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DIAKONIA PAIDEIA
and the
SOUTHERN REGIONAL EDUCATION BOARD
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT INTERNSHIP PROGRAM
By Donald J. Eberly
The Resource Development Project of the Southern
Regional Education Board offers internship appoint-
ments to a limited number of college upperclassmen
and graduate students who demonstrate an interest in
the processes of social and economic change. The
program is designed to provide service-learning ex-
periences for students through assignments to spe-
cific projects of developmental agencies, community
action programs, and to other local, state, or re-
gional organizations concerned with developmental
change.
Financial support is provided by public agencies
interested in economic development, resource devel-
opment, community action and related fields. They
include: Appalachian Regional Commission, Coastal
Plains Regional Commission, Economic Development
Administration, Office of Economic Opportunity and
Tennessee Valley Authority.
This report, prepared by Mr. Donald J. Eberly, Ex-
ecutive Director of the National Service Secretariat,
evaluates the SREB Resource Development Internship
Programs and recommends directions for future service-
learning activities.
SOUTHERN REGIONAL EDUCATION BOARD, Resource Development Project
IS0° Sixti= streets NoWes At tania, Georgia 50515
DIAKONIA PAIDEIA
AND THE
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT INTERNSHIP PROGRAMS
Donald J. Eberly
It is useless to try to report on SREB's Resource Development
Internship Programs (RDIP) in one dimension, albeit that is the
Traditional approach taken to problem solving. If we want a job
done, we hire someone to do it, |f we want someone to learn, we
teach him and thereby, the assumption goes, he learns. lf we want
To promote university-community relations, we establish a Committee
for the Promotion of Relations between the University and the
Community. But that kind of uni-dimensional approach just won't
work with the Internship Program. However, it is reassuring to
note that if we took a series of snapshots of the program along
different axes, we would see everyday occurrences. Looking along
one dimension, we would see a person doing a job; along another, a
person learning in the field of law or economics; along another, a
person experiencing life in a poverty area for the first time; along
still another dimension, a person deciding upon a career. And so on.
The list is a long one.
The beauty and strength of the RDIP is that all these things
can happen to the same person at the same time, for the internship
concept rejects the notion that learning can occur only at school
as firmly as it does the notion that a job is a job, and has no
business being examined against the writings of Plato, or Spinoza,
or Frost, or Keynes, or King.
Yet there seems to be no word or phrase that captures the
essence of this kind of service-learning program. On such
occasions, it has been helpful to borrow from ancient Greek, as
Norbert Wiener did in coming up the the word "cybernetics," to
try to symbolize the project. In this paper we use diakonia
and paideia, two Greek phrases that carry with them the con-
cepts of teaching and learning through activity, and of a style
of life geared to contributing to the welfare of others.
In our special shorthand,then, this paper is a report on
the diakonia piadeia concept as implemented and administered by
the RDIP. lt is based on the writer's interviews with several of
The interns, counselors, government officials and administrators,
his attendance at RDIP conferences in 1967 and 1968, his perusal
of confidential reports of program participants, and his deliberate
exposure to the diakonia piadeia concept for the past two decades.
Unfortunately, the medium in which this report is rendered
does not permit a simultaneous examination of all aspects of the
concept and the program, so it will look separately at three major
components: manpower for service, the learning aspect, and community-
university relationships. Then it will explore areas where all com-
ponents meet; namely, program balances and imbalances, funding, and
the future. The report assumes the kind of familiarity with the
program that can be obtained by reading The 1966 and |967 reports
of the RDIP.
Manpower for Service
A fundamental change that is occurring in the American concept
of work was emphasized by the interns in their application forms
and evaluation reports. According to their statements, only three
percent of the interns in (967 and 1968 sought internship appoint-
ments in order to get a job. The other 97 percent applied in
order to:
|. Relate academic theory to the real world
2. Contribute to developmental activities
3. Acquire research experience
4. Work with people
5. Help with career choice
Traditionally, a job is something obtained to enable a person
to make ends meet. One doesn't go to his job a minute early or re-
main a minute overtime without remuneration. It is something to be
scorned. One feels a sense of relief on Friday afternoon, and
Monday morning is blue. Economists can control the flow of man-
power into industries and services simply by regulating salaries
and wages, because employees automatically seek the highest level
of emoluments.
John Kenneth Galbraith punctured this picture of a job when
he noted, in The Affluent Society, that some middle-class college
graduates would prefer low-presstrre jobs in pleasant surroundings
to better-paying jobs that involve high tension and long commuting
time. It has been further punctured by some 25,000 Peace Corps
Volunteers--most of them college graduates--who have sometimes
chosen a primitive existence in a strange Jand at subsistent wages
over more "attractive" offers at home. And today it's being further
deflated by thousands of ministers who turn down suburban churches
for ghetto parishes, lawyers who choose legal aid help for the poor
over prestige law firms, and business graduates who are more interested
in a firm's social involvement than its corporate profits.
Most interns appear to have similar attitudes. They want a job
with meaning, where they can learn and serve and work with people.
The internship concept gives to government officials, private
employers and educators an opportunity to transform the classical
notion of a job into one that has the characteristics described
above. Today's youth is searching for meaning and relevance and
many have found that jobs can be structured to include these
attributes by assigning much of the drudgery to automation.
Many business and labor officials are actively concerned with
restructuring jobs so that the worker performs more effectively
and gains satisfaction from learning and serving. But there is
little evidence to suggest that the spirit which motivates such
officials is at all pervasive, or that it stems from |ittle more
than a reaction to demands and events. [+ should be clear from
recent upheavals on campuses and in major cities that more than
"reacting" is required. Imagination and initiative is needed
in the realm of transforming jobs into experiences with greater
meaning, relevance, and satisfaction for the worker. The intern-
ship program offers an ideal setting-.for such a transformation.
Interns are young. They possess the energy, imagination,
ideals and mobility of youth. Further, they serve only a short time
(12 weeks in the case of RDIP) which permits a wide array of experi-
ments with little risk of loss from those which fail. Also,
internships occur at the interface of the generation gap, and at a
point where the academic world and the world of work meet.
At the same time, the internship program is far from ethereal.
Real work is done--real services performed. lt was reported that
research done by a two-man intern team was the basis of a $500,000
grant to the agency where the interns were engaged. Another's re-
search contributed to passage of a new law in Tennessee which put
controls on loan sharks. We know that interns undergo real train-
ing and career development in the fields in which they serve. These
results can be seen in the intern's evaluation reports, in job offers
received from their summer employers, and in changes in educational
programs such as the shift of a law student's career from corpora-
tion law to poverty law.
