Knapp Internship

The Knapp fund has provided opportunities for students from a wide variety of interests and backgrounds to develop expertise via technology-enhanced teaching and learning projects.

Students from the humanities, social sciences, and sciences have become Knapp interns: many have reported over the years on the impact of these experiences on their post-Wellesley educational and career choices. They now make contributions in occupations as diverse as teaching, graphic design, writing and publishing, law and medicine -- and in countries around the world.

Gathering of Knapp Intern alumnae in April 2014

In Spring 2009, we modified the Knapp intern program to respond to the changing technology landscape and changing staffing patterns.  Rather than hire eight to ten undergraduates for two months during the summer, we chose to hire one recent Wellesley graduate to work on special instructional and/or emerging technology projects for twelve months.  

• Christina Pong ‘09, Media Arts & Sciences: implementation, testing, documentation, and launch of a web content management system.  Secondary projects included the expansion of the College’s successful iTunes U program, and the creation, design, and launch of a new podcast and website project entitled What Wellesley’s Reading.

• Colette Whitaker ‘10, Computer Science and Psychology: launch of Sakai (learning management tool), webcasting, tool research, video and audio editing

• Megan Cunniff ‘11, English: transition to Google Mail and Google Apps; testing for a learning management system based on Google Sites and Google Apps; and support for initial launch of interactive whiteboards in classrooms.

• Rose Heydt, '12, Media Arts & Sciences: web development in Drupal and PHP, website redesign and implementations, including responsive design research.

In previous years, interns worked closely with the faculty in many departments to produce websites, databases, simulations, multimedia collections, animations, etc. to support classroom instruction as well as faculty research.

Selected Knapp Intern projects 2002-2008

2002 - German (Thomas Nolden and Keigh Hammond ‘03)  -- building on success of previous project for 5th semester German, created a new website for 3rd semester German centered around Das Versprechen ("The Promise"), a 1994 film by Margarethe von Trotta about friends separated by the Berlin wall for 28 years. The site included grammar and comprehension exercises, as well as brief clips from the film.

2003 - Biology (Carol Ann Paul, Christina Greavu ’05, and Giuliana Funkhouser ‘04) -- develop a web page explaining immunocytochemical techniques for Biology 306 (Principles of Neural Development).  The interns developed a series of animations (using Flash) explaining some of the preliminary steps for processing tissue with antibodies.  Topics included how to preserve tissue by crosslinking proteins; how to “make holes” in the cell membrane to enable antibodies to penetrate cells; and the structure and workings of antibodies.  

2003 - Chinese (Jing-Heng Ma, Anna Kim ’06 and Jiayang Chien ‘05) -- created an extensive web site to supplement a new textbook for Introductory Chinese written by Professor Ma. The material for the first semester of this course (10 lessons) was created in the summer of 2003. Each lesson comprises between 15 and 30 animated vocabulary flashcards, 10 to 20 animated listening comprehension exercises, and a self-correcting sentence translation quiz.  Students used the web site in preparation for their classes as well as to review material that has been covered during the semester.

2003 - Political Science (William Joseph, Guiliana Funkhouser '04, and Joyce Hsu ‘05) -- created a searchable, Internet-accessible database of images of daily life in China during the Cultural Revolution, taken by Professor Joseph in 1972.  In the first phase of the project, over 250 slides were digitized by the interns and then annotated by Professor Joseph. The database is organized by geographic region within China as well as by topics such as agriculture, arts, education, health care, industry, and politics.

2004 - Biology (Carol Ann Paul, Ceclia Yu ’07, and Zsuzsa Moricz ‘06) – created an animated simulation of a laboratory experiment investigating how exercise affects the rate of neurogenesis (the formation of new neurons) in mice.  Carol Ann used this animation as the basis for future simulations investigating how other factors affect the rate of neurogenesis in mice, crayfish, and tree shrews.

Knapp Interns