okay.

Yeah.

I think I need to pivot.

And thank God I didn't apply and accept a job and then be like, this is my life.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, same.

Like I, I would definitely, I was a psychology major.

I was definitely interested in the criminal minds thing.

I am not the one that you want in a crime scene because I will be running for a trash

can.

Yeah.

Like I am great in crises, but like, nope, nope.

Nope.

Thank you.

If it is not a crisis, if it's not an emergency, I am.

Yeah.

I don't have to be there.

I'm the one who's running outside to, you know, yeah.

So up, check.

Yes.

But you need to know that about yourself.

You don't know how you're going to be in a crime scene until you walk into a crime scene.

Now we can expand that to any work environment to any work, you know, you don't know what

it's going to be like until you're there.

Absolutely.

Years ago, a lot more apprenticeships, a lot more understanding of the fact that we learn

best by imitation and by modeling and by seeing rather than by just reading and listening

and thinking through things and just constant consuming.

Yeah.

And I love the fact that I think we're becoming more holistic in our understanding of how

students learn.

Yeah.

And I see why this is a high impact practice.

Yeah.

Definitely.

I mean, it falls under the category of experiential learning, right?

Learn by doing, learn by experience, which brings us to another one of the critical components

that we're talking about is that the students should be able to apply what they've been

learning in the classroom in a real world setting.

That is one of the things that we look for, right?

Yeah.

I actually ask students, and this can help if anybody's working to set up an internship,

I ask my students, what theories and concepts from your classes are you seeing play out

in the real world?

Which ones are you applying?

Which ones are you observing?

Which ones are you putting into action yourself?

Which ones are you watching your supervisor use?

And they have to intentionally reflect on that.

And so you can think back to, you know, what is it that like, if an adjunct is teaching

a class in their area of expertise, then you are again, uniquely qualified to go back

into your organization or your place of work outside of FGCU and think, okay, where

can I help the students who are in my classes apply the theories and concepts that they've

been learning with me here?

How do I get them to apply them over here?

And that's a huge part of what we're doing.

Right.

And I think that's what makes adjunct faculty unique here and a great contribution to...

They're the perfect bridge.

Yeah.

They're already living in between those two worlds.

Yeah.

I think you just introduced me, can I say, specific people on here?

Yeah.

You just introduced me to Christopher over at the School of Entrepreneurship.

And I think about, you know, his nonprofit, his youth development program that he has,

if he's teaching entrepreneurship, you know, in the classroom, then he knows exactly what

theories and concepts he can help his students apply within his own organization.

Exactly.

So shout out Christopher.

And you and your team can help with all of that brainstorming and planning.

I know you mentioned the guide and the questions and the competencies, but if they just need

a sound board to be like, is this legit?

Like, can we actually do this?

You and your team are there to support and walk them through that.

Right.

Yeah.

Excellent example of this is I just did a presentation, which I am available for presentations.

I just did a presentation with the Veterans Entrepreneurship Program over in the School

of Entrepreneurship.

And so we have a bunch of amazing, you know, veteran, former military business owners who

are working on their own businesses.

They are entrepreneurs.

So I talked to them about how to start developing internships and, you know, how that can help

them grow their business while the same time they're giving back.

And yes, there's super important things that we need to have in place there.

But when I tell you that this group was writing up full proposals, I mean, I'm talking some

of them were like eight to 10 pages.

Here is my plan.

Everything that you told me needs to be included is in here.

Here is my plan for an entire semester internship.

Don't let this scare you.

Not everybody does that.

But they're sending it to me and saying, can you just look at this?

And I'm writing back being like, this is one of the best things I've ever seen.

Yeah.

Can I use this as an example?

Exactly.

Right.

And so I'm more than happy.

I mean, I'm only one person.

So everybody be patient with me, please.

I will get to it eventually, I promise.

She needs more stuff.

I will.

Your team is growing.

Yes.

Yeah.

As our responsibility.

Oh, that's right.

I hope.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm currently I'm actually hiring a position right now.

But yeah.

So there is only one of me, but we do have a network of internship coordinators throughout

the university who can also help.

So if there is a specific college program major where you know you want to recruit students

from there, there may be somebody who is not me that I can direct you to who specializes

in working with those students specifically and can also take a look at what your develop

is.

I think you have a nice breakdown of those coordinators on your website too.

Yeah.

I was just perusing earlier.

Yeah.

We try.

We try.

But yeah, work your traffic control always go this way.

Go this way.

Oh, my goodness.

This has been great.

Yeah.

Like we didn't need a script.

No, no, these are the best ones.

Of course not.

Well, and I just really hope that any of your adjuncts out there and I say, I say that like

I'm not one of them.

I am one of you.

You are such an amazing resource to our students.

And like I started by saying, you are co educators and both your experience in the classroom

and the things you have to offer students in your professional lives outside of FTC

are so valuable.

So please feel free.

Reach out to me.

