EmpowerED Career Connections Program for High School Students

A discussion about the EmpowerED program for Career Connections at the Alvernia University O'Pake Institute for Economic Development and Entrepreneurship with John Dever, Assistant Director for Student Experiential Learning, and Kaitlyn Long, Director of Technology Transfer & Innovation Commercialization.

With host Terri Hill from the Berks Business Education Coalition.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

My name is Terry Hill. I'm the Executive Director of the Burks Business Education Coalition, and I am very grateful for you tuning in to another one of our podcasts. Today we are featuring one of our partners in the higher education space, and they have developed a program that actually touches and allows high school students to gain some real world experience. And I'm really excited today to have John and Caitlin here from Alvernia's Opaque Institute. I would like you each to introduce yourself. I don't know who you want. Do you want ladies first? Sure. Okay, ladies first. And then just share quickly your journey to your uh current um position.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Wonderful. Thank you, Terry. Thanks for having us. So excited to be here. So again, my name is Caitlin Long, and I serve as the Director of Technology Transfer and Innovation Commercialization at Alvernia University's OPACE Institute for Economic Development and Entrepreneurship. All of that a very long way of saying we help to bring ideas to market. So in my role, I get to work with students who work alongside local businesses to help them vet those ideas, do even intellectual property analyses, prototyping, and getting those things out so that people can actually use those great products and services. So it's a ton of fun. My journey is definitely a unique one. I started out in clinical medicine, so physician associate or physician assistant, formerly known. And I was working in critical care actually during the pandemic and started to think about what do I want to do next and how do I really want to use my talents and maybe you know do that next chapter. So I actually went back to school for my PhD and leadership here at Alvernia, and they had an opening at the OPAC Institute and met all the staff and just fell in love with what they were doing. So I started out as a graduate assistant and never looked back. So just really got immersed in this world of science, technology, uh, where it intersects with law and business, and just found a new niche for my skill set and kept running with it.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

That is really fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. And I know one of the specialties or things that you focus on is biomedicine and a lot of that integration, and it sounds like it's a really neat uh intersection of what you do. So thank you, Caitlin. And then John. Now we may have to take a pause, you might have to take a drink or you know, but John's story is a little bit longer. Go ahead, John. Introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Thank you, Terry. I appreciate it. Um my name is John Dever, and I am the assistant director of student experiential learning for the OPACE Institute. And uh, yeah, I have a little bit of a long story, but um good. And I think uh, you know, I started off uh in actually working in a laboratory, you know, as because I was a chemistry major and ended up uh taking that uh laboratory experience and uh saying one too many times that our sales force didn't know enough about the product to sell it, and they said, well, go right ahead and you do it. So I ended up uh spending a lot of time in sales, but then also had the opportunity to expand into operations and finance and that sort of thing. And um really had the great opportunity to join a company locally as a president, and we had a great run for almost 15 years, and uh it was a men's apparel company, and it was a wonderful opportunity, and it was a great learning experience. And then um moved on to another presidential job for another company that was into uh uh another industry. But uh simultaneously I was working as a consultant and we were focusing on strategic planning and uh something called total quality management, which automatically dates me by saying TQM. And uh But I know it, John.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

I'm just telling you. I'm just saying I know it.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Terry, I know you were doing it. Uh but really um uh all of the experiences I've had uh and had been, you know, I've had great fortune to be able to have, have all been around learning from what you were doing. And uh so s experienti is a big part of who I am and what drives me. So when we talk about uh getting into the Empower Ed program, which I'll hand it back to you and we can kind of take a look at that, it's all about student experiential learning. And it is such a rewarding thing to be around that, that uh uh I'm I'm I'm excited to talk more about it.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Well, I I am so excited because I think most people, when they hear Alvernia, as they should, right, and especially the opaque institute, uh they think of higher ed, they don't necessarily think of the high school. So, first of all, can you talk about the evolution and the introduction of Empower Ed and how that became part of the OPACE initiative?

