When Mike Schneider saw that the number of applications for counselor positions at Camps Airy and Louise was falling, the executive director and his staff got creative.
As a result, Goucher College will be giving 21-year-old psychology major Erin Foard four credits for spending her summer living with a dozen "very opinionated and very loud" eighth- and ninth-grade girls, and keeping a journal on a subject of her choice.
Camps Airy and Louise, 78 and 80 years old, respectively, were caught in a larger trend: Many employers offering traditional seasonal jobs - camp counselor, lifeguard - have experienced declining applications as summer becomes yet another time for students to be productive. Summer college enrollment has been up for the past several years, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Students, concerned about finishing school and improving post-college career prospects, are increasingly looking for internships, for college credit and for resume fodder.
Building on a program conceived by his predecessor, Schneider, along with the camps' administrative and marketing departments, devised a program to offer counselors internships through their colleges.
"It just seemed like a natural," said Schneider. The camps give the incentive, along with $200 headhunter bonuses for current staff members, part of the credit for the rise in applications.
This is Foard's first summer at Louise. A native of Hawaii, the Goucher senior says camp is almost like a lab for her child-development class.
"It's really kind of interesting to watch them, because there are moments when they are little kids, playing with their lunch and throwing peas at each other. Then there's that moment when they're the adults that they're going to be," she said of her group of 13-year-olds.
About 225 summer staffers - including 80 foreign students - work at the wooded, sleep-away Jewish camps in Western Maryland, where they lead 7- to 17-year-olds in activities including swimming, hiking and arts and crafts, said Marty Rochlin, assistant director at Airy. Counselors receive $1,100 to $1,250 for the summer, plus room and board.
The camps publicize internship opportunities through college programs in sports and recreation, psychology, education, social work - any program possibly related to working with children, Rochlin said.
Last summer, Rebecca Stewart, 22, rewrote Camp Louise's outdoor standards and procedures for the camp's national accreditation as part of a three-credit internship. The final product was 80 pages.
"I'm still recovering," said the current administrative assistant, who is entering her 15th summer with the camp. An Owings Mills native, Stewart graduated from Pennsylvania State University in the spring with a degree in recreation and park management.
At a time when the average undergraduate takes five years to graduate, according to U.S. Department of Education statistics, summer can be a time to get ahead. "Just as weekends aren't really off for most people, summers aren't really off for most students," said Joel N. Morse, director of the Division of Economics, Finance and Management Science at the University of Baltimore's Merrick School of Business.
At Towson University, enrollment in for-credit summer internships has more than doubled since 1998. Last summer, 307 students enrolled. A slight increase is expected this year, and many other students take internships on their own, said Carol Vellucci, Career Center director.
"Our guess is that students are trying to get through faster," she said. Or, students are more in need of money. When they graduated, the 61 percent of 1999-2000 bachelor's degree recipients with loans owed an average of $17,592, according to the Department of Education.
With a national unemployment rate that peaked at 6 percent in April, students "are looking for employment that will help them make the transition from the academic environment to the world of work," said Betty Glascoe, director of career development and placement at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
After Anne-Laure Eliasson, 21, a University of Maryland, College Park, senior, graduated from River Hill High School, she spent the summer working at one of the Columbia Association's public pools. There, for about $6 an hour, she watched over a six-lane pool, a kiddie pool and a spa, performed maintenance duties and taught swimming. After her first year of college, she moved on, taking classes and becoming a secretarial assistant at a small Towson law firm, where she dealt with clients, handled paperwork and observed client meetings for the experience and a $250 mall gift certificate.
"I just figured I had to look at the long term, and I knew I was going to be applying to law school. What's going to be more beneficial for me?" said the government and politics major.
Although the internship trend is beginning to catch on, not all employers have been able to capitalize on it.
Mitch Friedlander, chief executive officer of American Pool Enterprises, has noticed the shift in student interest. He employs 3,000 lifeguards at 1,100 commercial pools from Toronto to Georgia, but he says he wishes he had 10 percent or 15 percent more.
The problem is that not enough students are interested in getting paid $6 to $12 an hour to spend their summer in a bathing suit, working by the side of a country club, community or hotel swimming pool.
Friedlander, who employs about 450 lifeguards in the Baltimore region, has tried on-campus recruiting, newspaper and radio advertisements, signs and direct-mail campaigns.
"The only thing we haven't done is a blimp," he said. "Maybe we'll buy the rights to PSINet."