Internships for Everyone: How ODU Removes Barriers to Work-Based Learning, Part 2 (feat. Barbara Blake)

If you haven't listened to part one yet, start there first. In that episode, Dr. Barbara Blake walks through the origin story of ODU's Monarch Internship & Co-Op Office—why it was created, how it's structured, and how four distinct pathways are making work-based learning accessible to every student regardless of major, background, or circumstance.

In part two, the conversation goes deeper. Host Meredith Metsker and Barbara dig into what the office has accomplished in its first three years, how Barbara secured $8.5 million in funding from more than 20 sources, and what it looks like to turn a $5 million Mellon Foundation gift into 75 brand-new internships that never existed before. Barbara also takes on one of the field's thorniest issues—unpaid internships—and makes a compelling case for why career services leaders need to stop accepting the status quo and start advocating for change.

She closes with some of the most practical advice in the two-part series: how to find your people on campus, how to think small when it comes to grants, and why doubling down on what you do best is the right move for any career office that's stretched too thin.

Key topics covered in this episode:

• Why myth-busting is mission-critical for first-gen students—and how assumptions about unpaid internships, year-long commitments, and eligibility requirements are keeping students from pursuing opportunities that are actually available to them.
• How ODU's $5 million Mellon Foundation grant funds the Monarch Humanities Internship Academy, which pays humanities students $20 an hour—including at nonprofits that previously couldn't host interns because they couldn't afford to pay them. Since early 2024, the academy has created over 75 brand-new internships.
• Why unpaid internships deserve real advocacy, not just workarounds—and what career services leaders can do right now at the institutional level to push for change, from reaching out to faculty and departments to challenging accrediting bodies to explain and revisit policies that prohibit pay.
• What the office's biggest win actually looks like—not a funding milestone or an engagement metric, but a student who submitted 50 applications with help from the team, landed a life-changing national internship, and a student whose Congressional internship led her to write that her whole world had changed.
• How ODU's virtual internship office, powered by uConnect, launched in fall 2025 and already boasts the highest engagement rate among comparable R1 institutions in Virginia—and how the office has struck the right balance between high-touch counseling and scalable technology.
• Barbara's top advice for career leaders who want to do something non-traditional: look for the helpers, think small when it comes to grants, and double down on what your office does best instead of trying to do everything.

About the guest:
Dr. Barbara Blake is the Chief Internship Officer and Executive Director of the Monarch Internship & Co-Op Office at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. An economist by training, she has taught economics for over 20 years, conducted economic research for NATO, worked in the corporate world for companies like Hanes Mexico, and owned her own consulting business. Since launching the Monarch Internship & Co-Op Office in July 2023, her team has secured $8.5 million in funding from more than 20 funders and built one of the most distinctive experiential learning models in higher education. Dr. Blake holds a master’s degree from the University of Leeds and has published and presented original economic research in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Resources from the episode:

• Dr. Blake's LinkedIn profile
• Dr. Blake's email: bblakego@odu.edu
• Monarch Internship & Co-Op Virtual Office (powered by uConnect)
• Part one of this conversation

Continue the conversation in the Career Everywhere Community! Join 2,000 other higher ed career services leaders today: careereverywhere.com/community