SPEAKER_02 5:02

I'll start off by saying, you know, if someone says, well, you know, what is the opaque institute? And you you want to start with, you know, what's our mission? You know, and our mission is we're a catalyst for regional economic development and a driver for student experiential learning. And that really does encapsulate what we're all about. I mean, it's it's uh in order to understand the Empower Ed program, you have to kind of understand what the Opaque Institute is all about. And it is a student-driven engine, for lack of a better term. And what we really do at the OPACE Institute is that um we uh we we entertain about 35 new enrollees from the undergrad uh environment every year. So when they come into the opaque institute, um, they go through a rigorous uh interviewing process. There are some pretty tough criteria, you know, in terms of GPA coming in, but we really look for not only the grades, but we look for the the the person, you know, and the and the and the student and see what kind of uh curiosity they have and what kind of commitment do they have and how will they fit into the program and that sort of thing. So if you consider 35 new students each uh enrolled a year, uh and they typically stay the entire four years through their own undergrad, uh we have almost a hundred fellows, we call them, in in the program right now. In addition, we have about twelve or so graduate assistants, and then we have uh a smattering of directors. We have about five of us or six of us in in that in that realm. And really uh what happens is clients come in and they they are looking for assistance in areas that they don't necessarily have the resources to uh uh commit to to be able to get it done. And and Caitlin can talk about our project six uh programs and that sort of thing. But when the stud when the uh when the clients come to us, it's with real needs. And the real needs are uh defined in a statement of work after we go through an intake process and we could go through an assessment. And it ends up as a statement of work, and that statement of work is really the foundation for project work that is all done by the students. So the students really have the opportunity to work on real-world uh opportunities and projects with real-world clients, and that really is a fantastic thing. That I do that under the uh the guidance of uh and mentorship of the they're actually managed by the graduate assistants, but the graduate assistants are actually overseen by the directors and professional mentor network that we have. So that entire uh process, if you will, really is the engine that is the opaque institute. So when you look at um how that works, it it works in such a great fashion that the students get great opportunities to have this experiential learning. Uh they they develop networks with the clients that they currently have. Uh the clients uh get real actionable deliverables on their projects, uh and they do also get exposure to the um to the students. So uh that's great. In addition to that, uh that continuum, if you will, with the students and the clients also provides the students with the opportunity to really understand what the regional economy is all about. And they get to really see the the clients up close and personal, and what happens is they would not have had that opportunity without that. So they have an opportunity to look at the environment, the regional environment, and say, you know what, there's opportunities here. So that really does assist us in terms of being able to positively impact workforce development for the area. Now you take a look at uh the high school program, the Empower Ed program, the Empower Ed program is really a plug-in into the opaque institute model that I just talked about. So what we do is we're able to afford high school students the same opportunities that the undergrads have in working on real-world clients, and they're working, the high school students are working arm in arm with the undergrads on those same projects. So uh, you know, Caitlin and I will kit around, you know, we can walk into a project team meeting and not be able to pick out the high school students from the undergrads. You know, and because they're working on the same projects, they're working arm in arm, and they're working as a team. So the the growth is fantastic and it's obviously something I'm very excited about. So I'll just stop it there.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Well, before we go back into this, I want to I mean there's so many student benefits here, and we we're very excited. Um I'd like you to just share, like, kind of like who is the client, like what kind of clients come in and um access your resources because at one time entrepreneur was was really important and a big part of your mission, but I know it's beyond that. So if you can kind of give us just a you know variety of who comes to you? Who are the people that are clients?

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Sure. So really we are open to anybody in the community who has a business problem that they want to solve. So it certainly can be an entrepreneur, it can be a startup, or it can be an established business. We serve a lot of the local manufacturers with some of our engineering projects, and John alluded to a project six, which is kind of how we serve our established partners. So project six refers to every corporation has those top five priorities. I mean, you probably do in your own business, right? It's always that number six that you wish you had the time, energy, and resources to get to. That's where we say, let us have that project. Let's deploy the students on that problem. And more often than not, they're coming up with great business solutions. And it can be related to some of the technology stuff that I was talking about. It can be a business or strategic plan that they just need another set of eyes on. It can be marketing related, finance, you name it. We deploy the right students for that project, and they get great experiential learning, of course, because they're solving these real world issues. And the business obviously benefits too because they're getting something worked on that they just weren't going to get to anyway. So it really is a win-win for both parties.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

