Cal State L.A. Is One of Five Universities in the Nation Participating in a Pilot Marketing Internship Program

Peer-marketing program helps students learn about and secure a range of government career positions

California State University, Los Angeles, was the first university selected by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to participate in its Pilot Marketing Internship Program. The program will be put into practice at only five universities across the nation during Winter Quarter or Spring Semester 2003.

This past summer, educational marketing consultancy EdVenture Partners secured the national contract to implement this pilot program under President Bush’s Executive Order #13171 and OPM’s Nine-Point Plan. Highly successful past marketing internship programs coordinated by Cal State L.A. marketing professor Shirley Stretch-Stephenson with EdVenture Partners, led EdVenture to invite Cal State L.A. to join it in the OPM project proposal. The requirement was to develop and execute a program that improved Hispanic and other underrepresented ethnic group representation in the Federal workforce.

From the list of 70+ university proposals, the Federal OPM team selected five universities to represent five regions of the United States and Puerto Rico to participate in this new peer-marketing pilot program.

Cal State L.A. was the first university selected by OPM to participate in the program. Other universities selected were CUNY–City College; Florida International University; University of Puerto Rico–Rio Piedras Campus; and University of Texas, San Antonio.

During the University’s 2003 winter quarter, Cal State L.A. students who are enrolled in Marketing 346—Marketing of Services—will work as a team to research, develop and execute a marketing plan that will increase the awareness of Federal Government careers, increase students’ understanding of how to apply for these positions, and help increase the number of Hispanics and other underrepresented ethnic groups at Cal State L.A. to secure positions with the Federal Government.

This will be the tenth such project Stretch-Stephenson has overseen as a faculty member. Her past projects have involved on- and off-campus student marketing internship programs coordinated primarily with the automotive industry, specifically General Motors.

Stretch-Stephenson says this pilot course is groundbreaking: “This first, service-based, peer-marketing internship program at Cal State L.A. can benefit the entire campus—not just Marketing students, but all majors and all departments. It will enable our students to become aware of—and learn how to secure—a range of Federal Government career positions.”
“Cal State L.A. has received great accolades for its marketing projects in the past,” notes Stretch-Stephenson. “This program puts Cal State L.A. firmly in a leadership mode—showing the campus, the community, the region, and the nation that Cal State L.A. business graduates are top caliber, globally-focused and technology-based, and have a significant impact on the world in which we live.”

If you have additional questions about the program, contact Shirley M. Stretch-Stephenson, Cal State L.A. Department of Marketing, .sstretc@calstatela.edu

Founded in 1991, EdVenture Partners has designed and managed programs at more than 300 high schools, colleges and universities, bringing corporate partners into the classroom to create cutting edge, hands-on curriculum for students. EdVenture develops innovative industry-education partnerships that provide one-of-a-kind educational value to students and educators while reciprocally providing clients with marketing and recruiting access to campuses across the country. All of EdVenture’s industry-education partnerships are designed to provide faculty with unique opportunities to bridge academic theory with real-world business practice.

Contact: Carol Selkin, Director, Media Relations (323) 343-3044