With a firm foundation in manpower development and accomplish-
ment of useful services, the diakonia piadeia concept and the RDIP's
implementation of it gives today's leaders in business, government,
labor and education a model for the transformation of the classical
notion of a job into one that has meaning and relevance. It also
offers a constructive alternative to the confrontations taking place
across the nation: provides internship openings for all youth who
seek them and are willing to participate.
With the changing attitude toward jobs goes greater unpredicta-
bility about jobs. I It has recently been reported that |0 years ago
half of today's jobs for college graduates didn't exist. While we
can guess the future on the basis of extrapolation of current trends,
history suggests that more important criteria are scientific
discoveries and international events, neither of which yield ta
extrapolation. We cannot be very specific in attempting to define
jobs that will have to be performed in 1980,
Hence it is a disservice to students and to society To regard
the training element of any educational program as a uni-dimensional
assembly line operation. Rather, there must be several degrees of
freedom within the training process to enable the student to probe
and explore related areas of interest, and to do so on his own
initiative. RDIP interns seem to possess this freedom to a greater
degree than do thejr colleagues in other older intern programs.
The traditional, vocationally-oriented intern programs (e.g.,
medicine, education, public administration) were seen by conferees
at a recent RDIP Review Conference as over-programmed, offering too
little exposure to other fields, and giving the intern little chance
to free himself from feeling like a student. There seems to have
been very little mutual exploration between the RDIP organizers and
those who administer traditional internship programs. I+ would
appear that both groups could benefit from discussions and, perhaps,
cooperative programs.
Similar exploratory discussions should occur with leaders of
student-sponsored community service projects, which can be found on
most campuses. Typically, these are part-time programs, with no
academic credit given, with little academic consideration of what is
observed while serving, and with little feedback to the classroom.
Here again all parties could benefit from a mutual exploration of
interests and activities.
One vital, unanswered question in the manpower field is how
many jobs exist? This question should have high research priority
because of its implications for the eventual magnitude of intern-
ship programs. One or more small areas should be selected and
approaches made to all organizations where interns might be placed
to determine how many could be used and in what capacity. Both
summer and academic year interns should be considered. It is strongly
suggested that this survey be linked with a promise of interns for
agencies which want them and are qualified to receive them. Just
another survey would mean that some administrators would pull numbers
out of a hat or throw the surveyor out of the office in order to get
rid of a useless intrusion. To be done properly, there must be com-
munity backing, wide publicity, full explanation, a comprehensive
survey and, of course, interns and funding,
The Learning Dimension
It is well established that what is learned in an educational
setting may bear small resemblance to what is taught. An intern
spends very little time in a classroom but most of the summer,
whether he is on the job, at a counseling session, or in an intern
seminar, is spent in a learning environment. The same is true of
the other full-time participants, members of the SREB staff, and to
a lesser extent, of the part-time participants, the counselors,
supervisors and consultants. What, then, is learned?
Written reports and comments by all conference participants
emphasize these kinds of learning:
|. The participant learns interpersonal skills which
contribute to being an effective person, and discovers
his strengths and weaknesses in sensitive situations.
Z2. He learns the consequences of putting to the test his
ideas conceived in a theoretical or vicarious setting.
3. He learns how to identify a problem and bring appropriate
resources to bear on its solution.
4. He learns what moves people and what prevents movement.
5. He learns something about the totality of facts and
forces involved in resource development.
6. He learns strategies that can maximize service-learning
opportunities for himself and others.
7. He learns some of the characteristics of the cooperative
and competitive process and the strengths and weaknesses
of the two.
8. He learns that the actual accomplishment of something is
inevitably more complex and difficult than is studying,
planning, dreaming.
9. He learns how creative freedom and imaginative guidance
can be combined in enabling a person to accomplish things
and become a constructive force.
10. He learns of deficiencies in his regular academic work
and feeds back this information to his academic colleagues.
ll. He learns vital techniques in interviewing people, con-
ducting research, and writing reports.
12. More prosaically, he gains knowledge of the one or
several disciplines related to his assignment--knowledge
that was not in the textbooks or lectures.
Obviously there is overlap among the |I2 types of learning
described above. Perhaps they could be fully covered in three
statements. Perhaps 30 statements are needed to differentiate
sufficiently.
The critical question is what produces these learnings? Some
agency representatives and counselors participate in as many as seven
different internship programs, yet they consistently and independently
point to the RDIP program as having much the biggest "payoff."
What strikes the observer as the prime ingredient came through
most clearly in the dramatic presentation of a case study at the 1968
RDIP Review Conference. The lonely intern, surrounded by a supervisor
who was pushing him to complete an application for a federal grant,
a counselor from the university who was trying to pull him into producing
research data of interest to the counselor, and an attractive technical
representative who was trying to Iure him into an extended visit to
her agency, turned to the RDIP official and asked, "Who am |! responsible
to?"
"You are responsible fo yourself," came the reply.
In short, an intern is seen by the RDIP staff as an adult and
is treated in that manner. He is expected to give evidence of having
learned without resorting to a multiple-choice exercise or the rephrasing
of his counselor's pet theories. He is expected to seek outside aid
while seeing that it remains secondary to his main project.
Secondly, the RDIP insists on maintaining an even balance between
service and learning. This attitude frustrates the impatient official
and professor who think in only one dimension at a time. "What is
the real purpose," they demand, "to learn or to serve?" When the
answer "both" comes back, the inquirer is dumbfounded and may want
no more to do with the idea. Receptivity for the concept is more
likely to be found among those who have themselves experienced
service-learning and by those who commonly practice multi-dimensional
thinking.
Third, it's well managed. Interns show up at the appointed
time, stipends arrive on schedule, interns! reports are published
as promised. This aspect does not require a detailed analysis, but
must be included in a list of attributes because too many good con-
cepts have foundered in the sludge of technical incompetence and
mismanagement.
Fourth, the seminars and reports appear to be valuable learning
instruments. Several interns came to the seminars with problems they
thought were unique to themselves, but discovered they were common
to most of the other interns, and everyone benefitted from the en-
suing discussion. Both seminars and reports produce some tension in
interns because they must assume responsibility for something that
will be publicly assessed. On the whole, the tension so produced does
not seem inordinate; after the internships, some students look upon
Their responsibilities in the seminar or report writing as the most
valuable part of the internship.
Fifth, off-campus experience appears to be a crucial ingredient
of the internship program. On campus, even in a work situation, the
usual protective forces and pecking orders are at play. Off campus,
the intern encounters the real world, with its loneliness, its demands,
its unreasonableness, its rewards.
Academic credit for internships is certainly justifiable on the
basis of the above /I2 points. However, credit is not essential to the
learning process, although it may be helpful in some cases and perhaps
harmful in others. In 1968 about 40 of the 150 interns received credit,
although few expected it at the beginning of their program. While
the promise of academic credit might stimulate some interns to learn
more, it might constrain others from giving full reign to their ideas
in deference to doing what they think will produce the best grades.