And one last question regarding so a client comes in, comes up with a project, and has a problem that they'd like to solve, number six on their list. And you know, what is the time frame that you're going to allocate to it? Like, is it uh like most people would say semester, right? Because you it's a natural break for both the high school and the college. Uh so how long, what's the shortest, what's the longest type of uh time frame that people have worked on projects?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Yeah, that's a great question. So oftentimes we do try to work in a semester basis because that's a nice kind of milestone, right? You get three months to work on this project. Some certainly will end more quickly, and others we know are gonna be kind of a multi-phase, especially if we're working with a larger corporation, we may be actually working with them over several years. But that's where the staff and the directors come in and our professional mentors to help us best scope out that project. So if we know that this is really complex, it's gonna be interdisciplinary, we're able to kind of build that out over time and create these milestones that we can hit together. And it takes a lot of open communication to make sure that we're hitting all of those targets, but um it's it's a great process, and um, the businesses are you we've gotten a lot of great feedback from that, and a lot of people come back and they want to continue to work with us.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

I know that's very exciting. So, we do at one point when it like kind of highlight some of the students and their experiences. Um, there was, and I I'm sorry, this is like coming old brain all of a sudden, like I can't remember what I was gonna ask you. So let's just go back to the students. Yeah. Um I was gonna ask how you select how do you select the students? So, you know, I mean this this program to me is very, very exciting. Um, and part of it is because the BBEC really supports any kind of opportunity for students to get out and get real-world experience to help them understand what they do and what they don't want to do in their careers. So you fill a unique role, a unique space and opportunity for these students. So um, and one of these we talked about is a lot of businesses may want to have an intern. They may want to build that talent pipeline, but they don't necessarily have the resources available to them to put together a really meaningful uh internship. So can you please explain how your organization kind of comes in and kind of answers that call?

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Yeah, sure. Uh great question, Terry. And you know, I don't think there's any businesses in our region or anywhere who are going to say that internships don't matter. I think uh they all agree that they there's a real benefit for all the stakeholders we've talked about, not the least of which is a student, but also for the business itself as well as its contribution to workforce development. So when you take a look at being able to have an internship program as a company, it takes resource, you know, and it takes true dollar resource because it takes staff, but it takes time and it takes a focus that it's like running a business within a business. It's a tough thing to do. So um and I'm gonna say that this was not the driving intent of the Empower Ed program, but it was an ancillary benefit that we witnessed as we started to relaunch this back in the late spring of 2025. And when we did this, when we were talking to the internship uh counselors at the high schools, uh the internship counselor's response was this is exactly what I need for this segment of my student population. And that segment of the student population was, you know, the internship counselors are smart. I mean, they they can really read the students, they know what their needs are, they know what their their wants are, and they they kind of understand the student as a person. And most of the time, those students are those that are not being challenged enough at on the high school level. So they look I know I had one internship counselor uh from a local high school said this is perfect for my students who get bored, but they're really smart and they don't know what they want to do. This gives them the opportunity to to kind of get uh experience in seeing what those various disciplines are. And we've got four of them. We've got innovation in Caitlin's area, which is fantastic. You've got uh we've we have uh uh marketing or creative services, which is mostly right now digital marketing and websites and social media and that sort of thing. We've got finance and client services, which is a lot of business planning for startups as well as financial projections and all the way on into really getting into the battles of bookkeeping for an established company with QuickBooks and that sort of thing. But then we also have uh community development, which we work on a lot of uh a lot of projects with clients that really are focused on being able to help the community in general. I think that's real great. So when you when you're talking to internship counselors at the high schools, they get it for their students. But then when you talk to the businesses, and this goes to your your question specifically, um, they look at um the opaque instudent. Again, this is an ancillary benefit to us in really discovering what the value is to the clients, in addition to the deliverables that they get, they look at this and they say, I'm not able to really put the focus and the resources in developing my own internship program. I'm be basically taking advantage, not taking advantage, but uh uh Taking advantage. Taking advantage of the opaque institute's ability to be able to provide me with the opportunity to have an internship program, but I don't have to manage it. And the way that I'm fueling it is with projects that I'm giving uh the opaque institute. Because I know the students are going to work on them, but I don't have to manage the students. We do that. And it's not so much managing the students as really overseeing the students because they're they are the engine that is the opaque institute. So we have this model that has been proven, and we know that it has a real benefit to businesses in the area that look at this and say, this is great, I can get the internship opportunity, I don't have to manage it. I'm also uh having deliverables that benefit my company, but they're I'm also contributing to workforce development for the region. It's a it's a real uh it's a real benefit for all three stakeholders, including the students.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Well, and what I love about it too is uh it magnifies the impact. So most businesses can, if they can have an intern, is it's one, it's singular, right? Maybe two at the most. And these uh businesses that come to you with their problem or challenge, their number six, um, they now have a team, a group of students, which they would never be able to host and manage. Um so you have provided that for them. So that's wonderful. So now, my other question is I know I want to know how many students you have, and then how do you select the students that participate?

