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Presidential Internship Program

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SUNY Canton President, Dr. Zvi Szafran, has secured funding for students to receive $1,000 each for a paid credit-bearing or non-credit internships. This program will be continued for Summer 2024 and Fall 2024.

Students will be required to complete an application in Handshake.

Presidential Internship Application

Internship Requirements for On-Campus Employers

The internship will be paid, does not have to be credit-bearing, and must fulfill the following career competencies. These four competencies have been rated in NACE’s Top Four by Employers:

  • Critical Thinking/Problem Solving: Exercise sound reasoning to analyze issues, make decisions, and overcome problems. The individual can obtain, interpret, and use knowledge, facts, and data in this process, and may demonstrate originality and inventiveness.
  • Professionalism/Work Ethic: Demonstrate personal accountability and effective work habits, (e.g., punctuality, working productively with others), and time workload management, and understand the impact of non-verbal communication on professional work image. The individual demonstrates integrity and ethical behavior, acts responsibly with the interests of the larger community in mind, and learns from their mistakes.
  • Teamwork/Collaboration: Build collaborative relationships with colleagues and customers representing diverse cultures, races, ages, genders, religions, lifestyles, and viewpoints. The individual can work within a team structure and can negotiate and manage conflict.
  • Oral/Written Communications: Articulate thoughts and ideas clearly and effectively in written and oral forms to persons inside and outside of the organization. The individual has public speaking skills; can express ideas to others; and can write/edit memos, letters, and complex technical reports clearly and effectively.

On average students will be working 10-12 hours a week for a 10-12 week period. All internships will receive a stipend amount of $1,000.

Supervisor's Responsibilities to Interns:

  1. Submit the internship request application/job description to Career Services – Please draft a job description that will include the above competencies. See the example below.
  2. The Presidential Internship Search Committee will review the job description and screen potential candidates.
  3. Supervisors will then review student application documents and interview candidates.
  4. Supervisors will determine hiring status and communicate decisions to the Search Committee, as well as the selected candidate.
  5. The Presidential Internship Committee will provide hiring paperwork to the student with guidance on how to complete and return it for payment.
  6. The Presidential Internship Committee will provide a supervisor orientation/training session. Supervisors will agree to provide necessary training to their intern (or interns).
  7. Interns will be required to submit weekly work logs to Supervisors in order to document their work.
  8. Supervisors will be required to do a 6-week performance review and a final performance review and report with the intern.

Sample Presidential Internship Job Description

SUNY Canton Virtual Clothing Fair Internship (seeking 2 interns)

Career Services is looking for interns who can facilitate the Fall Virtual Clothing Fair. Duties will include:

  • Photograph clothing and accessories
  • Write product descriptions
  • Assign tracking and inventory controls
  • Store products
  • Upload excel database with photographs to Shopify website
  • Pull orders and coordinate drop offs
  • Communicate with customers when order is ready for pick
  • Ship purchases to online students and collaborate with the Campus Mail Room

Supervisor: Ready Center Staff and Shelly Thompson

Actions that meet the Four Career Competencies

  1. Critical Thinking/Problem Solving
    • Establishing and following a system to process clothing/accessories - photographing, obtaining descriptions, inventory control, upload to website, retrieval of selected items, and distribution.
  2. Professionalism/Work Ethic
    • Interaction with professional staff (Ready Center) and donors. Intern will be the face of SUNY Canton to all clothing and accessory donors.
    • Work ethic will be evaluated and if this is a successful internship, interns will be offered a supervisor position for the Spring Clothing Fair and will have the opportunity to train new student workers and act as their supervisor.
  3. Teamwork/Collaboration
    • Interns will work collaboratively with each other and work-study students as well as professional staff to meet the deadlines for operating the clothing fair.
  4. Oral/Written Communications
    • Interns will be required to draft and send emails to customers when items are ready for pick up
    • Interns will write product descriptions.
    • Interns will have to communicate with other shift staff as to where they left off in the interning process

Recruitment of Interns

  1. The SUNY Canton Presidential Internship listing of approved internships will be posted in Handshake for student recruitment. Supervisors will be able to review applications through this portal.
  2. Application to include: Statement and description of why they have a financial need.