A Place to Listen and Learn

For many students, internships provide invaluable learning opportunities that tie academics to real-world experience. Internships allow students to hone their skills and explore various career pathways.

One Concordia University, St. Paul student benefitting from an internship is junior psychology major Cole Steinberg, ‘24. Originally, he wanted to pursue a career in clinical psychology, but has switched his focus to pursuing a legal career and would like to attend law school following graduation.

Steinberg found an impactful internship to help him develop skills for his future career thanks to Dr. Julie Luker, assistant professor of psychology at CSP. As part of her own professional research and personal interests, Luker embarked on a project to conduct oral histories of baby boomers who grew up in neighborhoods across the Twin Cities to compare the experiences interviewees had in different neighborhoods. “I wanted to capture a story,” she explains.

Luker enlisted the help of student volunteers and interns to develop the interview questions, conduct interviews, and transcribe the interviews, introducing valuable learning experiences to these students. “They are able to have direct experience actually doing research,” she says. “You're not just talking about it, but I’m actually assigning them things to do.”

Steinberg ended up conducting and transcribing approximately 60 interviews. He sees his involvement in the oral history project as a great way to improve the research skills he has acquired at CSP and put them to use in a real-world setting. “It helped me to really hone my listening skills,” he shares. “I learned to be a little bit more creative thinking on my feet with people who were hesitant to respond, or it was really hard to get them going. I just had to go outside the script a little bit, and whatever they're willing to elaborate on, I would feed into that, really let them expand on it.”

Ultimately, Steinberg says that the best part of his experience was fostering connections with community members. “I had people get really emotional, and that was really cool because I was watching people rediscover their childhood or their origins,” he shares. “Sometimes it was just real raw emotion.”

Luker’s work on this oral history project is far from finished. She envisions interviewing individuals from other generations to compare experiences across generational divides as well as different neighborhoods, as well as deeper analysis of the themes found within the interviews and possible presentations on the research. This work will include more students who can engage in real-world listening and learning experiences as they prepare to pursue their professional endeavors.

The Opportunity Fund allows CSP to address the area of greatest need for our students. It ensures that a Concordia education remains affordable, accessible, and achievable while also providing a meaningful Christ-centered educational experience that prepares students for their future vocations. While the distribution of Opportunity Fund gifts varies from year to year, below is a representation of how the funds were distributed in fiscal year 2023.

CAPITAL PROJECTS

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

DIVERSITY PROGRAMMING

5% 5%

10%

60% 20%

CSP MINISTRY

STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS