Assessment of University External Internships. Towards a Mixed Model for Measuring the Acquisition of Skills and the Satisfaction of Parties Involved

The continuous improvement of management and assessment processes for curricular external internships has led a group of university teachers specialised in this area to develop a mixed model of measurement that combines the verification of skill acquisition by those students choosing external internships with the satisfaction of the parties involved in that process. They included academics, educational tutors of companies and organisations and administration and services personnel in the latter category. The experience, developed within University of Alicante, has been carried out in the degrees of Business Administration and Management, Business Studies, Economics, Advertising and Public Relations, Sociology and Social Work, all part of the Faculty of Economics and Business. By designing and managing closed standardised interviews and other research tools, validated outside the centre, a system of continuous improvement and quality assurance has been created, clearly contributing to the gradual increase in the number of students with internships in this Faculty, as well as to the improvement in satisfaction, efficiency and efficacy indicators at a global level. As this experience of educational innovation has shown, the acquisition of curricular knowledge, skills, abilities and competences by the students is directly correlated with the satisfaction of those parties involved in a process that takes the student beyond the physical borders of a university campus. Ensuring the latter is a task made easier by the implementation of a mixed assessment method, combining continuous and final assessment, and characterised by its rigorousness and simple management. This report presents that model, subject in turn to a persistent and continuous control, a model all parties involved in the external internships are taking part of. Its short-term results imply an increase, estimated at 15% for the last course, in the number of students choosing curricular internships and, for the medium and long-term, a major interweaving between the academic world and its social and productive environment, both in the business and institutional areas. The potentiality of this assessment model does not lie only in the quality of its measurement tools, but also in the effects from its use in the various groups and in the actions that are carried out as a result of its implementation and which, without any doubt and as it is shown below, are the real guarantee of a continuous improvement.

Sandcastles of hope? Civil society organizations and the working conditions of migrant farmworkers in North America

This research explores whether civil society organizations (CSOs) can contribute to more effectively regulating the working conditions of temporary migrant farmworkers in North America. This dissertation unfolds in five parts. The first part of the dissertation sets out the background context. The context includes the political economy of agriculture and temporary migrant labour more broadly. It also includes the political economy of the legal regulations that govern immigration and work relations. The second part of the research builds an analytical model for studying the operation of CSOs active in working with the migrant farmworker population. The purpose of the analytical framework is to make sense of real-world examples by providing categories for analysis and a means to get at the channels of influence that CSOs utilize to achieve their aims. To this end, the model incorporates the insights from three significant bodies of literature—regulatory studies, labour studies, and economic sociology. The third part of the dissertation suggests some key strategic issues that CSOs should consider when intervening to assist migrant farmworkers, and also proposes a series of hypotheses about how CSOs can participate in the regulatory process. The fourth part probes and extends these hypotheses by empirically investigating the operation of three CSOs that are currently active in assisting migrant farm workers in North America: the Agricultural Workers Alliance (Canada), Global Workers’ Justice Alliance (USA), and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (USA). The fifth and final part draws together lessons from the empirical work and concluded that CSOs can fill gaps left by the waning power of actors, such as trade unions and labour inspectorates, as well as act in ways that these traditional actors can not.

Report to the President by the Emergency Board appointed February 4, 1950, by Executive order 10105, pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act, as amended : to investigate and report in respect to a dispute between the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad Company, a carrier, and certain of its employees represented by the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen (NMB case A-3065), Denver, Colorado, February 28, 1950.

Signed: Robert G. Simmons, chairman, Robert O. Boyd, member, Harold R. Korey, member.

Report to the President by the Emergency Board created June 23, 1948 by Executive order 9971 pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act : to investigate and report upon a dispute between the Grand Trunk Western Railroad Co., Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Co., Wabash Railroad and the Ann Arbor Railroad Co. and certain of its employees represented by the National Maritime Union of America, N.M.B. cases A-2801, A-2802, A-2803, A-2804, Detroit, Michigan, July 20, 1948.

