Paul Szmal: Time for our Scholastically Speaking segment with our friends from Finger Lakes Community College and others. First off, I want to welcome in an alumnus of FLCC, Kate Eberts is the Associate Executive Director of the Sands Family branch of the YMCA of Greater Rochester. I think I got all that in right, Kate?
Kate Eberts: You absolutely did, fantastic work.
Paul Szmal: And also the Director of PR and Communication and Editor of the Laker Magazine for FLCC. Friend of the show, Lenore Friend here. Hi Lenore.
Lenore Friend: Hi, how are you doing today?
Paul Szmal: Good, good. Now to set the conversation up here, there was a cover story in the Spring 2026 issue of the Laker Magazine and it highlighted FLCC's efforts to increase the number of students who participate in what's called Applied Learning. A lot of times that is internships, but there are other elements. And the focus of the article was on the Sands Family YMCA. Kate, just how many interns did you host in this academic year?
Kate Eberts: In the spring semester, we actually hosted eight students.
Paul Szmal: That's a pretty big number.
Kate Eberts: It is, and it was a wonderful experience for myself and it was a learning curve for my, as I said, and our students did a fantastic job and it was just very exciting all around.
Paul Szmal: What did the students do? What various duties and jobs did they have?
Kate Eberts: So actually we had four students that were in our sports department and they did curriculum planning, leading group activities, and working with parents and families. We had one of our sports working in the aquatics department, helping out with deck management. And then we also went out to different community events as well with those students with like flag football and also the autism awareness fair that we went to. So those four students had that opportunity. We had one working with our active older adults, not only in the spring semester, but also in our fall semester. They did a lot of planning activities for our seniors and basically like arts and crafts and bingo nights and just different, actually cooking food. So lots of different things with that. And then a few other students we had in health and wellness. And then we also had them in the innovation and working with a lot of families as well. As well with that, we had teens. One was actually with us the fall semester as well. So lots of different things that they hosted over a period of time.
Paul Szmal: Sounds like they dove into the deep end of the pool.
Kate Eberts: That is a great way to say that. Absolutely. And it sounds like they did a sterling job at all these different activities too. We kept them active for sure. As a YMCA, everybody needs to be active and we definitely had them running ragged sometimes. So it was a great experience for them.
Paul Szmal: And there's a little bit of history here between FLCC and the Sands Family branch of the YMCA. You're an alumni and there are three other members of the full-time management team that are alumni and also the executive director, Jason Gottfried, he's an alumni member too.
Kate Eberts: He is, yes.
Paul Szmal: How does that experience do you think translate for the students now as they get ready to finish their education and maybe go out into some of the fields that they worked on while they were there?
Kate Eberts: Well, with my experience at FLCC, I had the opportunity to work at the YMCA as well. So it gave me an enlightenment on what I wanted to do. And with the interns, one of the things that we want to make sure of is that it's a career readiness and if this is the field that they want to be in and as part of working with FLCC, they have, it's kind of a great partnership in learning, not going back and saying, I did not want to do this and having the opportunity to say, well, this was a great experience and this is the route that I want to go. This was the same thing as an alumni, I had the experience of working with the YMCA and I actually changed my careers because I actually enjoy working with children. So it helped me out and I changed my path. The FLCC helped me guide me in the way that I wanted to go actually, while I was at FLCC. So that was a life changing experience for you.
Paul Szmal: Yes, yes. We're talking with Lenore Friend and Kate Eberts. Kate is from the Sands Family YMCA and Lenore is with Finger Lakes Community College. And Lenore, just based on the simple success story that we've heard from Kate with the Sands Family YMCA, there are so many good things about an applied learning program. There's almost too many to really mention.
Lenore Friend: Absolutely. It's where you really, as Kate said, you learn, is this a career for me? And if it's not, it helps you redirect your attention or it helps you kind of go deeper into that career, learn more about it and learn where you might want to specialize or find a niche for yourself. Now, internships, those are just one element of an applied learning program. It's probably the one a lot of us are familiar with, but there are other elements to it, too.
Paul Szmal: Absolutely.