10
Of course, academic credit, like a dollar bill, has no
intrinsic value. It is simply an arbitrary measuring device which
is convenient to many people and institutions. Learning went on
before academic credit was invented, and will continue after it is
discarded. But it exists, and must be considered. The way a
student regards academic credit might provide a clue to its proper
relationship to the internship program. The student who views credit
requirements as a series of undesirable hurdles to be gotten rid of
would benefit little from receiving credit because that attitude by
a student won't permit him to learn much as an intern. On the other
hand, the student who regards academic credit as accurately reflect-
ing the importance of a series of experiences appropriate to a person
of his age and background and interests will benefit from receiving
credit because it will be consistent with his outlook.
Apart from the intern himself, academic credit for internships
is a means of getting one's foot in the door of the academic establish-
ment. The program can be listed in fhe college catalogue and the
administration can decide that counseling five interns is The equiva-
lent of teaching a class of, say, 20 students. Thus, academic credit
for internships would give the program institutional backing as well as
higher esteem in the eyes of government officials and others who |ook
for evidence of institutional support as a major index of the merits
of a program. What has to be guarded against in this kind of situation
is a slackening of standards.
Unless more detailed studies reveal that academic credit for
internships leads systematically to a strengthening or weakening
of learning, it is probably the course of wisdom to continue the
practice of treating each case on its merits. At the same time,
RDIP officials should remain responsive to requests for help in
handling the issue of academic credit.
Two factors that one might assume to be crucial are not.
One, the nature or content of the intern's assignment is not
necessarily important. For example, a chemistry student conducted
a survey of county purchasing procedures and in so doing produced
a useful document for the agency. He came away feeling that he
had learned a great deal. Two, it's not necessarily important
whether the agency where the intern works is efficient or jin-
efficient, whether his supervisor is strong or weak. Each kind
of situation provides a setting for a learning experience, given
the interest of the intern and the support and quidance of the
counselor.
What is important in regard to the preceding paragraph-- and
this gets us back to the heart of the concept--is that the total
operation not be thought of as the addition of its parts, in which
a "good" agency is rated +2, a bad supervisor as -3, but as a process
that includes a multitude of inter-relationships. This holistic
perspective is held by members of the SREB staff and many others
involved in the internship program. An applicant for an intern
program need not have it, but many acquire it in the course of their
internship, as is evident from their reports.
"The university and public service" has been the subject of
a much publicized, on-and-off debate in recent months among such
men as Jacques Barzun, Clark Kerr, Alan Pifer and Mark Rudd. I+
is disappointing that the debates have emphasized the role of the
university in providing institutional support for presumably beneficial
12
programs, to the virtual exclusion of the importance of community
service by staff, faculty, and students jin the performance of its
teaching function.
Whether, how much, and how the university as an institution
should serve the community may be debatable issues. Whether the
university should be a seat of learning is not. The embarrassing
question for educators is how do you expect to prepare your students
to become competent in their fields, and more importantly, to become
effective and constructive citizens unless you arrange for them to
experience meaningful involvement in the real world and to reflect
upon this involvement in the company of your learned faculty?
William James tells us that reading and listening can enable us
to know about something but not to know it until we have experienced
it. For example, it has been reported that a full-year internship for
Ethiopian university students typically teaching in village schools
added nothing to the students! awareness of rural poverty and its
associated problems. But what did happen to the average intern was
that he moved from the level of awareness to the level of commitment
to do something about rural poverty. In the United States, the
problems of today and tomorrow can be identified through awareness,
but they cannot be solved without commitment.
For university leaders who consider knowing something to be
a higher form of learning than merely knowing about something, the
time has come to introduce internships of the RDIP type as an integral
part of the learning process.
The University and the Community
As with the awarding of academic credit, the fostering of
university-community relationships is almost impossible to institu-
tionalize from the outside. Clearly the thrust of RDIP interest is
\3
to move beyond the traditional town-grown kind of relationship common
to academic institutions into patterns of real participation. At one
university, businessmen and others in the community serve as visiting
lecturers and discussants and are listed in the catalogue. Much more
common is the practice of professors engaging themselves, sometimes
with pay and sometimes without, in community affairs. The RDIP is
another bridge between community and university over which mutual
participation can flourish.
At the RDIP Review Conference in the fall of 1968, most of the
discussion on university-community relationships centered around
strategies for expanding the RDIP type of internship program. Con-
ferees were unanimous in urging program expansion, but RDIP officials
cautioned that, as presently constituted, its ceiling has almost
been reached in terms of administrative capability.
lt was generally agreed that some kind of decentralization
was in order, but where responsibility should rest was a point of
major disagreement. The case for university administration was
espoused by those who saw the internships as primarily a learning
experience, and who believed that the learning dimension would
Wither away under auspices outside the university. Also, it was
suggested that university students be involved in program policy
and administration. One problem, of course, would be the locatian
of the program in the university. For example, one would envision
the type of program administered by the School of Public Health,
and quite another type by the School of Education.
Persons who argued for state sponsorship seemed to feel that
a state agency would maintain a better balance of interests between
|4
doing a job (many of the agencies where interns serve are state-
related) and learning. (Most interns serve in their respective
states so the states have a vested interest in them as human
resources.)
What is so clear is that the SREB-RDIP has the confidence of
all parties in the intern program and any new agency, wherever it
is based, will be suspect by one or more parties, perhaps to the
extent that it would never be able to get off the ground. Further,
any attempt to create an entirely new set of agencies would give
rise to in-fighting that could well defeat the program.
Given the magnitude of good will and breadth of support for
the program, SREB-RDIP will be delinquent in its responsibility to
the South, and to the nation, if it fails to continue to play a
central role in building the internship program. This can be
done in ways that do not necessarily mean a greatly expanded
administrative role for the RDIP. For example, the RDIP could
establish guidelines for internships, act as a conduit of funds
for programs, and evaluate programs. This kind of arrangement
would permit a variety of sponsors--a university here, a state
agency there--to evolve on the basis of merit and in the image
of the SREB-RDIP,
Another possibility would be for the RDIP to create or to
contract to a separate agency the bulk of administrative chores
which it presently carries. In this way, the RDIP could maintain
its present smal! staff who could concern themselves with keeping
on the right track a greatly expanded internship program.
|5
Balances and Imbalances
To return to the multi-dimensional view of the internship
program, if js obvious that a number of balancing acts must be
carried on simultaneously. Among these are:
|. A balance between elements of rigidity, e.g., the
writing of reports on schedule, and elements of
flexibility, e.g., scope for intern initiative
2. A balance between the intern's particular assignment
and exposure to new fields and situations
3. A balance between making suitable arrangements for
learning to occur, but not making things so easy.