Signed: Robert G. Simmons, chairman, Thomas F. Gallagher, member, Joseph L. Miller, member.

Report to the President by the Emergency Board appointed September 15, 1949, by Executive order 10078, pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act, as amended : to investigate an unadjusted dispute between the Monongahela Connecting Railroad Company and certain of its employees represented by the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, a labor organization (N.M.B. no. A-3220), Pittsburgh, Pa., October 7, 1949.

Signed: Harry H. Schwartz, chairman, Francis J. Robertson, member, Andrew Jackson, member.

Information for employers and unions entering into a collective bargaining relationship for the first time : an address at the Information Program for Labor and Management at West Virginia University, April 18, 1963.

Mode of access: Internet.

Report to the President by the Emergency Board appointed April 10, 1948 pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act, as amended : to investigate unadjusted disputes between the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and certain of its employees represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, Philadelphia, Pa. and New York, N.Y. June 9, 1948 (N.M.B. case A 2791).

"Respectively submitted. Andrew Jackson, Chairman, James H. Wolfe, Member, E. Wight Bakke, Member"--Page [ii].

Report to the President by the Emergency Board, created August 1, 1947 by Executive order 9880 pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act : to investigate and report upon a dispute between the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and River Terminal Railway Co. : (NMB case no. A-2542) : Cleveland, Ohio, August 20, 1947.

Signed on page ii: Frank M. Swacker, chairman, Hugh B. Fouke, member, Sidney St. F. Thaxter, member.

Report to the President by the Emergency Board created March 18, 1948 by Executive order 9936 pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act : to investigate and report upon a dispute between the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis and certain of its employees represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen : St. Louis, Missouri, April 7, 1948.

Signed: Frank M. Swacker, chairman, George Cheney, member, James H. Wolfe, member.

Report to the President by the Emergency Board appointed May 12, 1949 by Executive order 10056 pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act, as amended : to investigate a dispute between the Union Railroad Company (Pittsburgh) and certain of its employees represented by the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen : (NMB case A-3083) : Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 29, 1949.

Signed: Andrew Jackson, chairman, Leif Erickson, member, Elmer T. Bell, member.

Report to the President by the Emergency Board appointed March 15, 1949 by Executive order 10045 pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act, as amended : to investigate and report in respect to a dispute involving the Wabash Railroad Co. and the Ann Arbor Railroad Co., carriers, and certain of their employees, represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, Order of Railway Conductors, and Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen : (NMB case A-3028) : St. Louis, Mo., April 6, 1949.

Signed: Roger I. McDonough, chairman, Curtis G. Shake, member, John W. Yeager, member.

Report to the President by the Emergency Board appointed October 16, 1947 pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act : to investigate an unadjusted dispute between the Atlanta & West Point Railroad Co. and the Western Railway of Alabama and certain of its employees, represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, (NMB case no. A-2661), November 1, 1947.

Signed: Ernest M. Tipton, chairman, Harry H. Schwartz, member, John T. McCann, member.

Report to the President by the Emergency Board created December 16, 1947 pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act : to investigate unadjusted disputes between the Georgia Railroad and certain of its employees represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (NMB case no. A-2518), Atlanta, Georgia, January 20, 1948.

Signed: Floyd McGown, chairman, John T. McCann, member, Eugene L. Padberg, member.

Report to the President by the Emergency Board appointed October 29, 1946, pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act : to investigate unadjusted disputes between the Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay Railway Co., and other carriers and certain of their employees represented by the fifteen cooperating labor organizations, Chicago, Illinois, December 4, 1946.

Signed: James H. Wolfe, chairman, Robert E. Stone, member, Floyd McGown, member.

Report to the President by the Emergency Board appointed November 6, 1946 pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act : to investigate unadjusted disputes between the Barre & Chelsea Railroad Co. and the St. Johnsbury & Lake Champlain Railroad Co., and certain of their employees represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Chicago, Illinois, December 4, 1946.

Signed: James H. Wolfe, chairman, Robert E. Stone, member, Floyd McGown, member.