ODU internship boost preps students for future

As a creative writing major at Old Dominion University, Kayla Boney says she knows jobs in her field after graduation may be “one in a million.”

However, an internship with Teens with a Purpose, a Norfolk-based youth creative arts nonprofit, showed Boney, a 20-year-old rising junior, that her pursuits in the humanities, while challenging, can result in meaningful — and paid — work.

Boney, a Norfolk native and an aspiring screenwriter, volunteered with the organization while attending high school. But it was through an on-campus encounter with representatives from ODU’s Monarch Humanities Internship Academy, part of the university’s Monarch Internships and Co-Op Office founded in 2023, that she learned she could be paid and also earn academic credits to intern there.

President Brian Hemphill, who has led ODU since 2021, says the idea to launch an office solely dedicated to connecting students to internships or other work-based learning opportunities came from conversations with business leaders in the community during his first year on the job.

“I would come back to campus and have that realization … [that] we don’t have the infrastructure right now as it stands,” he says. “We didn’t have the infrastructure to spin up quickly and address some of those concerns and needs that they have, and that’s why we launched this particular operation and made the investment.”

Boney is one of about 2,500 students that ODU has tracked through its Monarch Internships and Co-op Office. Launched in 2023, the office is building on an ODU goal to have each of its approximate 24,000 students, including more than 17,000 undergraduates, complete one internship, work-based learning program or co-op experience by 2027.

“Employers, students, faculty, they realize that when you host an intern during their degree program, then you’ve got first shot at great talent,” says Barbara Blake, who has led ODU’s internships office since its inception.

Hemphill says ODU’s internships office is the first of its kind in the state, and the university has convened two meetings with business and industry leaders and faculty stakeholders, including one that drew Gov. Glenn Youngkin as a speaker, as it looks to address gaps in industries including health care, engineering, data sciences and more.

Meanwhile, the president has been busy integrating the formerly independent Eastern Virginia Medical School under the university’s new Macon and Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences umbrella.

Following the 2024 merger, the Brock hub includes five schools and colleges, comprising more than 50 academic majors, to form the largest health sciences program in the state.

In April, ODU broke ground on a $184 million biological sciences building, which includes labs, a 120-seat lecture hall, an orchid conservatory, classrooms and other facilities and represents the university’s largest capital construction project to date. It’s expected to be completed in spring 2028.

Positioned for success

Since launching the internships office, Blake has led a team of faculty to build a central database launched this fall to track internships university-wide.

While the goal of the office is to help students land an internship or experience that can lead to valuable full-time employment after graduation, it is also emerging as an important economic development tool for Hampton Roads, a region that is already working hard to attract and retain top talent. Blake says her office has worked with at least 700 businesses — from Fortune 500 corporations to mom-and-pop operations — to build a “one-stop shop” to link interns with employers, including helping some employers that don’t have money to pay an intern to find grants to do so.

In the old days, interns often worked for free, and that served as a gatekeeper for less affluent students who needed summer and after-school jobs to make ends meet. To help students get experience in their fields, no matter their financial background, ODU and many other universities have applied for and won funding to subsidize paid internships with participating workplaces.

In 2024, The Mellon Foundation announced a $5 million grant for ODU to develop the Monarch Humanities Internship Academy, which will place 750 humanities students in internships over five years, including providing stipends for interns.

The office also has also partnered with the Hampton Roads Workforce Council to build an apprenticeship pipeline around maritime logistics and supply chain, cybersecurity and K-12 education.

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia also awarded ODU a two-year $100,000 grant to pilot the Federal Work-Study Internship Program, which started last fall.

Paid internships in Hampton Roads range from about $14 to $24 an hour, with some interns with engineering backgrounds making up to $28 an hour, Blake says, and some employers may have simultaneous needs, including for interns with engineering, accounting and technical writing backgrounds.

“How do I have those needs met?” Blake asks. “They can come to us. We write up the prospectus. We draw in the faculty. We work on the student placement end, and that has been the most exciting work, because the employers absolutely love it.”