UBalt’s newest initiative defines the next generation of internships for students and employers.
BY MATTHEW LIPTAK
A year ago, Dr. Ann Cotten, B.S. ’85, M.S. ’86, CERT ’92, D.P.A. ’03, director of The University of Baltimore’s Schaefer Center for Public Policy, and Dr. Roger Hartley, dean of the College of Public Affairs, co-authored an opinion piece for The Baltimore Sun addressing the “solvable problem” of unpaid internships and unveiled the University’s ambitious and sweeping solution.
Now entering its second year, the NextGen Leaders for Public Service program gives undergraduate and graduate students from all majors at UBalt the opportunity to explore a career in public service. The program comprises a variety of academic and co-curricular initiatives, but NextGen’s unique paid internship opportunities are the cornerstone.
In their op-ed, Cotten and Hartley acknowledged that “for predominantly minority schools like ours, the unpaid internship is a critical barrier to entry to employment, as well as a lost opportunity for employers to diversify their workplace,” and asked, “Is there a better way to do two important things at once—improve services and have those services delivered by qualified employees who started as students in need of an opportunity?”