that little or no learning will oceur
4. A balance between an intern's performing a useful
task and gaining knowledge and wisdom
5. A balance wheel to maintain a dynamic equilibrium
among the program objectives and among the sometimes
competing forces that come into play (Review Conference
participants felt that SREB-RDIP is just the right kind
of balance wheel)
Two important aspects of the internship program seem to be
seriously out of balance: the program is far too smal! in comparison
with the need for it and it appears to receive its money from sources
out of proportion to the returns. For reasons cited earlier, this
kind of internship is one that should be within reach of every
college and university student, all 6,000,000 of them. I+ should
not be restricted to one region of the country, nor to students who
just happen to hear about it. It is certainly not foreseen that
every student will want to participate in this program, for some
are in a position to set up their own internships and others will
prefer alternative uses of time. But no one should be excluded from
this kind of experience simply for lack of funds, information, job
16
openings, supervision, or counseling.
To try to analyze costs and benefits is difficult because of
several unknowns. We do not know, for example, what overhead costs
to assign to the participating university or host agency. We do not
know what dollar value to assign as the benefits of an internship
received by the federal or state government or by the university.
In spite of these unknowns, certain conclusions can be drawn
from what we do know, and from assumptions that seem reasonable.
Not every case yields a savings comparable to the two-man team
which, at a total cost of $5,000, completed an analysis and report
which the host agency had been prepared to contract out at a cost
of $51,000. But reports from supervisors and others give clear
evidence that the overwhelming majority of interns make a contribution
to the host agency at least equivalent to the stipend they receive
as interns. Only in a minority of internships does the host agency
even make a contribution to the stipend. The first conclusion, then,
is that full payment of the intern's stipend by the host agency is
economically justifiable.
We also know that the internship process generates a significant
amount of learning by the intern. This outcome is seen in the award-
ing of academic credit to interns, and in reports of the interns and
their advisors. While impossible to quantify exactly, it would seem
to be fairly comparable to what is learned in half a normal semester.
Judging by tuition charges at institutions receiving the
lowest amounts of public subsidies, the cost to the student of a half-
term's learning is at least $500. Hence, the second conclusion is
that the amount of relevant learning derived from the internship process
|7
justifies full payment of the university counselor's fee ($300) by
the university. CAlso, the university overhead appears to be at
least offset by the learning gained by the professor and benefits
gained by the institution, as a consequence of participation in the
internship program.)
Benefits to the several governments--federal, state and
local--are more general. The expectation is that interns will
select careers consistent with the needs of society, that they will
be better citizens and more productive members of the economy.
Whether or not these expectations materialize will not be known for
20 or more years. At this stage, it can be reported that the intern-
ship process is having the kind of effect on interns that they are
moving themselves in these directions. Here again, quantification
is impossible, but in comparison with the magnitude of public
support for classroom education, and considering the assumptions
upon which it is based, financial support for experiential education
of the RDIP variety certainly appears to be a better investment than
support for classroom education. The objective should be to achieve
a proper balance between classroom and experiential education which,
in financial terms, will be reached when the rates of return on
investment become equal.
In addition to the federal agencies supporting the RDIP, experi-
mentation with the diakonia paideia concept can be found in such
programs as the Peace Corps, College Work-Study Program, Neighborhood
Youth Corps, Job Corps, VISTA and Teacher Corps. This experimentation
should continue, and changes should be made where needed.
From where this observer stands, the RDIP offers a unique
experiment in the diakonia paideia concept and, as may be inferred
from foregoing observations, more advanced than other experiments
in several important respects. Hence, while a re-alignment of
financial support is appropriate, continued support from govern-
ment agencies is warranted during this experimental period.
As the internship program becomes institutionalized, it should
endeavor to alter its support pattern in three ways, as follows:
|. The university should cover the cost of fees for the
counselors and should assume a greater role in‘the
recruitment of interns, development of projects,
seminars and report writing.
2. the host agency should pay a share of the intern's
stipend that reflects the real worth of the intern
to the agency, but not so much as to make the agency
feel it can exert an employer's control over the in-
tern. Thus, the agency's contribution should always be
less than the salary or wage a regular employee would
receive for doing the intern's job. Using these cri-
teria, a typical agency could be expected to contribute
from 50 percent to 75 percent of the intern's allowance.
3. Government, at all three levels, should provide general
purpose support of sufficient magnitude to enable researchers
to determine the appropriate balance between classroom
education and experiential education for college and uni-
versity students.
In addition to altering the support pattern, SREB should look
for savings. Consider the team concept. A team of four interns could
have one basic task, one university counselor, and one technical
advisor, and write a single report, thereby reducing the number of
consultants by 75 percent,
Another saving in scale should result from more concentrated
recruitment and placement efforts. The administrative backstopping
for 100 interns from one campus or at one agency should be only a
19
fraction of the present administrative costs for one intern
multiplied by 100.
One important funding feature to retain is use of SREB as
a conduit of funds. Both the government agencies and the universities
much prefer dealing with one place having fiscal responsibility than
several. Of course, SREB does not want to become a large operating
agency, but there is really little problem here because the SREB-
RDIP could allocate funds just as foundations do. Project submissions
could be made to the SREB-RDIP for approval, payment and evaluation.
Much of the legwork now done by the RDIP staff could be assumed by
the institutions submitting the projects.
The Future
The inevitability of change is truer today than ever, for
changes occur more quickly than before. Yet the RDIP is in danger
of stagnation. As presently constituted and sponsored, the numeric
ceiling has been reached and, because of general program excellence,
qualitative changes can be expected to lead to incremental improve-
ment only.
Given this rather constraining situation, what should be the
future course of the RDIP? In reviewing the observations and sugges-
tions contained in this paper, the following activities should be
carefully considered:
|. Experiment with larger-scale programs. This academic year,
pursue aggressively the possibilities for larger programs
in North Carolina, Georgia, and Atlanta. Next year, concen-
trate on one or two campuses, guarantee internships to al!
who genuinely seek them, discover what percentage of students
come forward. At the same time, saturate a community or
region to determine the number of internships available
among a given population. Include semester-long and academic-
year internships.
20
Encourage campuses to share the counselor's allowance
and agencies the intern's allowance.
Encourage universities, agencies, and consortia to
sponsor internship projects on their own, but tied
in with the RDIP for standards, consultations and,
where appropriate, funds.
Spread the word. Proceed with the conference being
planned for 1969. Invite a few representatives from
outside the domain of SREB. Make it a setting for the
strongest kind of endorsement possible for the RDIP
program and discuss future plans.
