National College Credit Recommendation Service (National CCRS)
Formerly National PONSI
Education Building Addition, Room 1069
89 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York 12234
(518) 486-2070 / Fax: (518) 486-1853
E-Mail: NCCRS@Mail.NYSED.gov
www.nationalccrs.org

July 27, 2007

Kathleen W. McCarty
Director
NYS Assembly Intern Committee
Legislative Office Building
Room 104A
Albany, New York 12248

Dear Ms. McCarty:

This is the report on the June 19, 2007 site visit to re-evaluate the Assembly Intern Committee/Session Internship offered by the New York State Assembly Intern Committee. This learning experience was evaluated by the National Program on Noncollegiate Sponsored Instruction for the purpose of reassessing its comparability to college-level instruction as part of the scheduled five-year review cycle. The evaluation resulted in the confirmation of a continuing college credit recommendation for this Program.

The enclosed copy of your section from our online Directory, CCR Online, reflects revisions that were submitted by your organization to National PONSI and subsequently posted. Please take a moment to review it once again to ensure that we have captured the changes. Copies of this report and enclosure are also being sent to the members of the evaluation team for their review.

The following program was reviewed during our site visit:

Assembly Intern Committee/Session Internship

The subject matter experts who served on the evaluation team were:

The team's comments follow.

General Comments and Impressions - The members of the review team continue to be very impressed with the overall Session Internship Program. The Program is well-designed, integrates the experiential component very nicely with the academic requirements and by all indications, continues to be an exceptional learning experience for participants. Providing the opportunity to learn through supervised work and a structured academic component, this quality program has continued strongly for more than thirty years. It was interesting to hear that your view of the long-term success has not been achieved by increasing the number of interns, although more than 150 attend each year; rather the emphasis is to grow the Program competitively and qualitatively.

The Professors-in-Residence are senior faculty at their own institutions and bring distinction and credibility to all aspects of the Program. We were grateful for the time they took to be with us and found them passionate about their work and eager to share their ideas for the future. Having their presence during the review session honored the work that they do, that you do, and that we do on behalf of the interns.

The team found the instructional materials and student work exceptionally well documented in every aspect, which is helpful for National PONSI purposes and for communicating effectively with your multiple audiences - students, supervisors and college liaisons.

We were very interested to hear about your plans to develop an alumni network. We discussed that an oral history with photos and audio, perhaps titled Voices of an Intern, with a display, kiosk or computer station, would enhance the appreciation of the Internship's rich history for students and interested visitors.

A new component to the Program since our last visit, which the team supports, is the addition of a graduate assistant, who complements the staff and Professors-in-Residence as an additional coach and role model. Further, the team was reminded of how important the awards night is for recognizing the interns' achievements and was impressed that the Program now publishes the best intern reports.

Experiential - The team believes you are taking the necessary steps to make certain that participants are placed in a suitable and worthwhile semester-long administrative position as part of an Assembly member's office staff. Regarded as Assembly employees, the students are engaged in tasks which allow them to gain firsthand knowledge of the legislative process. Proper placement of students, based upon common interest, is significant considering that 50% of the final grade is dependent on a successful evaluation by supervisors. In reviewing the actual completed evaluations, the team noted that the forms were filled out in depth and contained many productive comments.

You view the work/learning contract as a symbiotic experience, filled out mutually between the intern and supervisor, which imbues a powerful connection between the two individuals.

• The only suggestion the team made was to include a bit more labeling to distinguish who is filling out which item on the contract.

Academic - Beginning with the week-long orientation, and moving on through all the written material disseminated, the weekly Forum, the reading and writing assignments, the weekly quizzes and the extended research paper, the team found a suitable balance between lecture and discussion activities. The list of speakers, which is impressive, dovetails well with what is being taught that week. Overall, the academic requirements are very rigorous and expectations of the students are high.

Since National PONSI's last review, you explained that the course has been slightly modified. The two Professors-in-Residence now work collaboratively, utilizing the same syllabus and quizzes, which allows for greater flexibility. While each Professor is assigned their own students and a specified meeting time, several times throughout the semester the students are brought together for a joint session where the Professors-in-Residence co-teach. There is an assignment due each week in class and with the integration of current affairs, there is a stated expectation that students will be regularly reading newspapers, such as the New York Times. Students must submit a proposed topic for their research paper and there is much integration between the mock session, the internship and the research paper itself. These modifications have been helpful in fine-tuning an already excellent program.

For some assignments, interns must sit down with their Assembly Member, which the Professors-in-Residence believe, and the team concurs, validates both components of the overall experience.

The comments provided by the Professors-in-Residence on each graded assignment were insightful and constructive and the team found their grading to be balanced.

You have an enviable relationship with the University at Albany's bookstore, which has set up a traveling bookstore downtown to sell their texts to students. With respect to other readings, we discussed potential copyright issues and the Professors-in-Residence advised that the use of the readings was for educational purposes, the readings were not being sold and represented only a percentage of the text, all permissible under copyright laws.

The following issues were discussed:

• The team felt it was a good idea pedagogically to change the format of the weekly quizzes by adding multiple choice, short answer and essay questions, and minimizing, if not removing, the true/false items, unless these items allow students to expand upon their responses, particularly if they choose False as a response.

• The cited works within the research paper should reflect more research-based, peer reviewed articles to ground it in a more academic way to the student's topic.

• The learning objectives contained in the syllabus are fine and appropriate. We discussed the use of student-centered behavioral learning objectives that emphasize the take-away skills or what an intern will be able to do upon completion of the Program. Since then, the Professors-in-Residence have tweaked the learning objectives and you submitted changes, which have been posted in our online Directory.

Standards for the Program - An employee handbook is provided to interns, which covers all the attendant issues that may present themselves during the semester. Among the usual strict prohibitions, there is also a zero tolerance for sexual harassment, fraternization with Assembly Members, and alcohol at any meeting or social event. There is a due process policy in place for all grievances. Further, college liaisons are provided with their own handbook and are kept apprised on the progress of each of their interns at the mid-point and end of term.

Attendance is required and is taken at every session and issue forum, setting the right tone and conveying a seriousness of purpose about the entire semester's work.

In addition, the students are now asked to evaluate the faculty, which is yet another way to receive feedback and inform future policy.

This concludes the report. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the gracious hospitality extended to the evaluators and us during the visit. We all agreed that it was a very productive two-way conversation to exchange ideas and seek even small ways to refine an already robust learning experience. The positive reception to the team's comments has been very much appreciated. It was our pleasure to serve the New York State Assembly Intern Committee and to continue to bring the benefit of college credit recommendations to your interns.

Sincerely,

Diane Conroy-LaCivita
Assistant Director

Sheila A. Morroni
Director

Click here to view a copy of the letter in pdf format.