Internship Criteria

Internships should combine a service-learning experience with personal growth. The concept of service learning implies an obligation to contribute to the welfare, development, and fulfillment of other human beings. Engagement in a service task should be the predominant part of a DPCS internship; any study, research, training, or exploration components should play a much less prominent role in the overall project.
Interns should devote approximately 80% of their time to direct community service, defined as work in which volunteers engage personally with those or with that being served, providing the labor that fills an identified community need. Examples of direct service include teaching, youth programming, work with the elderly, construction work, medical work that involves direct engagement with patients, hands on environmental work, and community organizing. Activities such as research, shadowing, public policy, office support, fundraising, and event planning may be part of an internship, but are not considered direct service, and must not constitute more than 20% of the proposed internship.
The Tucker Foundation prefers placements, which have implicit in them exploration of personal or social values, or of moral concerns. We strongly encourage students to seek the challenge of unaccustomed environments and situations for their work.

Internship placements must involve 35-40 hours of work per week and should have a duration similar to that of a Dartmouth term. Ten-week placements are preferred; eight week placements are minimum.
Internship placements may be undertaken in any community of the United States, including the intern’s hometown or the Upper Valley.
For each intern, a supervisor must be identified, and a CSO Supervisor’s Statement of Agreement must be signed by that supervisor and returned to us by the application deadline.
Students must be willing to share their internship experiences with the Dartmouth community, usually through small group presentations, writing articles for The Dartmouth, or by making their reflection papers available for others to read.
All interns are matched with a Dartmouth alumna/us or a spouse mentor by the Dartmouth Partners in Community Service Board.

Agencies or communities within which a candidate proposes to work should in most cases afford opportunity for the intern to experience direct involvement (typically for 80% of the intern's time) with the group of people being served.
Advocacy agency internships must provide interns with direct-service experience through contact and action with people and/or the issue. School or camp placements must involve student groups assessed to be specifically disadvantaged or challenged in some way. Research-based projects, which do not involve direct contact, are not allowed.
Candidates should have a clear idea of how they fit into the work and mission of the agency or community that they have selected to serve.
It is preferable that the agency be small and manageable, or that within a larger agency, the candidate’s prospective placement area be small.
Agencies must be non-profit and politically non-partisan. By federal law, lobbying projects are excluded from our funding.