2]
and the
SOUTHERN REGIONAL EDUCATION BOARD
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT INTERNSHIP PROGRAM
By Donald J. Eberly
The Resource Development Project of the Southern
Regional Education Board offers internship appoint-
ments to a limited number of college upperclassmen
and graduate students who demonstrate an interest in
the processes of social and economic change. The
program is designed to provide service-learning ex-
periences for students through assignments to spe-
cific projects of developmental agencies, community
action programs, and to other local, state, or re-
gional organizations concerned with developmental
change.
Financial support is provided by public agencies
interested in economic development, resource devel-
opment, community action and related fields. They
include: Appalachian Regional Commission, Coastal
Plains Regional Commission, Economic Development
Administration, Office of Economic Opportunity and
Tennessee Valley Authority.
This report, prepared by Mr. Donald J. Eberly, Ex-
ecutive Director of the National Service Secretariat,
evaluates the SREB Resource Development Internship
Programs and recommends directions for future service-
learning activities.
SOUTHERN REGIONAL EDUCATION BOARD, Resource Development Project
IS0° Sixti= streets NoWes At tania, Georgia 50515
DIAKONIA PAIDEIA
AND THE
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT INTERNSHIP PROGRAMS
Donald J. Eberly
It is useless to try to report on SREB's Resource Development
Internship Programs (RDIP) in one dimension, albeit that is the
Traditional approach taken to problem solving. If we want a job
done, we hire someone to do it, |f we want someone to learn, we
teach him and thereby, the assumption goes, he learns. lf we want
To promote university-community relations, we establish a Committee
for the Promotion of Relations between the University and the
Community. But that kind of uni-dimensional approach just won't
work with the Internship Program. However, it is reassuring to
note that if we took a series of snapshots of the program along
different axes, we would see everyday occurrences. Looking along
one dimension, we would see a person doing a job; along another, a
person learning in the field of law or economics; along another, a
person experiencing life in a poverty area for the first time; along
still another dimension, a person deciding upon a career. And so on.
The list is a long one.
The beauty and strength of the RDIP is that all these things
can happen to the same person at the same time, for the internship
concept rejects the notion that learning can occur only at school
as firmly as it does the notion that a job is a job, and has no
business being examined against the writings of Plato, or Spinoza,
or Frost, or Keynes, or King.
Yet there seems to be no word or phrase that captures the
essence of this kind of service-learning program. On such
occasions, it has been helpful to borrow from ancient Greek, as
Norbert Wiener did in coming up the the word "cybernetics," to
try to symbolize the project. In this paper we use diakonia
and paideia, two Greek phrases that carry with them the con-
cepts of teaching and learning through activity, and of a style
of life geared to contributing to the welfare of others.
In our special shorthand,then, this paper is a report on
the diakonia piadeia concept as implemented and administered by
the RDIP. lt is based on the writer's interviews with several of
The interns, counselors, government officials and administrators,
his attendance at RDIP conferences in 1967 and 1968, his perusal
of confidential reports of program participants, and his deliberate
exposure to the diakonia piadeia concept for the past two decades.
Unfortunately, the medium in which this report is rendered
does not permit a simultaneous examination of all aspects of the
concept and the program, so it will look separately at three major
components: manpower for service, the learning aspect, and community-
university relationships. Then it will explore areas where all com-
ponents meet; namely, program balances and imbalances, funding, and
the future. The report assumes the kind of familiarity with the
program that can be obtained by reading The 1966 and |967 reports
of the RDIP.
Manpower for Service
A fundamental change that is occurring in the American concept
of work was emphasized by the interns in their application forms
and evaluation reports. According to their statements, only three
percent of the interns in (967 and 1968 sought internship appoint-
ments in order to get a job. The other 97 percent applied in
order to:
|. Relate academic theory to the real world
2. Contribute to developmental activities
3. Acquire research experience
4. Work with people
5. Help with career choice
Traditionally, a job is something obtained to enable a person
to make ends meet. One doesn't go to his job a minute early or re-
main a minute overtime without remuneration. It is something to be
scorned. One feels a sense of relief on Friday afternoon, and
Monday morning is blue. Economists can control the flow of man-
power into industries and services simply by regulating salaries
and wages, because employees automatically seek the highest level
of emoluments.
John Kenneth Galbraith punctured this picture of a job when
he noted, in The Affluent Society, that some middle-class college
graduates would prefer low-presstrre jobs in pleasant surroundings
to better-paying jobs that involve high tension and long commuting
time. It has been further punctured by some 25,000 Peace Corps
Volunteers--most of them college graduates--who have sometimes
chosen a primitive existence in a strange Jand at subsistent wages
over more "attractive" offers at home. And today it's being further
deflated by thousands of ministers who turn down suburban churches
for ghetto parishes, lawyers who choose legal aid help for the poor
over prestige law firms, and business graduates who are more interested
in a firm's social involvement than its corporate profits.
Most interns appear to have similar attitudes. They want a job
with meaning, where they can learn and serve and work with people.
The internship concept gives to government officials, private
employers and educators an opportunity to transform the classical
notion of a job into one that has the characteristics described
above. Today's youth is searching for meaning and relevance and
many have found that jobs can be structured to include these
attributes by assigning much of the drudgery to automation.
Many business and labor officials are actively concerned with
restructuring jobs so that the worker performs more effectively
and gains satisfaction from learning and serving. But there is
little evidence to suggest that the spirit which motivates such
officials is at all pervasive, or that it stems from |ittle more
than a reaction to demands and events. [+ should be clear from
recent upheavals on campuses and in major cities that more than
"reacting" is required. Imagination and initiative is needed
in the realm of transforming jobs into experiences with greater
meaning, relevance, and satisfaction for the worker. The intern-
ship program offers an ideal setting-.for such a transformation.
Interns are young. They possess the energy, imagination,
ideals and mobility of youth. Further, they serve only a short time
(12 weeks in the case of RDIP) which permits a wide array of experi-
ments with little risk of loss from those which fail. Also,
internships occur at the interface of the generation gap, and at a
point where the academic world and the world of work meet.
At the same time, the internship program is far from ethereal.
Real work is done--real services performed. lt was reported that
research done by a two-man intern team was the basis of a $500,000
grant to the agency where the interns were engaged. Another's re-
search contributed to passage of a new law in Tennessee which put
controls on loan sharks. We know that interns undergo real train-
ing and career development in the fields in which they serve. These
results can be seen in the intern's evaluation reports, in job offers
received from their summer employers, and in changes in educational
programs such as the shift of a law student's career from corpora-
tion law to poverty law.
