This spring, 48 Hamline students working unpaid internships will receive $2,500 each from the Pipers to Professionals program. The program hopes to fund all Hamline students participating in unpaid internships for the next three years.

Hamline announced on March 14 that the Pipers to Professionals program recently received $2.5 million from a combination of grants and donations.

 With support from MN Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Betty McCollum, Hamline received a $1 million appropriation from the US Department of Education. The rest of the funding comes from several donors. This semester, nine students will also receive an additional $700 from a WCA Foundation grant.

According to Dean of Students Patti Kersten, President Fayneese Miller spearheaded the effort.

“This is a great example of a program that really has been set up to truly support students,” Kersten said. “President Miller, staff around campus and our alums and donors have really been supportive and wanting to ensure that our students have that full experience so that when they finish their degree… that they are more than career ready.”

A March 14 news brief on the Hamline website detailed the funding and its potential to support students.

“Together, these funding streams support living wage stipends that will enable interns to free themselves from part-time jobs and other commitments to focus their time and effort on their responsibilities and learning,” the brief read.

With the help of grants from the Great Lakes Guarantee Education Corporation, Hamline helped fund unpaid internships from 2014 to 2018.

To graduate, Hamline students are currently required to complete a LEAP (liberal education as practice) credit, which can be fulfilled through research, specific courses or independent studies, student teaching or an internship. Many students choose to complete an internship, but on average, Kersten said, 50% of these are unpaid. According to the March 14 news brief, the number is closer to 63% in the past five years, where Hamline students have completed an average of 387 internships a year.

“Hamline is a place where people from all backgrounds come and discover what is possible for them,” President Miller said in the brief. “We will remove a significant obstacle students face when given the opportunity to pursue an internship that can unlock a pathway to personal success and a better future.”

Students looking for funding for summer or fall 2023 should register their internship with the Career Development Center (CDC), CDC Director Terry Middendorf said. CDC Assistant Program Director of Internships Molly Isaacson can meet with students over Handshake to ensure that registration of an unpaid internship is complete, which will automatically qualify the student for funding.

$2,000 will be available to students working unpaid internships this summer, and funding will be ongoing for the next three years.

“We are planning to have funding through our grants for the next three years and will continue to seek resources to extend that time frame,” Middendorf said. 

 Kersten has plans to develop and sustain the program. She hopes to use students’ stories with fundraising and would like to create an opportunity for supplementing underpaid internships. The CDC also recently posted a job opening for an Associate Director of Alumni and Employer Relations.

“Our goal is to continue to grow the fund so that we don’t have to stop in three years,” Kersten said. 

Fatima Menawa, a Hamline senior majoring in Political Science, is one of the 48 students receiving funding this semester. 

Menawa, who is interning at the Food Resource Center, is appreciative for the help of this funding.  

“I’m really grateful for the internship funding because especially as a student who commutes, transportation is a huge cost,” she said. “Often it cuts into my other life expenses as well because of all the things I do in addition to school and my internship. This amount would be a huge help and also would alleviate a lot of my financial stress.”

Funding for this spring’s round of students will be paid to their Workday accounts on March 31 or shortly after.

Initial Hamline news brief: https://www.hamline.edu/news/2023/03/pipers-professionals-receives-25-million-federal-donor-support