As director of the Cooperative Education Internship Center, Susan Lanman oversees more than 2,500 registered students and almost 1,000 placements every year that she and five staff members orchestrate. In 2002-03 Metro students' combined earnings reached more than $3 million, plus they amassed more than 2,600 academic credits in programs ranging from paid co-op placements, to unpaid internships to service learning volunteer opportunities.

Lanman wears another hat at Metro, though, that of an assistant professor in the Department of History, where she directly places and supervises students in history-related internships and teaches the occasional class in Colorado Women's History and Public History. She's also an active researcher in the area of historical gardens and landscapes, or more specifically, how British and American gardens and landscapes have affected culture and society. Her most recent work, a chapter entitled "For Profit and Pleasure: Peter Henderson and the Commercialization of Horticulture in 19th Century America," will appear in the upcoming book "Industrializing Organisms: Introducing Evolutionary History," published by Routledge.

A Metro veteran, Lanman has coordinated the cooperative education program since 1978, and was named director in 1982. While many collegiate internship programs leave students largely unsupervised, Metro treats for-credit internships like independent studies. Faculty supervisors meet with students to set goals for the experience and they contact on-the-job supervisors. Students often write reflection papers about their internships, keep journals or make presentations.

"One of the best things about these experiences is that students have time to correct and make other choices should they really hate the job," Lanman says. "It gives them the chance to make realistic choices. When they graduate we want them to have jobs."