With a firm foundation in manpower development and accomplish-
ment of useful services, the diakonia piadeia concept and the RDIP's
implementation of it gives today's leaders in business, government,
labor and education a model for the transformation of the classical
notion of a job into one that has meaning and relevance. It also
offers a constructive alternative to the confrontations taking place
across the nation: provides internship openings for all youth who
seek them and are willing to participate.
With the changing attitude toward jobs goes greater unpredicta-
bility about jobs. I It has recently been reported that |0 years ago
half of today's jobs for college graduates didn't exist. While we
can guess the future on the basis of extrapolation of current trends,
history suggests that more important criteria are scientific
discoveries and international events, neither of which yield ta
extrapolation. We cannot be very specific in attempting to define
jobs that will have to be performed in 1980,
Hence it is a disservice to students and to society To regard
the training element of any educational program as a uni-dimensional
assembly line operation. Rather, there must be several degrees of
freedom within the training process to enable the student to probe
and explore related areas of interest, and to do so on his own
initiative. RDIP interns seem to possess this freedom to a greater
degree than do thejr colleagues in other older intern programs.
The traditional, vocationally-oriented intern programs (e.g.,
medicine, education, public administration) were seen by conferees
at a recent RDIP Review Conference as over-programmed, offering too
little exposure to other fields, and giving the intern little chance
to free himself from feeling like a student. There seems to have
been very little mutual exploration between the RDIP organizers and
those who administer traditional internship programs. I+ would
appear that both groups could benefit from discussions and, perhaps,
cooperative programs.
Similar exploratory discussions should occur with leaders of
student-sponsored community service projects, which can be found on
most campuses. Typically, these are part-time programs, with no
academic credit given, with little academic consideration of what is
observed while serving, and with little feedback to the classroom.
Here again all parties could benefit from a mutual exploration of
interests and activities.
One vital, unanswered question in the manpower field is how
many jobs exist? This question should have high research priority
because of its implications for the eventual magnitude of intern-
ship programs. One or more small areas should be selected and
approaches made to all organizations where interns might be placed
to determine how many could be used and in what capacity. Both
summer and academic year interns should be considered. It is strongly
suggested that this survey be linked with a promise of interns for
agencies which want them and are qualified to receive them. Just
another survey would mean that some administrators would pull numbers
out of a hat or throw the surveyor out of the office in order to get
rid of a useless intrusion. To be done properly, there must be com-
munity backing, wide publicity, full explanation, a comprehensive
survey and, of course, interns and funding,
The Learning Dimension
It is well established that what is learned in an educational
setting may bear small resemblance to what is taught. An intern
spends very little time in a classroom but most of the summer,
whether he is on the job, at a counseling session, or in an intern
seminar, is spent in a learning environment. The same is true of
the other full-time participants, members of the SREB staff, and to
a lesser extent, of the part-time participants, the counselors,
supervisors and consultants. What, then, is learned?
Written reports and comments by all conference participants
emphasize these kinds of learning:
|. The participant learns interpersonal skills which
contribute to being an effective person, and discovers
his strengths and weaknesses in sensitive situations.
Z2. He learns the consequences of putting to the test his
ideas conceived in a theoretical or vicarious setting.
3. He learns how to identify a problem and bring appropriate
resources to bear on its solution.
4. He learns what moves people and what prevents movement.
5. He learns something about the totality of facts and
forces involved in resource development.
6. He learns strategies that can maximize service-learning
opportunities for himself and others.
7. He learns some of the characteristics of the cooperative
and competitive process and the strengths and weaknesses
of the two.
8. He learns that the actual accomplishment of something is
inevitably more complex and difficult than is studying,
planning, dreaming.
9. He learns how creative freedom and imaginative guidance
can be combined in enabling a person to accomplish things
and become a constructive force.
10. He learns of deficiencies in his regular academic work
and feeds back this information to his academic colleagues.
ll. He learns vital techniques in interviewing people, con-
ducting research, and writing reports.
12. More prosaically, he gains knowledge of the one or
several disciplines related to his assignment--knowledge
that was not in the textbooks or lectures.
Obviously there is overlap among the |I2 types of learning
described above. Perhaps they could be fully covered in three
statements. Perhaps 30 statements are needed to differentiate
sufficiently.
The critical question is what produces these learnings? Some
agency representatives and counselors participate in as many as seven
different internship programs, yet they consistently and independently
point to the RDIP program as having much the biggest "payoff."
What strikes the observer as the prime ingredient came through
most clearly in the dramatic presentation of a case study at the 1968
RDIP Review Conference. The lonely intern, surrounded by a supervisor
who was pushing him to complete an application for a federal grant,
a counselor from the university who was trying to pull him into producing
research data of interest to the counselor, and an attractive technical
representative who was trying to Iure him into an extended visit to
her agency, turned to the RDIP official and asked, "Who am |! responsible
to?"
"You are responsible fo yourself," came the reply.
In short, an intern is seen by the RDIP staff as an adult and
is treated in that manner. He is expected to give evidence of having
learned without resorting to a multiple-choice exercise or the rephrasing
of his counselor's pet theories. He is expected to seek outside aid
while seeing that it remains secondary to his main project.
Secondly, the RDIP insists on maintaining an even balance between
service and learning. This attitude frustrates the impatient official
and professor who think in only one dimension at a time. "What is
the real purpose," they demand, "to learn or to serve?" When the
answer "both" comes back, the inquirer is dumbfounded and may want
no more to do with the idea. Receptivity for the concept is more
likely to be found among those who have themselves experienced
service-learning and by those who commonly practice multi-dimensional
thinking.
Third, it's well managed. Interns show up at the appointed
time, stipends arrive on schedule, interns! reports are published
as promised. This aspect does not require a detailed analysis, but
must be included in a list of attributes because too many good con-
cepts have foundered in the sludge of technical incompetence and
mismanagement.
Fourth, the seminars and reports appear to be valuable learning
instruments. Several interns came to the seminars with problems they
thought were unique to themselves, but discovered they were common
to most of the other interns, and everyone benefitted from the en-
suing discussion. Both seminars and reports produce some tension in
interns because they must assume responsibility for something that
will be publicly assessed. On the whole, the tension so produced does
not seem inordinate; after the internships, some students look upon
Their responsibilities in the seminar or report writing as the most
valuable part of the internship.
Fifth, off-campus experience appears to be a crucial ingredient
of the internship program. On campus, even in a work situation, the
usual protective forces and pecking orders are at play. Off campus,
the intern encounters the real world, with its loneliness, its demands,
its unreasonableness, its rewards.
Academic credit for internships is certainly justifiable on the
basis of the above /I2 points. However, credit is not essential to the
learning process, although it may be helpful in some cases and perhaps
harmful in others. In 1968 about 40 of the 150 interns received credit,
although few expected it at the beginning of their program. While
the promise of academic credit might stimulate some interns to learn
more, it might constrain others from giving full reign to their ideas
in deference to doing what they think will produce the best grades.