Yeah.

Let's let's overwhelm their office.

Hey, what if though we did a workshop specifically for adjuncts?

I can get my internship development workshop and we can invite.

That would be great.

Why not?

There's only like 430.

Yeah.

We'll get an auditorium.

Well, we'll see.

You know, everybody's got their schedules.

We may also need to do something that's like available to the Zoom Zoom.

We could do Zoom.

Yeah.

Maybe that'd be like a nice summer workshop.

That'd be great.

Yeah.

Summer's a great time to plan something like this too.

Yeah.

For the fall.

So anyway, that would be a way that.

Yeah.

How much lead time do you need?

Oh, yeah.

That's a good question.

Well, I have my whole presentation already made so we could do it Monday.

I know.

But what I'm saying is for somebody to develop an internship and then be able to recruit

students for that, what's the average lead time?

Yeah, good question.

I would definitely give yourself some ample planning time a couple of weeks to make sure

that you're being thorough and not going to figure out where your needs are and how you

can meet the, you know, make a plan for sure.

Right.

But we do have, while we do have recruiting cycles for sure, it totally varies on the

student side.

You know, while we have some of our major employer partners, like some of our big corporate partners

or something like that have actual recruiting seasons that they go through.

So like October, November is big.

For the spring?

Yeah.

September, October is like a big one for spring and then February, March is a big one for summer.

You know, that doesn't, that doesn't mean you can only recruit during those times.

I will have a student come to me a week before the semester starts and says, it just realized

I'd really like to do an internship for the summer.

So you can really be posting at any time because we have so many students.

Each one of them has their own unique path.

They're all going to be looking at different, at different times.

So when it comes to like the recruiting part of it, I would definitely give it at least,

I would say aim for like at least the very minimum, maybe a month before you would want

them to start.

Yeah, I'd say if you can, three months would be great.

Absolutely.

Just not because they won't, it's just to get the word out to be able to attract the

students.

Yeah.

So this, you know, May would be good for August.

Yeah.

And that actually is very helpful for the students as they're, you know, they're planning

out their classes well in advance.

And so if they're able to plan a May.

This could be a class, right?

An internship can be just an internship without the course, but the course itself really benefits

both parties, correct?

Yes.

You prefer the students have a, be enrolled in a course?

Yes, actually that is metric 10.

So if we are able to do that, but I want to tell your adjuncts, don't worry, that's

not a course you have to teach.

They're already in place.

So we have internship courses in every major on campus and whether a student wants to take

that course or we have a free elective credits from through courses in the central office,

a student can, can make progress towards their degree by doing an internship.

The nice part about your interns doing an internship course as well is that there is

structure built into it.

So I have assignments in my internship course where they're required to reach out to their

supervisor and come up with those learning outcomes.

And so there's, you know, that, the point of that is for them to get the experience of

making sure they're on the same page of expectations and they know where they're heading and how

to have those conversations.

And it's, and it sounds like it's a real benefit to the supervisor that they would be in a

course like that.

So it's like a partnership together.

It's like you're not just trying to herd the cats over here.

Right.

You're running parallel.

Yeah.

We have evaluations built in.

We have hours, verifications.

I even have an assignment that I've worked into the professionalism transferable skills

badge that we have here, where it can be an artifact where the student, I give them specific

questions to ask their supervisor in an informational interview about professionalism.

So that student comes with the agenda for that conversation.

So when does she sleep?

She does.

I guess not.

When does she eat?

When does she?

She runs on coffee.

She's fueled by coffee.

So I don't get it.

Yeah.

Ashley's amazing.

Thank you.

We might need to do this again.

That idea of a, yeah, that idea of an adjunct focused workshop might be a real poll.

I think if you're an adjunct out there and you're just even thinking about it, it'd

be something to explore.

I think it would benefit your organization, your own professional life to be able to pour

into someone, but also the benefits that you get out of it.

It's just amazing.

It's really life giving.

I think even for a lot of adjunct faculty, they're not doing it for the money.

No, they're doing it for both the contribution they can make to a place like this, but for

deeper meaning and purpose, but also giving back.

And it's a, there's always a boomerang effect with that.

Ashley, I'm hoping that things come back to you that way too.

Yeah.

Thank you.

My goodness.

Yeah.

Thank you for taking the time to do this.

I'm sure you're going until like 10 o'clock tonight.

Oh, I think we'll be done by eight, but Gradfest will be fun.

So yeah.

Nothing after that.

You have nothing after the.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's when I sleep.

Awesome.

Maggie, any thoughts?

No, this has been great.

I think adjuncts in this office is honestly the perfect partnership and just pouring into

students, creating these bridges between the campus and the community.

And this is all fantastic things.

Thanks for listening.

You will find a couple of at least links.

Yes.

In this podcast at the end and definitely wings up and stay in touch.

Bye y'all.

Bye.

The music composed performed and produced by James Husny.

.