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Well, when we relaunched this back in and we have three cohorts. We have a summer, we have a fall, we have a spring. Um so we relaunched it with summer of 2025 being our first. And uh in that in that cohort, we had 27 high school students. Uh going into the fall, we had 28 high school students. And going into this spring of 2026, we have 30. Um we're very very conscious of not overselling this, if you will, or or overdoing it because we're very conscious of the quality that we're able to manage uh based upon capacity, you know, not only uh people, but also space. Uh you know, we we've said many times that we're gonna need a bigger boat, you know, because there's such a demand for this. Uh so we're very conscious of that. But the manner in which students avail themselves of this, you know, we talk to the high schools directly, we talk to the internship counselors directly, and we want them involved in the process. So when we talk about the program, and I'll make presentations, and you know, several of us make presentations at the high schools on this program, we allow them that the opportunity to be able to understand what the program is, what it's all about, and then their conversations with the internship counselors ends up with the students saying, Yes, I want to pursue this. And if they want to pursue that, then we have a process that we put together where there's an application online, and once they fill out the application, uh we look at that and then we call them and we want to have a face-to-face interview with them because uh we want to understand who they are. And the fact that the internship counselors uh are involved in the process, we know that this this is something that is not a one-off. It's part of their overall program for career development at the high school level. So the the counselors see this or the coordinators see this as uh as a real value add, but it's part of their overall arsenal for career development. And it's not it's not for everyone, but it's for those students that the counselor sort of coordinators know. So once they come in for the uh interview, we have not had to turn anyone away uh because we've had enough capacity. I d I dread the the day that I'm gonna have to say we're gonna have to postpone you to another cohort.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Well, currently, what do what are we looking at for capacity, do you believe, every semester?

SPEAKER_02 20:28

I think we're we have uh uh probably a realistic of 35 students. Um I'm not looking at at Caitlin directly right now because the real work that gets done with the uh the internships, the Empowered Interns, is really done by each one of the directors' areas of responsibility. So the directors uh like Caitlin here for innovation has shitly has graduate assistants working with her. As a matter of fact, why don't you just kind of like uh explain what what how the program works for you?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Yeah, I can give a little overview of the innovation team. So as John mentioned, I do have two graduate assistants who are PhD candidates here at Alvernia for their leadership degree. And then we also have undergraduate fellows. I oversee engineering, computer science, life sciences, and pre-law. And then we have the high school interns, our innovation interns from the Empower Ed program, and their interests vary. So I've had some who are interested in architecture, civil engineering, biomedical engineering, health sciences. So it's very diverse. Innovation's a really broad term, so we welcome all these different backgrounds and interests, and we try to match their interest and passion with various projects. So, for instance, the student who likes architecture, actually, she's coming back to us next semester. It'll be her third round for Empower Ed, which is really exciting that they want to come back. We got to do a special tour of the American House. Across the street. She got to see all the architectural drawings, walk around with our, you know, the manager, and get to ask questions and get to see those behind the scenes things that not even some of our staff and faculty have seen yet. So she's getting this kind of VIP experience. Alongside that, she's also getting to learn about 3D printing and some other technical skills that'll help enhance her degree in the future wherever she lands. But she also mentioned, oh, by the way, I'm really artistic, I like to do designs. So she gets to hang out with some of our creative services team as well. So that's really where the magic happens, is that even though you might have this specific interest, we don't pigeonhole you, we want you to explore and you know get to get to fail and get to to have those experiences where you figure out what you like and what you don't like, and that's all good. So it's a very creative environment. It allows for that kind of entrepreneurial spirit that we get to cultivate in those students. So that's one example of one of our students who really has just flourished.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

So we talked about this a little bit beforehand. Um this program is as much as the internship coordinators are involved in helping select, you also talked about the students that are, I don't want to say floundering, but they're they've kind of maybe lost their enthusiasm for what they're doing and at the high school level level. Maybe they're bored, they want to move on, they're they're just looking for something, another opportunity. Tell me a little bit about, you know, that it you're not necessarily looking for that totally driven, high achieving student. You're looking for sometimes the ones that may be a little lost, and they're looking for that that that spark that's really going to get them interested in something. So can you share um maybe a story of somebody who found their spark by coming through your program?