10
Of course, academic credit, like a dollar bill, has no
intrinsic value. It is simply an arbitrary measuring device which
is convenient to many people and institutions. Learning went on
before academic credit was invented, and will continue after it is
discarded. But it exists, and must be considered. The way a
student regards academic credit might provide a clue to its proper
relationship to the internship program. The student who views credit
requirements as a series of undesirable hurdles to be gotten rid of
would benefit little from receiving credit because that attitude by
a student won't permit him to learn much as an intern. On the other
hand, the student who regards academic credit as accurately reflect-
ing the importance of a series of experiences appropriate to a person
of his age and background and interests will benefit from receiving
credit because it will be consistent with his outlook.
Apart from the intern himself, academic credit for internships
is a means of getting one's foot in the door of the academic establish-
ment. The program can be listed in fhe college catalogue and the
administration can decide that counseling five interns is The equiva-
lent of teaching a class of, say, 20 students. Thus, academic credit
for internships would give the program institutional backing as well as
higher esteem in the eyes of government officials and others who |ook
for evidence of institutional support as a major index of the merits
of a program. What has to be guarded against in this kind of situation
is a slackening of standards.
Unless more detailed studies reveal that academic credit for
internships leads systematically to a strengthening or weakening
of learning, it is probably the course of wisdom to continue the
practice of treating each case on its merits. At the same time,
RDIP officials should remain responsive to requests for help in
handling the issue of academic credit.
Two factors that one might assume to be crucial are not.
One, the nature or content of the intern's assignment is not
necessarily important. For example, a chemistry student conducted
a survey of county purchasing procedures and in so doing produced
a useful document for the agency. He came away feeling that he
had learned a great deal. Two, it's not necessarily important
whether the agency where the intern works is efficient or jin-
efficient, whether his supervisor is strong or weak. Each kind
of situation provides a setting for a learning experience, given
the interest of the intern and the support and quidance of the
counselor.
What is important in regard to the preceding paragraph-- and
this gets us back to the heart of the concept--is that the total
operation not be thought of as the addition of its parts, in which
a "good" agency is rated +2, a bad supervisor as -3, but as a process
that includes a multitude of inter-relationships. This holistic
perspective is held by members of the SREB staff and many others
involved in the internship program. An applicant for an intern
program need not have it, but many acquire it in the course of their
internship, as is evident from their reports.
"The university and public service" has been the subject of
a much publicized, on-and-off debate in recent months among such
men as Jacques Barzun, Clark Kerr, Alan Pifer and Mark Rudd. I+
is disappointing that the debates have emphasized the role of the
university in providing institutional support for presumably beneficial
12
programs, to the virtual exclusion of the importance of community
service by staff, faculty, and students jin the performance of its
teaching function.
Whether, how much, and how the university as an institution
should serve the community may be debatable issues. Whether the
university should be a seat of learning is not. The embarrassing
question for educators is how do you expect to prepare your students
to become competent in their fields, and more importantly, to become
effective and constructive citizens unless you arrange for them to
experience meaningful involvement in the real world and to reflect
upon this involvement in the company of your learned faculty?
William James tells us that reading and listening can enable us
to know about something but not to know it until we have experienced
it. For example, it has been reported that a full-year internship for
Ethiopian university students typically teaching in village schools
added nothing to the students! awareness of rural poverty and its
associated problems. But what did happen to the average intern was
that he moved from the level of awareness to the level of commitment
to do something about rural poverty. In the United States, the
problems of today and tomorrow can be identified through awareness,
but they cannot be solved without commitment.
For university leaders who consider knowing something to be
a higher form of learning than merely knowing about something, the
time has come to introduce internships of the RDIP type as an integral
part of the learning process.
The University and the Community
As with the awarding of academic credit, the fostering of
university-community relationships is almost impossible to institu-
tionalize from the outside. Clearly the thrust of RDIP interest is
\3
to move beyond the traditional town-grown kind of relationship common
to academic institutions into patterns of real participation. At one
university, businessmen and others in the community serve as visiting
lecturers and discussants and are listed in the catalogue. Much more
common is the practice of professors engaging themselves, sometimes
with pay and sometimes without, in community affairs. The RDIP is
another bridge between community and university over which mutual
participation can flourish.
At the RDIP Review Conference in the fall of 1968, most of the
discussion on university-community relationships centered around
strategies for expanding the RDIP type of internship program. Con-
ferees were unanimous in urging program expansion, but RDIP officials
cautioned that, as presently constituted, its ceiling has almost
been reached in terms of administrative capability.
lt was generally agreed that some kind of decentralization
was in order, but where responsibility should rest was a point of
major disagreement. The case for university administration was
espoused by those who saw the internships as primarily a learning
experience, and who believed that the learning dimension would
Wither away under auspices outside the university. Also, it was
suggested that university students be involved in program policy
and administration. One problem, of course, would be the locatian
of the program in the university. For example, one would envision
the type of program administered by the School of Public Health,
and quite another type by the School of Education.
Persons who argued for state sponsorship seemed to feel that
a state agency would maintain a better balance of interests between
|4
doing a job (many of the agencies where interns serve are state-
related) and learning. (Most interns serve in their respective
states so the states have a vested interest in them as human
resources.)
What is so clear is that the SREB-RDIP has the confidence of
all parties in the intern program and any new agency, wherever it
is based, will be suspect by one or more parties, perhaps to the
extent that it would never be able to get off the ground. Further,
any attempt to create an entirely new set of agencies would give
rise to in-fighting that could well defeat the program.
Given the magnitude of good will and breadth of support for
the program, SREB-RDIP will be delinquent in its responsibility to
the South, and to the nation, if it fails to continue to play a
central role in building the internship program. This can be
done in ways that do not necessarily mean a greatly expanded
administrative role for the RDIP. For example, the RDIP could
establish guidelines for internships, act as a conduit of funds
for programs, and evaluate programs. This kind of arrangement
would permit a variety of sponsors--a university here, a state
agency there--to evolve on the basis of merit and in the image
of the SREB-RDIP,
Another possibility would be for the RDIP to create or to
contract to a separate agency the bulk of administrative chores
which it presently carries. In this way, the RDIP could maintain
its present smal! staff who could concern themselves with keeping
on the right track a greatly expanded internship program.
|5
Balances and Imbalances
To return to the multi-dimensional view of the internship
program, if js obvious that a number of balancing acts must be
carried on simultaneously. Among these are:
|. A balance between elements of rigidity, e.g., the
writing of reports on schedule, and elements of
flexibility, e.g., scope for intern initiative
2. A balance between the intern's particular assignment
and exposure to new fields and situations
3. A balance between making suitable arrangements for
learning to occur, but not making things so easy.
