The new Presidential Fellows internship at Calvin looks to provide an outside the classroom learning experience to students interested in leadership.

The Associate Dean of Campus Involvement and Leadership, JB Britton, describes the internship as, “an executive leadership program. It involves five students who have internships with executives on Calvin’s leadership team. Each Vice President that has an intern, defines that experience for them.”  

The executive leaders include Britton himself, President Michael Le Roy, Vice President of Student Life Sarah Visser, Associate Vice President for IT and Chief Information Officer Brian Paige, and Executive Associate to the President for Diversity and Inclusion Michelle Loyd-Paige.  

Britton describes the program in three parts. The first being the individual experience with the mentor, the second being leadership development and the third being a semester-long project. He describes the third part as, “a project that the five students will work on together to help improve some aspect of Calvin College.”  

When asked where the idea for the program came from, Britton explained that it was Le Roy who wanted to get it started. Le Roy stated, “we were at Elon University and they had a program similar to this and I’d heard of a couple other schools that have programs like this.” He continued, “we wanted to provide good, professional experience and we wanted students to have a special experience that they can put on their resume and develop a relationship with their mentor.”  

Le Roy commissioned Britton to research how such a program would look at Calvin last fall, which was a process that involved the cabinet members as well. With 20 applicants, Presidential Fellow Colin Swaim describes the interview process as extremely intense. The four stage process consisted of application submissions, individual interviews, group interviews and final interviews for the remaining candidates in groups of four. Swaim said, “It was intense, but they got it done in a week and a half.”

The most prominent parts of the internship are the chances to develop relationships between students and executives as well as developing strong leadership skills. Presidential Fellow Laura Harjanto loves being able to bridge the gap between students and executives and cultivate those relationships. Presidential Fellow Debora Haede emphasized the mentorship and leadership side of the internship saying, “I am excited to learn more about managing big responsibilities and work on my personal development under my VP’s leadership and mentorship.”   

On Wednesday Sept. 18, President Le Roy and the five fellows will be going to Lansing for a lobbying day. All the presidents of Michigan colleges and universities will be speaking with legislators about student aid throughout the state. “There’s a shadowing part of it where they get exposure to what we do,” said President Le Roy. A great step in providing an outside the classroom experience with high end individuals.