Internship Applied Learning Activities in Response to COVID 19

The Business Internship program has developed a plan to address temporary disruption to students’ internship placements due to national or local events such as communicable diseases, natural disasters, and/or civil unrest.

• Students should contact their site sponsor at their internship location to work together if there are mandatory agency closures and follow the directive of the agency.

• If the internship is in a setting where additional support is needed, we encourage students to make every effort to attend the internship as scheduled.

• Unless otherwise discussed with the internship site sponsor and instructor (Professor Mars), internships will continue as scheduled.

Contingency Plan

If a decision is made by a student or the internship location to stay home for a period of time, the

BUS Department has developed the option for students to be able to continue to acquire internship hours. Internship Education Virtual Applied Learning Activities are meant to be supplemental to internship experience and not in lieu of agency learning. Students must request this option by emailing the site sponsor and instructor (Professor Mars).

The student should include:

1. The plan for hours devoted to the activity/activities. This must include specific times, dates, and location.

2. The request must be approved by both the site sponsor and instructor prior to completing the activity/activities.

3. The student must submit written verification of activity completion to the instructor to receive credit for the hours. The maximum number of hours has not been determined but for now, no more than 45 hours may be completed virtually. Requests for more than this will need approval from the instructor.

As noted, I hope you will each be able to continue your internships. However, if circumstances outside of our control prohibit this, please e-mail me immediately to set up the contingency.

In the meantime, all weekly time sheets and activity reports should be submitted via Blackboard.

The time sheets must be scanned, no photos will be accepted, and the weekly activity reports will be typed as usual.

Should you have any questions, please reach out to me directly 

Thanks for all you are doing to be successful in the course.

Sincerely,

Young

Requirements

The below requirements are to ensure that the virtual activities are completely in a professional, appropriate, and timely fashion.

• Students must clear their Competency choice with the Instructor (Professor Snyder).

• Each Competency will be assigned a mutually agreeable due date with the Instructor

(Professor Snyder) and the student and due dates must be arranged weekly.

• Students that need to complete hours must check in via e-mail, Zoom, Google Hangout, etc. with the Instructor (Professor Snyder) weekly.

• All students will continue to complete their assignments and discussions via Blackboard.

• Students are responsible for ensuring they complete the 90-hours of work at the

Internship location or via Applied Learning Activities Competencies. This includes checking in weekly with the Instructor (Professor Snyder), ensuring work is completely in a timely fashion, and to a high-standard.

Internship Education Applied Learning Activity Ideas for Students by Competency

Competency 1: Demonstrate Ethical and Professional Behavior

• Appropriate and timely use of email, virtual supervision, and communication during uncertain times

• Develop a new work plan, including due dates, for written products to be submitted to field instructor while working remotely.

• Select a standard from a professional Code of Ethics (this requires research, you may use a professional organization such as NEA, IFAC, PR, HRM, NASW etc.) Reflect in writing on differences or points of tension between the Code and agency policy/procedure and/or services. This should be a ten paged, double-spaced paper with at least six external sources and be formatted with MLA in-text citations and an MLA works cited. 100% original work.

• Read literature on the Code of Ethics and summarize how it applies to your career in the above-mentioned paper.

• Review ethics-related case studies, OR reflect on personal experience regarding ethical quandary in field and respond in the above paper to factors that must be considered.

• Review history of the Code of Ethics you chose. Reflect on its evolution to address gaps. Identify specific areas where gaps remain in the above paper.

• Identify Ted Talks, YouTube videos and podcasts related to social work practice. Write about personal reactions and how your learning applies to agency ethical and professional practice in the above paper.

Use the readings from your Psychological Testing and Assessment text, Embretson’s 2004 article, “The Second Century of Ability Testing: Some Predictions and Speculations,” and additional research to complete this discussion.

Research the historical connections and trends in the field of psychology of the following dyads: (1) Sir Francis Galton to James McKeen Cattell, and (2) Alfred Binet to Lewis Terman. Compare and contrast the relationship between both sets of key figures and the milestones they facilitated in the history of tests and measurements. What were the similarities and differences within each dyad? What were the similarities and differences across the two sets of dyads?

