C.W. Post Campus Wins $75,000 National
School-to-Work Grant
University will partner with Westbury High School in work-based
learning experience
Beginning in January 2000, students at Westbury High School
will participate in a new work-based learning program with the
nationally recognized Professional Experience and Placement Office
at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University in Brookville.
The program is made possible by a $75,000 grant from the Oak
Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) and the National
School-to-Work Office. C.W. Post - which is one of only five
universities in the country to win this award - was chosen as
a recipient based on its demonstrated success in career development,
placement and counseling.
The program will bring Westbury students to neighboring C.W.
Post for career workshops, career fairs and career mentoring.
They'll participate in internships, cooperative education opportunities
and job-shadowing sessions, as well as sit in on college classes.
Along with their parents, they will also receive guidance on
the financial aid process and picking a college major. Westbury
High School teachers will work with C.W. Post professors to develop
a curriculum that will better prepare the students for college
and work.
"This program shows high school students the kind of
skills they need to be successful in both educational and work
arenas," said Jeanette Grill, director of Professional Experience
and Placement (PEP) at C.W. Post.
"The main thrust of this program is to get high school
students more involved in the educational cycle so they successfully
graduate high school and possibly go on to college," said
Dr. Jeff Lennox, C.W. Post's project coordinator. "We are
exposing the students to college and the work world. They're
learning important lessons in the process. They're learning that
they must arrive at work on time and that the people who move
up in companies are the people who have degrees and good work
skills."
Dr. Lennox points out that many of the students at Westbury
High School are the first in their families to attend high school
-- let alone college. He thinks the grant will put higher education
within students' reach by showing them how others have attained
similar goals. Students will be encouraged to pursue a degree
in the most feasible way possible: by studying full-time, working
while attending school or returning to school after working for
several years.
The C.W. Post Cooperative Education program, which integrates
classroom learning with paid internship programs, dates back
to the 1970s. Redefined in the early 1990s under the counseling
and experiential learning component of the Long Island University
Plan of education, the program has won numerous national awards
for its internships, career counseling and on-campus recruiting
efforts. Most recently, C.W. Post's Cooperative Education Honor
Society won the 1999 Kappa Theta Epsilon National Chapter of
the Year Award, and one of its students won the 1999 New York
State Cooperative and Experiential Education Association (NYSCEEA)
Student of the Year Award.
For more information about the ORISE award, contact Jeanette
Grill at (516) 299-2435 or via e-mail at Jeanette.Grill@liu.edu.
