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Co-op Faculty Handbook

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Co-op positions

Co-op positions are to be professionally-oriented, paid positions related to a student’s career interests. Students need to receive training and supervision by an employing organization. Students need to be considered an employee of that organization (at least on a temporary or part-time basis).

Learning agreements

Every student will be completing a co-op learning agreement for each semester of credit. This document is where a department can indicate approval of site, course assignments, and credit hour allocation.

Student course assignments

The process by which you (the faculty supervisor) determines the number of credits that a student may register should entail some form of communications between the faculty supervisor and the student who is looking to participate in the co-op program.  The issues discussed in said conversation should include the relevancy of his/her job duties as they relate to the academic area in which the student is seeking to do the co-op; the type of faculty-assigned deliverables such as a log, journal portfolio or report, and the total number of hours that the student might work at the co-op site over the course of the assigned semester.  The participating student should be given an opportunity to support the relevancy of their co-op opportunity in an effort to justify their request to register for any certain number of available credits within a specific academic area.  A student is typically eligible to earn one credit for every 50 hours worked; however, this ratio is used as only a guide, as long as the other aforementioned factors are approved.  The Faculty Supervisor may vary the numbers of working hours needed to earn credit as well as assigning a combination of deliverable task.  This policy is defined in Section VI of Shepherd University’s definition of a credit hour found in the University’s catalog.