Choose one of these four individuals based on the criteria below and do additional research on that person using the Capella library. Share your findings about key contributions of that selected individual in your discussion post, citing at least two published articles, not including the Psychological Testing and Assessment text or the Embretson article (include these as references). Identify your choice of the key historical figure in your subject line of the post you submit.

In your post:

• Identify a couple of important similarities and differences within each dyad.
• Identify a couple of important similarities and differences across both sets of dyads.
• Identify the individual who, in your opinion, had the greatest impact on your particular interest or specialty within the field of psychology. (Include the name of the individual in your subject line of the discussion thread when you submit your initial post.)
• Describe how the one historical figure you selected expanded the base of knowledge in the field, including information from the journal articles.
• Explain how that individual provided a foundation to a trend that continues in psychology today.

Cost of Capital

In the links below, you will explore how companies compute their cost of capital by computing a weighted average of the three major components of capital: debt, preferred stock, and common equity. The firm’s cost of capital is a key element in capital budgeting decisions and must be understood in order to justify capital projects. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8JZhQofRTs

For this Discussion, imagine the following scenario:

You are the director of operations for your company, and your vice president wants to expand production by adding new and more expensive fabrication machines. You are directed to build a business case for implementing this program of capacity expansion. Assume the company’s weighted average cost of capital is 13%, the after-tax cost of debt is 7%, preferred stock is 10.5%, and common equity is 15%. As you work with your staff on the first cut of the business case, you surmise that this is a fairly risky project due to a recent slowing in product sales. As a matter of fact, when using the 13% weighted average cost of capital, you discover that the project is estimated to return about 10%, which is quite a bit less than the company’s weighted average cost of capital. An enterprising young analyst in your department, Harriet, suggests that the project is financed from retained earnings (50%) and bonds (50%). She reasons that using retained earnings does not cost the firm anything since it is cash you already have in the bank and the after-tax cost of debt is only 7%. That would lower your weighted average cost of capital to 3.5% and make your 10% projected return look great.

Based on the scenario above, post your reactions to the following questions and concerns:

What is your reaction to Harriet’s suggestion of using the cost of debt only? Is it a good idea or a bad idea? Why? Do you think capital projects should have their own unique cost of capital rates for budgeting purposes, as opposed to using the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) or the cost of equity capital as computed by CAPM? What about the relatively high risk inherent in this project? How can you factor into the analysis of the notion of risk so that all competing projects that have relatively lower or higher risks can be evaluated on a level playing field?

Warren Buffet made a bet 11 years ago with anyone who wanted to take him up on it that net returns on a passive investment in an S&P 500 index fund would beat returns on any other actively managed fund the person on the other side of the bet wanted to select, over a 10-year period.  I think it was a $1 million bet, and both parties had to agree to donate the proceeds to a charity of his or her choice.  Last year, the bet ended, and the passive strategy won out.  A big portion of the reason Buffett made that bet is that fees on most actively-managed funds are 0.5% to 1.5% of Assets Under Management (AUM), and those fees really impair returns, especially when you consider their negative impact on compounding of returns over a meaningful period of time.  Though we’ll talk about passive vs. active investment strategies more later on in this course, I’d like to get you thinking about it now.  Comment on your thoughts about active management vs. a passive strategy of investing in an index fund with substantially lower fees (0.1% to 0.2% of AUM). 

