Nancy Waldron, Assistant Provost of the School of Health Science, the Longe School of Business, and a Professor of Business, has been at Lasell for 22 years and saw the Lasell Works program implemented.
“I was involved with Lasell works at the beginning back when it began in 2016. I was involved when we hired the first director and I would do scheduling, but up until now, that was my involvement,” Waldron said.
Lasell Works is an important and unique program for students according to Waldron, who said, “What Lasell Works does is it allows students to pursue their education while also being out in the field, hopefully working in an area that's of interest to them. That's really not required, it can be pretty much any kind of a job. In theory, they would work in something that's of interest to them, to get them started on their professional career.”
It begins for students in their sophomore year, finding out which area or field they want to go in and then students execute and build on that further their junior and senior year with internships. Lasell Works gives students more exposure to professional careers. “Across the board, the more professionals that a student can meet during their college career, the more confident they'll become, the more polished they'll become definitely for sure” Waldron said.
Since the university lowered its tuition, the financial incentive for Lasell Works students is no longer available, as the program no longer offers declining tuition for participants. Despite that, the program still focuses on “learning professional skills early, the students still do their classes online, they take classes in their major. The benefit is getting them out in the field,” Waldron said.
Waldron has met with Michelle Niestepski, Dean of Student Success, who oversaw Lasell Works and was the interim director prior to Waldron now overseeing the program. Niestepski and Waldron came up with the idea of making the sophomore year an experiential year.
“Make it a selection of offerings that students could choose so they could choose to work and hopefully find something in the field, whatever that field happens to be. They could study abroad, they could do another type of alternative semester,” Waldron said.
“Michelle and I were pretty excited when we were talking about this, just kind of throwing ideas out there,” Waldron said. “So, as far as the future of the program, it's not going anywhere. We hope to talk more about the sophomore experience and have some options for students who may not just want to work and take their classes.”
Waldron is happy to meet with any student who is interested in the program. “Students can sit down and have an initial conversation about it. They can talk to their adviser as well, or they can contact Michelle Niestepski,” Waldron said.