Mellon Humanities Internships Employer FAQs

Because USF is the employer of record, all the postings in Handshake are under USF so you will not be able to access them directly. You are listed on the posting as a member of the “hiring team”, so when a student submits an application, you will receive an email notification. You can download the resume from the link on the email:

Note: The link appears as an image, so if you don’t see it, you may need to click on the option to download pictures. Silly spam filters!

Also Note: The link says, “today’s applicant packages” which is a bit ambiguous/confusing. This means that it will download the student’s resume along with any other documents they uploaded (cover letter/portfolios, etc.)

WARNING: DO NOT CLICK ON “View all applicants”! This will take you to a page where you are prompted to sign into or create an account on Handshake. Again, you will not be able to access the job postings/responses directly.

It is a short internship with a total commitment of only 50 hours for each student, which is why we are encouraging employers to make it project based. You do not need to track the hours. Success should look like the completion of some deliverable that takes about 50 hours, by the end of the semester. At that time, the students will be required to submit an assignment in the form of a post-assessment survey and you as the employer will have the opportunity to respond with any feedback.

Funds will be disbursed as a lump sum of $1000 through the Financial Aid department within a few weeks of the class start date. In anticipation of the next FAQ, if students do not successfully complete the assignment, it will jeopardize future scholarship opportunities, so we do not anticipate this will be an issue.

There is a whole team of staff working behind the scenes here at USF, so it can be confusing sometimes as to who to contact. General inquiries can be sent to the main email box at: tpa-internships@usf.edu

As a rule, it is the role of the Experiential Learning Coordinator to direct your inquiries to the correct entities. When in doubt, contact the Coordinator. The Coordinator can also assist with general administrative questions regarding job postings, hiring processes and other FAQs.

Once your intern has been selected, you may wish to be in direct contact with your student’s Internship Coordinator with any questions about the learning objectives or concerns with the student’s class assignments or job performance. It’s a good idea to ask your intern for contact information for their advisor and to send an introductory email at the beginning of their internship to establish a line of communication. Keep in mind that if you have more than one intern, it is possible that you may be working with more than one Internship Coordinator.

Yes, depending on the timing. Each class is 50 hours, but it is potentially possible for a student to register for up to three classes per semester (a Full Semester (16 week) class, an Alt A (8 week) class and an Alt B (8 week) class), which would bring their total to 150 hours.

However, each class must be a distinctly different experience with separate job descriptions. Students must register for separate classes for each 50-hour project to be eligible to receive the scholarship funding.

This is something that should be determined from the start and not added on mid-semester since it requires separate class registrations. Each proposed 50-hour project should express some sort of progressive growth in skills/responsibilities. For example, 1) collect data 2) analyze data 3) apply data.

Feel free to reach out to your USF faculty/staff contact with any questions about how to craft a multi-project proposal.

As long as they are still a currently enrolled undergraduate student with a major/minor eligible for the MHI Program, you can hire the same intern for sequential experiences.

Important to Note: The program does require that each 50-hour project/class enrollment be a distinctly different experience. You can break the project up into different steps that each have 50 hours of work, for example, 1) collect data 2) analyze data 3) apply data, or it can be an entirely new project that they will work on.

• Posting an open position
  • Positions are posted as open until filled so the earlier you post, the better quality and quantity of applicants you’ll receive. If you don’t find a candidate prior to the class start date, your posting will remain open, and you can try again for the next class.
  • It is possible for a student to begin their internship earlier than the next scheduled class start date, provided they are REGISTERED for the class and have completed their first assignment.
• Last day to send students their offer letter
  • We request that you allow about one week prior to the class start date to allow the student time to go through the advisor approval process and register for the class.
  • HINT: If you find a candidate that you’re interested in, DON’T WAIT! Often employers wait weeks until they’ve gotten more resumes in, and by the time they get around to setting up interviews with the most promising candidates, those candidates are no longer available because they have already accepted other positions.
• Your intern’s academic assignments
  • Your intern is responsible for two (2) class assignments that involve your assistance to successfully complete their internship and continue in good standing in the MHI program.
    • The first assignment is an “Internship Learning Plan” consisting of a few short answer questions regarding their expectations for their internship experience.
    • Faculty Advisors will review this assignment with students to ensure learning objectives both match the needs of employers and are relevant to students’ academic courses.
  • The final assignment is a “Rating of Students Career Readiness“
    • Employers will be sent an email that has a link for a Career Readiness Survey that will allow them to rate the students level of readiness for the NACE Career Readiness Competencies. We ask that the supervisors complete this as soon as they receive it as their interns will need this feedback to complete their final assignment for the class.