Step-Up program returns to UNMC Omaha campus

The Step-Up Omaha! interns have returned to the UNMC campus.

A community-based initiative of the Empowerment Network, funded in part by the City of Omaha and Charles E. Lakin Foundation, the Step-Up Omaha! program recruits, trains and places prepared Omaha youth and young adults – ages 14 to 21 – in mutually beneficial paid summer jobs and work experience opportunities. For nine weeks, participants are paid by the Step-Up program and take part in career exploration, on-the-job training or career-oriented internships.

The nine interns, more than double 2016’s initial intern class of four, are working in eight departments, including the Center for Healthy Living, the McGoogan Library of Medicine, the UNMC and University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) Human Resources Department, the Child Health Research Institute, the UNMC Department of Pediatrics, the UNMC Office of Academic Affairs and the UNMC Chancellor’s Office.

“We’ve had an intern in the chancellor’s office for many summers, and that says a lot,” said Aileen Warren, associate vice chancellor for UNMC and the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). “The word has just spread — how diligent the interns are, what they bring to the campus. Departments call up every year to say, ‘Are the interns coming back? If they are, we want one.'”

Warren praised UNMC’s Evelyn Grixby for the growth of the program, which has become a model for other participating Omaha institutions.

“She has taken the program and put her own special feel to it,” Warren said. “Not only to make the students feel welcomed but also to help the campus understand the importance of this program and to educate UNMC leaders so they will want a Step-Up intern. We’re pleased with the way the UNMC community has embraced this program and how it’s continued to grow on our campus.”

Randy Smith, a rising junior at Omaha North High School, will be interning at the Center for Healthy Living. The student, who is interested in a health career, perhaps in psychiatry, said that the lifestyle and fitness activities at the center drew him, as well as a communications aspect, as he will work with photography, video and Adobe Creative Cloud to promote the center.

“These are things I am personally interested in,” he said. “I’ve been working with photography and videography, and I’d like to be in the medical field. Working at the Center for Healthy Living will help me to understand how to work with people to better themselves. And whatever field I go into, this environment will give me knowledge and useful experience.”