"Coop" Programs

What if we took the idea of community involvement and experiential learning to the next level and developed the equivalent of a "coop" program outside the realm of the engineering sciences where it is most typical?  It could be a way to grapple head on with the controversies around internships and free labor, over commitment to volunteer work during semester at a cost to academic studies, paying for school, etc.  There could be a degree built around something like a semester on semester off with, say, half credit for the semester off (it would be in an internship/coop placement) so that the total time to degree remained attractive.  Partner organizations might find it attractive enough to be willing to go beyond the unpaid "afterschool" intern approach since they'd be getting a full time worker.  If there were a critical mass of participants we could field a guidance/reflection/etc. seminar or some such that would allow the interns the benefit of an academic coach/advisor, etc.  There could be networking opportunities among the organizations that accepted our coop interns -- Mills as bridging social capital.

The general framework could be developed in a manner that permitted it to be adapted for use in technical fields as well as non-technical fields.  Our switching to semester hours could loosen up the structure in a manner that yielded some of the scheduling flexibility that might be needed to make this work.