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Having recently served for a number of years on the board of the Indiana Economic Development Corp., I’m very familiar with the many efforts underway to grow our state’s employment base and bring more good jobs to Indiana. Certainly, a key to this is workforce development.
Yet there remains an elephant in the room: How do we do a better job retaining the talented undergraduates who each year fill the classrooms of Indiana’s nearly 40 colleges and universities — including some of the best in the nation? In fact, when these schools are in session, Indiana is almost certainly the most talented state in the nation on a per capita basis.
The best one-word answer I could offer: Internships!
I need to look no further than the mirror to understand the positive impact internship programs can have on high school and college students. The summer following my sophomore year at Xavier University in Cincinnati, I participated in a summer program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. I learned to program a minicomputer, to apply my knowledge of chemistry to a real-world problem and to understand better what the world of work was all about.
The summer following that was even more impactful. An internship at the University of Minnesota enabled me to learn about synthetic organic chemistry and its application to making important natural products. It was then that I decided to make organic chemistry my chosen field of study. Ultimately, I earned my doctorate and in 1979 accepted a job as a research chemist at Eli Lilly and Co.
My story is not unique. Many colleagues have charted a similar course during the formative stages of their education and careers. At scale, the impact of these experiences is undeniable in building strong future capacity in science and other key business disciplines.
More recently, I’ve seen the impact of summer internships while serving as a board member of the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute. While the IBRI internship program is fairly new (in only its fourth year), the demand among students has been extraordinary. This year, IBRI received 625 applications for 30 intern positions, making it more selective than admission to Harvard University. Clearly, the demand is there.
The IBRI internship program enables participants to work with scientists in IBRI’s laboratories or in other positions within the organization that support ongoing research. Much like it did me, the experience gained will enable these interns to gain a better understanding of basic science. And the internships provide invaluable experience working as a member of a scientific team as well as operating within a workplace.
As an IBRI board member, I have directly seen the results of this program in helping very talented undergraduates focus on their degree majors and plan advanced graduate-level study. In addition, we have also documented a growing legacy of participant employment in Indiana, reinforcing the importance of local internship opportunities in retaining top talent within the state.
Clearly, there is a real need and demand for these sorts of intern positions across other businesses and workplaces within central Indiana. In fact, some of these positions are pivotal to the ongoing education of our young people. Providence Cristo Rey High School, for example, depends on central Indiana employers placing high school students in intern roles to help defray the cost of their education.
It doesn’t matter what size or sort of business it is — education, professional, services, manufacturing, consumer, products or whatever — creating opportunities for internships is an essential component of preparing Indiana students for the world of work as well as increasing the chances that we retain these individuals in our state post-graduation.
The benefits for businesses and other institutions are not insignificant. Lilly, for example, each year hires a significant number of young professionals from its intern cohort into full-time positions. Moreover, these young interns — with their energy, ideas and technology skills — tend to energize any workplace they become part of.
We hope more businesses, hospitals, schools and not-for-profits consider establishing internship programs. The size and scale don’t matter. The eager students are out there, and they are ready to take on any challenge given them. As interns, they are prepared to contribute in a meaningful way to help Indiana institutions thrive and prosper, with a much greater likelihood that they will subsequently choose to build professional careers in our state.•
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Lechleiter retired as CEO and chair of Eli Lilly and Co. in 2016 and serves on the board of Indiana Biosciences Research Institute.
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