The 26 students who are enrolled this year in the CHNS dietetics internship program are facing the same on-the-job training and academic requirements as did interns in the previous years of the program--but with one big difference. This year, many are completing their internships hundreds of miles away from Delaware and, except for a two-week orientation at the start of the program in August, may never even set foot on campus.

The program, which the College began offering in 1995 in collaboration with the Delaware Division of Public Health, is designed to prepare students to earn their credentials as registered dietitians. Full-time interns must perform 28 weeks of intensive work in a variety of settings, overseen by faculty in the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, and complete several academic requirements.

Instead of fulfilling those requirements while living on or commuting regularly to campus, the current interns are attending lectures, submitting papers and other assignments, discussing problems and concerns, reporting on the progress of their on-the-job experiences and conferring with their faculty advisers--all via computer.

"Last year, we started doing the program on the Internet, and this year, we offered it as a distance-learning option," Jack Smith, chairperson of the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, says. "We have a number of students who live out of state and can't go away to college, because of work or family. If there's no university program close to their homes--and, some states have no dietetics internship program at all--they really need this kind of distance-learning option."

Students in the internship program have completed their undergraduate degrees, at UD or elsewhere, and are seeking additional credentials as registered dietitians, which will expand their career opportunities. To earn that "RD" designation, a student must complete at least 900 hours of supervised work in several defined areas and then successfully take the national Registration Examination for Dietitians, administered by the American Dietetic Association.

As a result of the department's move to an online format, Smith says, the internship has expanded its enrollment, up from 15 students last school year to the current 26, and significantly increased the diversity of its students. Many of the current interns are older or otherwise "non-traditional" students who may have completed their undergraduate degrees several years ago but were unable, often because of geography, to enroll in an internship program.

"In our last group, which graduated in July, 13 of the 15 were traditional students, who went directly from high school to an undergraduate degree to the internship," says Charlene Hamilton, associate professor and director of the program. "We'll never see that kind of high percentage of traditional students again. This year, 16 of the 26 are living and doing their internships in their home locations, and only seven of the 26 are UD graduates."

One of the current interns making use of the distance-learning capability of the online program is Dale Wolf, who earned her undergraduate degree from Syracuse University several years ago. When she decided to become a registered dietitian, she chose UD because she was unsure where her husband's job would take them this school year, and she wanted to remain flexible. The couple ended up living in Boston, where Wolf's husband is working on a medical fellowship.

"Since I really didn't want to live apart from him for a year, this distance-learning option was perfect for me," she says. "I arranged locations in Boston to do my internship, and I can do everything else by computer."

For Karin Classon, the benefit of the UD program was economic. "I couldn't afford to pay room and board while I do an internship, so I chose the distance option," she says. "That way, I can live with my parents and do my rotations in New Jersey, and not have to physically commute to school."

Hamilton and Smith say the current class of interns includes some who live a considerable distance from campus, including one in Arizona who is doing some of her work on an Indian reservation. Another student lives much closer, in Hershey, Pa., but because she has family obligations, including three children, never found a way to devote the necessary time to an internship until she discovered UD's distance option, Hamilton says.

"We expected those kinds of situations," she says, "but what we didn't expect was that some students chose this program just to travel." A few, she says, have arranged to complete some of their on-the-job training in one city and some in another, enabling them to live temporarily with various friends and relatives or to spend time in a particular city they like.

Smith says he foresees expanding to about 40 interns per year. He also is developing partnerships with universities in states that have no internship programs of their own.

Interns, with the guidance of University faculty members, are responsible for arranging their own work locations and finding preceptors, who are the professionals who oversee interns on the job.

"While they're doing the internship, they take courses," Hamilton says. "Twice a week, we have lectures in a video-stream format. They can watch the lectures at their own convenience and then, for class time, they get together with one another and the speaker in a chat room. The faculty members use regularly scheduled chat rooms as online office hours."

Faculty also check in regularly with the preceptors to monitor each intern's progress. "We need to keep in contact with everyone," Hamilton says. "But, we don't have to be physically present everywhere."

Participating in a program in which working online becomes second nature may have provided another benefit to UD students. Two years ago, Hamilton says, the Registration Exam for Dietitians became computer-based, with all prospective RDs required to take the test electronically.

"When that happened, the average score declined nationally, but the scores for our students increased," she says. "So, we think that's another plus for our program." In the past two years, 96 percent of the program's graduates have passed the national exam.

--Ann Manser, AS'73, CHEP'73