that little or no learning will oceur
4. A balance between an intern's performing a useful
task and gaining knowledge and wisdom
5. A balance wheel to maintain a dynamic equilibrium
among the program objectives and among the sometimes
competing forces that come into play (Review Conference
participants felt that SREB-RDIP is just the right kind
of balance wheel)
Two important aspects of the internship program seem to be
seriously out of balance: the program is far too smal! in comparison
with the need for it and it appears to receive its money from sources
out of proportion to the returns. For reasons cited earlier, this
kind of internship is one that should be within reach of every
college and university student, all 6,000,000 of them. I+ should
not be restricted to one region of the country, nor to students who
just happen to hear about it. It is certainly not foreseen that
every student will want to participate in this program, for some
are in a position to set up their own internships and others will
prefer alternative uses of time. But no one should be excluded from
this kind of experience simply for lack of funds, information, job
16
openings, supervision, or counseling.
To try to analyze costs and benefits is difficult because of
several unknowns. We do not know, for example, what overhead costs
to assign to the participating university or host agency. We do not
know what dollar value to assign as the benefits of an internship
received by the federal or state government or by the university.
In spite of these unknowns, certain conclusions can be drawn
from what we do know, and from assumptions that seem reasonable.
Not every case yields a savings comparable to the two-man team
which, at a total cost of $5,000, completed an analysis and report
which the host agency had been prepared to contract out at a cost
of $51,000. But reports from supervisors and others give clear
evidence that the overwhelming majority of interns make a contribution
to the host agency at least equivalent to the stipend they receive
as interns. Only in a minority of internships does the host agency
even make a contribution to the stipend. The first conclusion, then,
is that full payment of the intern's stipend by the host agency is
economically justifiable.
We also know that the internship process generates a significant
amount of learning by the intern. This outcome is seen in the award-
ing of academic credit to interns, and in reports of the interns and
their advisors. While impossible to quantify exactly, it would seem
to be fairly comparable to what is learned in half a normal semester.
Judging by tuition charges at institutions receiving the
lowest amounts of public subsidies, the cost to the student of a half-
term's learning is at least $500. Hence, the second conclusion is
that the amount of relevant learning derived from the internship process
|7
justifies full payment of the university counselor's fee ($300) by
the university. CAlso, the university overhead appears to be at
least offset by the learning gained by the professor and benefits
gained by the institution, as a consequence of participation in the
internship program.)
Benefits to the several governments--federal, state and
local--are more general. The expectation is that interns will
select careers consistent with the needs of society, that they will
be better citizens and more productive members of the economy.
Whether or not these expectations materialize will not be known for
20 or more years. At this stage, it can be reported that the intern-
ship process is having the kind of effect on interns that they are
moving themselves in these directions. Here again, quantification
is impossible, but in comparison with the magnitude of public
support for classroom education, and considering the assumptions
upon which it is based, financial support for experiential education
of the RDIP variety certainly appears to be a better investment than
support for classroom education. The objective should be to achieve
a proper balance between classroom and experiential education which,
in financial terms, will be reached when the rates of return on
investment become equal.
In addition to the federal agencies supporting the RDIP, experi-
mentation with the diakonia paideia concept can be found in such
programs as the Peace Corps, College Work-Study Program, Neighborhood
Youth Corps, Job Corps, VISTA and Teacher Corps. This experimentation
should continue, and changes should be made where needed.
From where this observer stands, the RDIP offers a unique
experiment in the diakonia paideia concept and, as may be inferred
from foregoing observations, more advanced than other experiments
in several important respects. Hence, while a re-alignment of
financial support is appropriate, continued support from govern-
ment agencies is warranted during this experimental period.
As the internship program becomes institutionalized, it should
endeavor to alter its support pattern in three ways, as follows:
|. The university should cover the cost of fees for the
counselors and should assume a greater role in‘the
recruitment of interns, development of projects,
seminars and report writing.
2. the host agency should pay a share of the intern's
stipend that reflects the real worth of the intern
to the agency, but not so much as to make the agency
feel it can exert an employer's control over the in-
tern. Thus, the agency's contribution should always be
less than the salary or wage a regular employee would
receive for doing the intern's job. Using these cri-
teria, a typical agency could be expected to contribute
from 50 percent to 75 percent of the intern's allowance.
3. Government, at all three levels, should provide general
purpose support of sufficient magnitude to enable researchers
to determine the appropriate balance between classroom
education and experiential education for college and uni-
versity students.
In addition to altering the support pattern, SREB should look
for savings. Consider the team concept. A team of four interns could
have one basic task, one university counselor, and one technical
advisor, and write a single report, thereby reducing the number of
consultants by 75 percent,
Another saving in scale should result from more concentrated
recruitment and placement efforts. The administrative backstopping
for 100 interns from one campus or at one agency should be only a
19
fraction of the present administrative costs for one intern
multiplied by 100.
One important funding feature to retain is use of SREB as
a conduit of funds. Both the government agencies and the universities
much prefer dealing with one place having fiscal responsibility than
several. Of course, SREB does not want to become a large operating
agency, but there is really little problem here because the SREB-
RDIP could allocate funds just as foundations do. Project submissions
could be made to the SREB-RDIP for approval, payment and evaluation.
Much of the legwork now done by the RDIP staff could be assumed by
the institutions submitting the projects.
The Future
The inevitability of change is truer today than ever, for
changes occur more quickly than before. Yet the RDIP is in danger
of stagnation. As presently constituted and sponsored, the numeric
ceiling has been reached and, because of general program excellence,
qualitative changes can be expected to lead to incremental improve-
ment only.
Given this rather constraining situation, what should be the
future course of the RDIP? In reviewing the observations and sugges-
tions contained in this paper, the following activities should be
carefully considered:
|. Experiment with larger-scale programs. This academic year,
pursue aggressively the possibilities for larger programs
in North Carolina, Georgia, and Atlanta. Next year, concen-
trate on one or two campuses, guarantee internships to al!
who genuinely seek them, discover what percentage of students
come forward. At the same time, saturate a community or
region to determine the number of internships available
among a given population. Include semester-long and academic-
year internships.
20
Encourage campuses to share the counselor's allowance
and agencies the intern's allowance.
Encourage universities, agencies, and consortia to
sponsor internship projects on their own, but tied
in with the RDIP for standards, consultations and,
where appropriate, funds.
Spread the word. Proceed with the conference being
planned for 1969. Invite a few representatives from
outside the domain of SREB. Make it a setting for the
strongest kind of endorsement possible for the RDIP
program and discuss future plans.
2]