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An Update on Activities at the Center
To intern or not to intern? No question!
By Robin Hayden

The noun is defined by Webster’s dictionary as “an advanced student or recent graduate undergoing supervised practical training.” On the other hand, the verb means “to confine, especially in wartime.”

But that must be purely coincidental, because although student interns for the Center of Excellence are made to feel focused, they are not confined in their assignments. In fact, they are given a great deal of freedom to determine what their focus will be during the four-month period of their internship. The objective of the program is to provide an equal exchange—a valuable experience for the intern and at the same time an opportunity for the intern to give something back to the Center. This contribution will be defined as a quantifiable ‘deliverable’—a report, an assessment of findings, a research project, or another product of lasting value such as a video.

The Center’s current intern, Kris Tsunoda, is a senior at Hawai‘i Pacific University. She is from the Big Island of Hawai‘i and is studying public relations. As an intern in the Center’s public relations department, Tsunoda’s activities run the gamut from research to marketing courses to providing tours of the Center’s facilities. She is using her experience in exchange for credit hours, and she couldn’t be happier about the arrangement. “This is the perfect opportunity to apply what I have learned in a fast-paced setting,” Tsunoda said. “It prepares me well for the actual demands I will be facing in the workplace.

“I’m still working on determining a focus for my project. But it’s hard,” she exclaimed, “because everything the Center gets involved with is so interesting.”

From the beginning of her internship at the Center, however, Tsunoda understood that she was an integral part of the staff and the public relations team. “I have been included in all Center activities just as if I were a regular staff member. This has helped me to feel I am a real contributor to the work of the Center, but also that I have a responsibility to fulfill as well,” Tsunoda relates. “It makes me feel good that people are relying upon me to produce work, and not just make copies or file documents.”

Positions are open for students from any local institution, including the Center’s academic collaborative partner, the University of Hawai‘i. Previous interns who have participated in the Center’s internship program have included a graduate-level student from the School of Public Health and a senior undergraduate in the Political Science Department.

Individuals majoring in any discipline represented by the Center’s staff may be considered for an intern position—such as multimedia and graphics design, information systems, public health and medical research. Participants are considered on a case-by-case basis. Availability for an internship is also based upon the needs of the Center at the time, and may require the participant to perform work that is cross-functional—between multimedia and education, or between health and operations, for example. This requirement is in keeping with the cross-disciplinary nature of work the Center performs.

Other non-paid, intern-style programs are being considered for development—with professionals in mind—for experience and/or academic credit, such as fellowships or on-loan arrangements. The diverse nature of the Center’s activities and its cross-organizational aspects are incentives for participation by many organizations and agencies, including members of the reserves and civil affairs, active-duty military, and also non-governmental organizations wishing to develop a better understanding of the military’s role in humanitarian assistance activities.

Going the distance in education

By Tess Black

What will you do when that crucial lecture you don’t want to miss falls during the exact hour you have to sit in a dentist’s chair? Or picture this scenario: you attend the lecture, but miss a few points and would like to review them. How do you roll back time? This is what “distance education” is all about. When a student cannot physically be in the same location at the same time that a formal learning opportunity takes place, distance education offers the possibility of being there virtually.

This spring, the Harvard Extension School offered such an opportunity with its “Preventive Measures: the Politics of Disasters,” a government course developed for use in distance education that enlarges the learning experience beyond the confines of the lecture hall. Co-headed by Dr. Doug Bond, associate director of the Program on Nonviolent Sanctions and Cultural Survival at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and Dr. Joe Bond, Virtual Research Associates, Inc., the course asked students to “conduct a case study of an aid organization, monitoring effort, or disaster episode as they relate to an actual complex humanitarian emergency.” To support their projects over the semester, the instructors provided students with the Asia-Specific Information Analysis software, a real-time news report monitoring and analysis system developed by Bond and Virtual Research Associates and currently being field-tested at the Center of Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance.

Each class session was videotaped and subsequently posted to a password-protected website within 48 hours. A bulletin board was also available on the website to accommodate class announcements, information and extended subject discussions, along with all graphics and other materials from the lectures. Staff members at the Center viewing Dr. Frederick “Skip” Burkle’s Feb. 15 lectures on “Civil-Military Relationships” and “The Center of Excellence Concept in Humanitarian Operations” were impressed with the quality of delivery. While the PowerPoint lecture slides appeared on the right-hand portion of the monitor, a “streaming video” with audio of Burkle’s talk played simultaneously on the left side of the screen, effectively re-creating the class session as it was given in Cambridge.

The video streaming technology from Real Networks functioned well on both Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers with a free plug-in. Additional support was needed for other platforms, such as Mac, Unix and 95-98 NT. This is the only glitch noted the leaders of the course.

“The logistics of conducting a distance education course demand strong infrastructural support—fortunately Harvard is a leader in this respect—a significant challenge to the instructors with respect to the presentation of supplementary media materials (with an emphasis on clarity and timing during the videotaping) and some patience on the part of both students and instructors alike,” co-instructor Doug Bond said.

At the rate current technology is moving forward on all fronts, the promise it holds for expanding our capacity to learn, no matter where we are and at what point in time, is brighter and brighter.

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