PUBLICIS HEALTH CREATES SUMMER ACADEMY TO GIVE STUDENTS A CHANCE TO GROW DURING COVID-19

By Oriana Schwindt, MediaVillage

Excerpted from MediaVillage:

The date: Early March. Coronavirus cases are beginning to rise in America, and hot spots like New York and California are about to implement shelter-in-place orders. Publicis Health Senior Vice President of Talent Programs Laurie Mellon (pictured at top) is wondering what the best course of action is for Publicis Health's storied internship program. “By late March, we had to start making offers to people who would have to relocate, and we just knew that wasn't going to be feasible,” Mellon says. The decision was made: There would be no in-person internship program this year.

It certainly wasn't an easy decision. Publicis Health's paid summer internship program is one of WayUp's Top 100 Internship Programs, so popular that over 4,000 applications are submitted for just 70 spots. One reason for this popularity, and one of the most important elements of the program for the students, is that interns get to experience the independence of adult working life in a new city they get to explore, Mellon says. There simply wasn't a way to safely conduct the program.

Having the interns work remotely wasn't an option, either. “We were just figuring out across-the-board remote work, ourselves,” Mellon adds. “We couldn't in good conscience throw our interns into that.” Mellon couldn't imagine giving up on student programming entirely, though. Instead, she and her team raced to create a virtual academy that, while unpaid, would be open to more students -- 88, instead of the usual 65-70 -- and give them the core offerings, if not the in-person experience.

Read the full article in MediaVillage and follow Laurie Mellon on LinkedIn.