Betsy H. Harper . . . On a co-op education high
Biographical sketch of Betsy Harper. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.The citation for this article is: "Betsy Harper . . . On a co-op education high," Pieces of Eight, October 15, 1986.
Across the hall from Betsy H. Harper's office on the third floor of Rawl, hundreds of cooperative education job announcements are posted, row upon row, almost from ceiling to floor, on a huge board that covers two full sections of wall space. In fact, the space devoted to job notices in the hall is almost as much square footage, vertically -- and as crowded -- as the tiny, paper-stacked office of the director of the university's cooperative education program. And it serves, proudly, as her showcase.
The big co-op job board is, in effect, a reflection of results of 12 years of persistence and hard work by the friendly, tireless and persuasive Betsy Harper. But, she says, "our people should get the credit. They have done the work."
The co-op education staff of two fulltime and two parttime coordinators and a secretary is soon to be doubled, an information processing specialist added and the big job board in the hall replaced. The entire program will be moving next year into the new general classroom building erected behind Rawl.
The prospects are exciting. "We sometimes have to go out and look at the new buildnig just to help us get through the day," says Betsy Harper.
University's Biggest Grant
The wall board is to be replaced by a computerized, campuswide system to inform students, faculty and staff of what co-op jobs are available and what is happening in the world of cooperative education at ECU. What's happening is that the program has just received the largest per-year grant in the university's history -- $643,135 from the U.S. Department of Education, the largest of its kind in the nation this year. It is to develop and expand the present program into a comprehensive demonstration project with a goal of placing 3,000 students per year in cooperative education jobs.
"At sometime in the near future, students will be able to sit down at a terminal anywhere on campus and see what (co-op) jobs are available in Charlotte, for example," Harper explains. "It will show what's available for history majors, or marketing majors or any given field that a student is interested in."
Of course, she says, co-op will always be looking for new prospectie employers of students in the work-learn-earn program. "But I hope we will see cooperative education so well established that we will become chiefly a support service. We see ourselves as a support service," Harper says.
"I see co-op becoming as much a part of this university as the Registrar or the Admissions Office or whatever," she says.
Faculty Involvement and Support
Harper is grateful to the administration and many individual administrators who helped bring ECU's co-op program to its present point of placing approximately 650 students a year with earnings of $1.1 million."The university has supported us well. It always has," she says. "We've had support from all of the deans and most departments, and that is just as important as the money." She emphasizes that faculty are the key.
"If this program goes, it will be because of faculty involvement and support," she says. Most academic departments participate and give credit for cooperative education employment experience.
When Chancellor Howell was vice chancellor for academic affairs, he agreed to a proposal by Technology school dean Thomas Haigwood and Betsy Harper, a business education professor, to establish the program. For five years, the program operated with some federal "seed money" grants and also som state funding. Then for six years, it had only state funding.
"We gave the program some money to keep it going, but mostly we gave it encouragement," Howell recalls.
Relates Success Stories
Betsy Harper's piles of paper and stacks of files contain many success stories. One is that of Diane Rausch, whose political science thesis adviser was Chancellor Howell, during an interim when he returned to teaching. Diane Rausch was a co-op student handling with NASA, the federal space agency. Today she has the important job of handling NASA negotiations with the Soviet Union.Another student, Nancy Croft, held a co-op job with the magazine Nation's Business in Washington. Today she is assistant editor of the magazine, only 18 months after graduation.
"Oh, it's exciting," says Betsy Harper. "It's so rewarding when students come and tell us of their experiences. This is a job where everybody wins.
"It really is so rewarding that most of us stay on a co-op high."
Sees the Value
Betsy Harper says she saw the value of co-op education programs while teaching business education at Lenoir Community College in Kinston for six years before coming to ECU. "The working students got along well in their careers, while the 'A' students who had no work experience didn't perform as well," she says. "We realized the value of work experience. Work experience is critical. It's true here at ECU."
Harper gre up in Grifton, a town between Kinston and Greenville, and decided early in life -- in the fifth grade, in fact -- to make business education a career. "It was in the fifth grade that I outgrew wanting to be a nurse," she says. "I couldn't stand the sight of blood."
She chose Queens College in Charlotte for her undergraduate education because it was the only small school in the state that offered a business education program -- a degree in commerce, and she graduated with a teacher's certificate. She earned a double master's degree in business and business education at ECU just before the MBA program was established here. Her doctoral degree in educational administration is from N.C. State University.
Until this year, Betsy Harper directed the cooperative education program and taught half-time in business education. Teaching halftime and working in co-op halftime reinforced her belief that cooperative education and education in the classroom "complemented each other, enhanced each other."
"That becomes very true to anyone who is out there in business and industry, seeing what is there, then coming back and teaching in the classroom," she says. "There's no substitute for that work experience. It's critical for success."