I’ve included some excerpts from Buffett’s comments on his “bet”, and some of his comments on fees below, FYI

FROM THE 2017 LETTER TO STOCKHOLDERS:

“The Bet” is Over and Has Delivered an Unforeseen Investment Lesson Last year, at the 90% mark, I gave you a detailed report on a ten-year bet I had made on December 19, 2007. (The full discussion from last year’s annual report is reprinted on pages 24 – 26.) Now I have the final tally – and, in several respects, it’s an eye-opener. I made the bet for two reasons: (1) to leverage my outlay of $318,250 into a disproportionately larger sum that – if things turned out as I expected – would be distributed in early 2018 to Girls Inc. of Omaha; and (2) to publicize my conviction that my pick – a virtually cost-free investment in an unmanaged S&P 500 index fund – would, over time, deliver better results than those achieved by most investment professionals, however well-regarded and incentivized those “helpers” may be. Addressing this question is of enormous importance. American investors pay staggering sums annually to advisors, often incurring several layers of consequential costs. In the aggregate, do these investors get their money’s worth? Indeed, again in the aggregate, do investors get anything for their outlays? Protégé Partners, my counterparty to the bet, picked five “funds-of-funds” that it expected to overperform the S&P 500. That was not a small sample. Those five funds-of-funds in turn owned interests in more than 200 hedge funds. Essentially, Protégé, an advisory firm that knew its way around Wall Street, selected five investment experts who, in turn, employed several hundred other investment experts, each managing his or her own hedge fund. This assemblage was an elite crew, loaded with brains, adrenaline and confidence. The managers of the five funds-of-funds possessed a further advantage: They could – and did – rearrange their portfolios of hedge funds during the ten years, investing with new “stars” while exiting their positions in hedge funds whose managers had lost their touch. Every actor on Protégé’s side was highly incentivized: Both the fund-of-funds managers and the hedge-fund managers they selected significantly shared in gains, even those achieved simply because the market generally moves upwards. (In 100% of the 43 ten-year periods since we took control of Berkshire, years with gains by the S&P 500 exceeded loss years.) Those performance incentives, it should be emphasized, were frosting on a huge and tasty cake: Even if the funds lost money for their investors during the decade, their managers could grow very rich. That would occur because fixed fees averaging a staggering 21⁄2% of assets or so were paid every year by the fund-of-funds’ investors, with part of these fees going to the managers at the five funds-of-funds and the balance going to the 200-plus managers of the underlying hedge funds. 

Here’s the final scorecard for the bet: 

Year           Fund A   Fund B    Fund C    Fund D   Fund E   S&P Index Fund 

2008         -16.5%    -22.3%    -21.3%   -29.3%    -30.1%          -37.0% 

2009           11.3%      14.5%     21.4%     16.5%      16.8%           26.6% 

2010            5.9%        6.8%     13.3%       4.9%      11.9%            15.1% 

2011           -6.3%       -1.3%       5.9%      -6.3%     -2.8%             2.1% 

2012            3.4%        9.6%      5 .7%       6.2%        9.1%           16.0% 

2013           10.5%      15.2%        8.8%     14.2%      14.4%           32.3% 

2014            4.7%        4.0%       18.9%      0.7%       -2.1%           13.6%      

2015             1.6%        2.5%        5.4%      1.4%       -5.0%             1.4% 

2016           -3.2%         1.9%       -1.7%      2.5%        4.4%            11.9% 

2017           12.2%       10.6%       15.6%      N/A       18.0%           21.8% 

Final Gain    21.7%      42.3%       87.7%      2.8%      27.0%         125.8% 

Avg Ann, Gain 2.0%      3.6%         6.5%       0.3%       2.4%            8.5% 

Footnote: Under my agreement with Protégé Partners, the names of these funds-of-funds have never been publicly disclosed. I, however, have received their annual audits from Protégé. The 2016 figures for funds A, B and C were revised slightly from those originally reported last year. Fund D was liquidated in 2017; its average annual gain is calculated for the nine years of its operation. The five funds-of-funds got off to a fast start, each beating the index fund in 2008. Then the roof fell in. In every one of the nine years that followed, the funds-of-funds as a whole trailed the index fund. Let me emphasize that there was nothing aberrational about stock-market behavior over the ten-year stretch. If a poll of investment “experts” had been asked late in 2007 for a forecast of long-term common-stock returns, their guesses would have likely averaged close to the 8.5% actually delivered by the S&P 500. Making money in that environment should have been easy. Indeed, Wall Street “helpers” earned staggering sums. While this group prospered, however, many of their investors experienced a lost decade. Performance comes, performance goes. Fees never falter. 