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Aye. Okay. Um great question. And we talked about this a little bit earlier, but you know, we love when a student comes in and they you know that they have the capability and and the potential to be able to grow. I mean for us, what we really love to see out of this program is to really witness and and take part in student growth, personal growth. So a lot of the times we'll we'll interview the student, and the student may be looking down at the desk and maybe not feel very confident in terms of their ability to interact with somebody who maybe is not a fellow student, but somebody who's an older person like us, okay. And in that kind of experience, you look at it, you look at the personing, you're like, okay, this is a great opportunity. This is a uh diamond of the rough, if you will. And when the when the internship starts, uh they are automatically thrown into the deep end. I mean, it's it's there's no there's no better way of putting that because as as Caitlin said, we are an entrepreneurial startup ourselves. Even though this is now going into the Institute's sixth year of existence, we still are an entrepreneurial entrepreneurially driven organization, and we deal with entrepreneurs, and we're dealing with people who are in that, and it's rapid pace. And I use the term nimble to describe the culture of the opaque institute, and I think that's pretty accurate. So when a student comes in, immediately they're being thrown into the deep end on project teams, and they're working arm in arm with not only their fellow high school students, but they're also working with the undergrads on the fellows program on these real-world projects, and immediately having the project teams get together. Oh, and by the way, there'll be company uh representatives there. Could be the CEO of the organization or other managers who are involved in in actually providing us with the project work. So what happens is they get this stark opportunity to be immersed in having to work, not having to, but getting being empowered to work with fellow teammates on these projects. So what happens is you see them interact with each other in such a manner that their communication skills are growing. Their confidence level is growing in terms of who they are and how they can interact with others. So um, you know, the the uh the belief is, and I and I believe in this, is that, you know, all um personal growth happens outside your comfort zone. So this is this is um right on the edge of your comfort zone, and maybe a little bit out there, uh, outside the comfort zone. And uh your your comfort zone expands to meet the situation. And that's how you see the students grow. And to your point, you know, w how do you see this? How do we see this happen? You you you observe this on a day-to-day, week to week, month to month basis, where you look back at the student when they came in on that interview, and then you take a look at the student uh a month and a half in, and then maybe three months in, and you uh the example that I used is we had a student come in um and immediately just was that kind of a of a student who just didn't feel confident about themselves interacting with others and uh uh good, very, very committed, but really didn't feel comfortable with themselves or or confident, if you will. And uh by the end of their internship, they actually gave the presentation to the other students as they were graduating out of the program. And I don't think there was anyone without a smile on their face with this person. So it was wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

That's that's so powerful and uh so important here. So a a couple follow-up questions. So right now um there are 18 public schools and one private, uh at least one private. So how many like different schools districts are represented uh within your cohort?

SPEAKER_02 28:02

Okay, so going into the spring, and this is pretty s pretty typical for both summer and fall also, but we have, as I said, we have 30 students, empower rate interns, coming into our spring cohort, and there are 12 high schools represented. Yeah. Okay. Uh one of them actually in Schuykel County. That's right. One of them actually in Schuylkill County of all places. Uh-huh. And then the uh the remainder of them are in Berks County.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Schuylkill County is still good. Oh, they're pretty good. They're pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Um well that's fabulous to to hear and understand. So I'm assuming, I'm gonna assume that you you would love to grow this till all 18, if you can you can definitely do that. So um if an internship coordinator would like to learn more, who would they contact? Or how would they contact?

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Well, they can contact any of us, but eventually it's gonna come down to me. It'll come to me, but John Dever.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Okay. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

John.dever at alvernia.edu.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Um and then also if any student or parent of a student or somebody who knows a student is listening in and they find this program, I think I think this program is exciting, you know, to give these students this opportunity. How would they uh start to share it? So should the student go to their internship coordinator? Should they reach out to you directly, or what would you recommend as the best course of action?

SPEAKER_02 29:20

The ideal process is that we would refer them to their internship coordinator.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

And then the internship coordinator is in the loop, and then what we do is they'll fill out the application and we'll we'll interact directly with the student at that point, but at le we'll have the internship coordinator involved in the entire process.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

So that also timing-wise, okay. So are are the majority of your students that you're currently working with seniors?

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Uh yes, predominantly seniors, but uh it's uh it's a junior and senior program. We've also had some sophomores in the program.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Sneak sneak in those sophomores.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

They did sneak in the sophomore.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

So when is the best time for these students to start to get started on this process? So is it their junior year coming into their senior year? You know, how far in advance should they start the interview and the selection?

