Washington College Magazine
Old Dogs, New Tricks
By Professor Terry Scout
Terry Scout is the Connie and Carl Ferris Associate Professor of Business Management.
Why should students have all the fun? Professors can benefit from internships, too. The Washington Institute offered one veteran faculty member a shot at working 9 to 5.
Last fall I could look out my apartment window and watch the monkeys at the National Zoo. This year am back in Chestertown where look out my office window and watch the administrators in Bunting. You can draw your own comparisons. Those administrators decide my salary.
Why was in the nation's capital? Because was the world's oldest intern. I am 60 years old. I've been a faculty member at Washington College since 1984. I'm an intern? Why not?
I have always encouraged my students to apply their classroom academics to real-life experiences. Internships are what it's all about. distinguish one job applicant from another, or one career path from another. Internships are great learning experiences.
When I heard about a program that placed faculty members in discipline-related positions with organizations in Washington, DC, I applied.
Like my students, I wrote essays explaining what hoped to learn, skills had (or thought I had) that would be useful in an internship setting, why an internship would be beneficial to me, and in what area I would like to intern. I had to submit a vita and a brief biography. I had to solicit letters of recommendation. Remember I wasn't working for food; was going to work for free.
As P.T. Barnum is alleged to have said, there's one born every minute. I received a letter of acceptance. Would some organization be as foolish?
After exchanging letters and phone calls, I reached an understanding with the Manufacturing Institute (MI), the research and education arm of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). For 15 weeks, I would be a Faculty Fellow in their office at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue.
My primary responsibility, and the most important thing I did, was to help organize the Innovations/Competitiveness Summit. There is concern among businesses in general, and manufacturers specifically, that the United States is losing the innovations race.
Compared to other countries, we are producing significantly fewer scientists, mathematicians and engineers. Low-skilled manufacturing jobs have all but disappeared, but American businesses are facing a shortage of high-skilled personnel. To increase awareness of this problem, several business groups, including the NAM, brought to Washington the CEOs of large and small businesses, university presidents, cabinet secretaries and congressional committee chairs to face each other. The Summit was a rousing success.
American students often think that all manufacturing jobs have gone overseas and that science and math are too challenging. To remedy that misperception, the MI dreamed up the "Dream It, Do It" educational campaign, designed to persuade high school students to consider manufacturing as a career and to take the necessary science and math courses for those careers. I was an advisor for that campaign.
Every other year, the MI publishes a Fact Book compiling everything you want to know about manufacturing. For the current edition, I wrote most of the captions that interpret the graphs, the introductory material for three of the four sections, and several sidebars featuring real companies as examples to illustrate the graphs. I also reviewed almost every publication and report that the MI published during my time there.
Wednesdays were my "play days." Rather than go to the office, I visited other organizations and people of interest to me in the area. I spent a day at the Mexican Embassy talking about trade, and a day at the Dutch talking about the European business climate. I talked with folks in the Department of Education about standards and how American students compare internationally. I spent several Wednesdays at the Association of Colleges and Universities. I learned more about free trade at the International Trade Administration. Wednesdays were great.
In my free time, I saw productions at a dozen theatres, and visited every museum in Washington.
Being the world's oldest living intern was terrific! I just hope live long enough to do it all over again.
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