FROM BUFFETT’S 2018 LETTER TO STOCKHOLDERS:

On March 11th, it will be 77 years since I first invested in an American business. The year was 1942, I was 11, and I went all in, investing $114.75 I had begun accumulating at age six. What I bought was three shares of Cities Service preferred stock. I had become a capitalist, and it felt good. Let’s now travel back through the two 77-year periods that preceded my purchase. That leaves us starting in 1788, a year prior to George Washington’s installation as our first president. Could anyone then have imagined what their new country would accomplish in only three 77-year lifetimes? During the two 77-year periods prior to 1942, the United States had grown from four million people – about 1⁄2 of 1% of the world’s population – into the most powerful country on earth. In that spring of 1942, though, it faced a crisis: The U.S. and its allies were suffering heavy losses in a war that we had entered only three months earlier. Bad news arrived daily. Despite the alarming headlines, almost all Americans believed on that March 11th that the war would be won. Nor was their optimism limited to that victory. Leaving aside congenital pessimists, Americans believed that their children and generations beyond would live far better lives than they themselves had led. The nation’s citizens understood, of course, that the road ahead would not be a smooth ride. It never had been. Early in its history our country was tested by a Civil War that killed 4% of all American males and led President Lincoln to openly ponder whether “a nation so conceived and so dedicated could long endure.” In the 1930s, America suffered through the Great Depression, a punishing period of massive unemployment. Nevertheless, in 1942, when I made my purchase, the nation expected post-war growth, a belief that proved to be well-founded. In fact, the nation’s achievements can best be described as breathtaking. Let’s put numbers to that claim: If my $114.75 had been invested in a no-fee S&P 500 index fund, and all dividends had been reinvested, my stake would have grown to be worth (pre-taxes) $606,811 on January 31, 2019 (the latest data available before the printing of this letter). That is a gain of 5,288 for 1. Meanwhile, a $1 million investment by a tax-free institution of that time – say, a pension fund or college endowment – would have grown to about $5.3 billion. Let me add one additional calculation that I believe will shock you: If that hypothetical institution had paid only 1% of assets annually to various “helpers,” such as investment managers and consultants, its gain would have been cut in half, to $2.65 billion. That’s what happens over 77 years when the 11.8% annual return actually achieved by the S&P 500 is recalculated at a 10.8% rate. 

Module 4 – SLP

THE FUTURE OF HEALTH CARE DELIVERY

Another challenge affecting health care delivery is the growing shortage of health care personnel. Quality, a major concern of health care, is directly impacted by understaffing. For your Module 4 SLP, conduct research on the need for health care personnel in your state, city/town, or a location that you are familiar with. Based on your research, compose a 2-page memorandum to your local/state representative identifying your findings. In your memorandum, include the following:

• Detailed statistics on the shortage of health care personnel in your selected geographical area.
• Comparative statistics to the national shortage of health care personnel.
• Explain how health care personnel shortage is affecting health care delivery currently and within the next 10 years.

You may use the following source to review a sample memorandum:

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/professional_technical_writing/memos/sample_memo.html

SLP Assignment Expectations

1. Conduct additional research to gather sufficient information to justify/support your memorandum.
2. Limit your response to a maximum of 2 pages, not including the title or reference page.
3. Support your report with peer-reviewed articles, with at least 3 references. Use the following link for additional information on how to recognize peer-reviewed journals. Angelo State University Library (n.d.) Library guide: How to recognize peer reviewed (refereed journals). Retrieved from: https://www.angelo.edu/services/library/handouts/peerrev.php
4. You may use the following source to assist in formatting your assignment. Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). General APA guidelines. Retrieved from: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/.
5. For additional information on reliability of sources review the following source. Georgetown University Library (n.d.) Evaluating internet resources. Retrieved from https://www.library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/evaluating-internet-content