SPEAKER_02 30:05

We would love to be able to have juniors interested in this so they have the opportunity to get experience with the program, you know, with the Empower Air program, and make the decision as to whether or not they want to carry on into the uh into their senior year.

SPEAKER_03 30:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

I I think we have a we have a a really high stick tuitiveness ratio, if you will, because you know, going into the spring semester uh of 2026, we have 19 returning empowered ed students that were in the fall. And that that's a good testament to their satisfaction and we love that. We think that's great.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

And I think if we get them as juniors in high school, they actually get exposed to the machine that is the opaque institute, and they really get that confidence factor that John was describing. Um, the transformation, it just has such great potential. And we do end up actually retaining some of these high school students here at Alvernia and even in Berks County. So I think that just goes to the power of the program with brain gain. We want to keep these students, if we can, in Berks County. We know some of them are gonna fly away and spread their wings and go elsewhere, but we always want them to feel like they have a home here and that they can stay here and grow and flourish. And um, you know, even if they do end up picking a different school, that's okay. They can always come back to us if they do have a startup idea or if they are working for, you know, a local company that they they know we're here.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

Do you know, Terry? One of the things, and if I could just uh just piggyback on what Caitlin said, you know, we're really proud of the fact that uh the latest data is that uh the graduating fellows, uh the undergrads who are graduating, uh 76% of them have a job offer when they walk for their degree. And 47% of those job offers are all regional.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

That is awesome. Um, and lastly, uh, because one of the things that's going to fuel this, right, and and helpfully help it expand is not only the students who are interested, but also the local business community that has the projects that comes to you with those ideas. So what would you recommend as their next steps if they see this or hear about it and say, hey, I have a project six or I have um something that has been an idea I've been wanting to flush out and see if it's viable, you know, how would they go about uh starting the process of working with you?

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yeah, that's great. So any of the project six type of clients will come to me. So that'll be Caitlin.long at alverinia.edu. But as John mentioned, really anyone at the OPACE Institute, we would bring you in for an intake, just kind of see what you want to do, how we can help, and then we help you kind of build out that project, that dream, and work collaboratively.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

So I I will kind of just toss this really quickly. Is there a cost to the businesses? And if there is, like, you know, just to kind of get an idea. You don't have to give any hard numbers, but sure.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

So we did move to a fee for service model as of last January, but we try to keep it very affordable because at the end of the day, we know that these are students working on the project. So we work with each client within their budget. And um again, all of these funds go back to supporting the OPAC Institute program, so it's going back directly into student experiential learning. So we're really cognizant of that and we work with the companies to make sure that it makes sense for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Oh, thank you. So before we wrap up, I'm just gonna ask really quickly because I know we're we're out of almost out of time. Um, is there a question that I should have asked that I had not asked that you would love to answer right now? If if you could say, Terry, if you would have only asked me this question, this would have been perfect. Um and you know, you know, what what would that be? Is there something else that you'd like to share that I have not talked about?

SPEAKER_02 33:55

I I would only add that, you know, in order to make something like this work, you can't do it alone. You have to do it in a collaborative way. And there are many partners in our in our ecosystem, if you will, that believe in what we're doing, and we believe in what they're doing. So there's always opportunities for collaboration to be able to help each other out towards that common end in mind, which is to be able to assist in that brain gain and to be able to assist in uh making the internship uh program within the ecosystem a real winner.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

I think what about you, Caitlin? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

I think piggybacking off of that with the ecosystem piece, that these students are getting exposed to something much larger than just Alvernia, they're just one school, that they're actually getting to interact with these community partners. As John mentioned, we had interviewed a student a couple weeks ago who got to participate in the Burks Biomedical Innovation Collaborative, which is all of our local higher ed hospitals, biomanufacturing, startups, investors. So I think the beauty of the program is that they're getting exposed to things that are much bigger than themselves, much bigger than just our little institute that could, and uh it's it's really a special place.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Well, I want to thank you, John, and Caitlin for taking the time today because um you may not know it listening in, but it is almost the holidays here, so uh we're gonna be starting holiday uh right after right after this recording. So I want to thank you for taking time during this special time of the season and you being my first non-summit feature about a partnership here in our community that really supports the career readiness uh that we are trying to create within the Burks Business Education Coalition. So thank you again for tuning in and listening to our partner, Alvernia Opaque Institute and their Empowered Ed program. Hope you have a fabulous day. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry.