Internship Program – goals, methods, and evaluation.doc

CCI Internship - Goals and Evaluation The purpose of CCI’s Civil Rights Internship program is to enhance the disposition, knowledge, and skills of young activists and scholars who will be future leaders in the struggle against racism. At the end of their internship, they bring what they have learned from their experience at CCI back to their schools, work, and communities. The internship experience educates participants about the causes and effects of systemic racism, provides the interns with practical experience improving race relations through community organizing, strengthens their life commitment to racial justice, and motivates them to continue their education in preparation for careers in civil rights. The challenge in evaluations is to define what success looks like, then attempt to measure or otherwise capture that success. In our program, the interns themselves contribute to defining their own success. The meaning of success varies for each intern and is adjusted according to his or her input. Our challenge is to articulate the goals of the program and to develop indicators of success while leaving room for each individual to work within them. Evaluation Framework We strive to make the CCI internship experience both broad and deep. Our interns develop in three areas: disposition, knowledge, and skills. We think of these three areas as how we would like our interns to “be” (disposition), what we would like them to “know” (knowledge) and what we would like them to be able to “do” (skills). The following tables outline goals for each of the three areas. Included with each goal is a list of methods for achieving the goal, indicators of “success” and methods for evaluation. This framework is in development. We will pilot our evaluation methods with our 2005 interns, and solicit their feedback on how to modify our methods and tools for improvement. GOALS The CCI staff and current interns have collaborated to develop a list of goals for the internship program.