Lenore Friend: So we have co-op programs. Now, co-op is essentially a paid internship, and that is very much an on the job training type experience. The idea is that if it works out, you very well may end up working there. That happens very often in our smart systems technologies programs. For our healthcare careers, like nursing, we have clinical placement. People have probably seen medical students and nursing students when they go to the doctor. Then there's other things like field studies, especially for our conservation students. They're out in nature counting birds or inspecting water quality, things like that. There are so many different ways to get that practical experience that helps you really determine your career path. And this program is so successful and so critical to the success of students that there are about 30 degree programs where this is actually a requirement.
Paul Szmal: Right.
Lenore Friend: That is the majority of our degree programs because we want students to be sure. We want students to come to FLCC knowing by the time they leave here, they'll have a pretty good idea of their next step.
Paul Szmal: Lenore, can you give us some examples of some of the businesses, organizations that are working hand in hand with you on the Applied Learning Program?
Lenore Friend: Well, first of all, congrats to the YMCA. They have been wonderful partners and to take over the course of an academic year 10 interns, that is really amazing. And that is why we featured them in the Laker Magazine. But there are many, many businesses that work with us from the accounting field. We have Canandaigua National Bank, Chemical Dependency Counseling. We work very often with FLACRA, the Finger Lakes Area Counseling and Recovering Agency, with horticulture. We've worked frequently with Lincoln Hill Farms, the Wegmans Organic Farm, you know, the list goes on and on with all the different fields and then all the different businesses and organizations that respond to that field. And in addition to like the co-op or the paid internships that we talked about, there are also unpaid internships, but there's a SUNY grant that's available for that.
Paul Szmal: Right.
Lenore Friend: So very often nonprofits don't really have the finances to take a lot of interns. And so SUNY allows us to give a $695 stipend upon completion of an unpaid internship. And we can also give students gas cards because we know it costs money, especially now, to get to and from that internship. So we want to make it as easy as possible for the student.
Paul Szmal: So to kind of sum all this up, this Applied Learning Program has been a fantastic success story. Lenore, I'm sure you have plenty of alumni who have gone out into the real world, taking jobs in different fields, who have come back and said, you know, this experience for me was critical in choosing this field and deciding that this is what I wanted to do.
Lenore Friend: That is true. I hear all the time from alumni as I work on the Laker Magazine that it was very often an internship, an applied learning experience that really ignited them. And Kate, I see probably more interns in the future for the Sands Family YMCA.
Kate Eberts: I do hope so. We actually had the opportunity to hire a few of them after they finished their internship. So it assists us in the end as well.
Lenore Friend: And Lenora, I imagine that is probably the case in a lot of aspects where students perform so well in these internships or co-op programs that sometimes they're offered a job.
Paul Szmal: Yes, that happens fairly often. And that is exactly one of the things we want to come out of this. I want to mention the Laker Magazine because I don't know how many people may be familiar with that. Where can people pick up a copy of the magazine?
Lenore Friend: So the Laker Magazine is mailed to alumni and friends of the college. So if you graduated from FLCC, you're probably getting it in the mail, or maybe your parents are and you should just check with them. Or you are a donor and you are receiving this. If you come to the main campus, we have it spread out and available at some of our entrances if you want to get a copy as well. And if maybe somebody listening has a student or maybe a grandchild that's a student that might be interested in pursuing one of these programs when they attend FLCC, who would they contact for more information?
Paul Szmal: Well, they should just go to our website, flcc.edu. They're welcome to call our One-Stop Center. And we have lots of different admissions events that they can attend. These are some of the best events that they can go to, the larger open houses, because you can actually meet the professors who will be teaching you. So really encourage people to look for those open houses.
Lenore Friend: Kate, thank you so much for sharing your experiences and best of success in your continued ventures with the Sands Family YMCA.
Kate Eberts: Well, we thank you as well, Paul and Lenore, for giving us this opportunity to speak on the radio. And hopefully this will assist everybody else in the future.
Paul Szmal: And Lenore, as always, good to talk to you.
Lenore Friend: Thank you so much.
Paul Szmal: Okay. Thanks so much, Paul.
