Feature Story
Southern Virginia University Receives Two SCHEV Grants to Support Student Work-Based Learning
Southern Virginia University has been awarded two grants totaling $400,000 from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) through the Virginia Talent + Opportunity Partnership (V-TOP) initiative. Each distributed as $100,000 annually for two years, the grants will be utilized to establish and strengthen data collection systems and reduce financial and structural barriers for student participation in work-based learning.
“We are deeply committed to bridging the gap between the classroom and the workforce,” said President Aaron Hale. “With the support of these grants, SVU is poised to supercharge our career-readiness initiatives and provide students with a powerful head start in their professional lives.”
Funding from the Work-Based Learning Comprehensive Data Collection Grant will be used to improve data pipelines and integrations between systems to support management, tracking, and analysis of data, and encouraging students to participate in self-reporting of work-based learning. This can include classroom projects, micro-internships, internships (on and off-campus), service, and other forms of building experience related to the workforce. This will be spearheaded by a partnership between SVU’s Hugh & Cindy Redd Launch Center — the university’s career services department — and the university’s IT department.
A task force has been formed to oversee and implement the usage of the funding and is chaired by President Hale and co-chaired by SVU’s database administrator Justin Wiseman, with close partnership with Director of the Launch Center Tyler Orr. Additional members will include Director of IT Dale Murri and representatives of the provost, registrar, and student success offices.
“This grant will enable us to invest in improving the systems and processes used to both collect data related to work-based learning and connect it to graduate outcomes,” said Orr. “It will also help us have a more comprehensive understanding of the sources of work-based learning opportunities so we can better leverage existing relationships to support future students in finding similar opportunities.”
SVU was also awarded the Student Support and Access Grant, designed to reduce financial and structural barriers to ensure every student completes an internship or work‐based learning experience before graduation. This funding will be used to develop curriculum and resources to help eliminate barriers for working and learning opportunities, fund micro-internships, offset costs for participating in work-based learning experiences, and market the program to students internally and externally.
“SVU has a high proportion of students with various barriers to entry, including students from lower-income families, those who are parents of small children while attending school, first-generation students, and other groups that face extra challenges in participating in work-based learning experiences that can set them up for future success,” said Orr. “This grant will help remove or reduce those barriers for a group of students, with the intent that it will serve as a pilot for resources and programs to consider offering to all students in the future.”
President Hale will chair another task force driving this initiative, with Tyler Orr serving as co-chair and leading a group including Associate Provost Professor Sarah Maitland and other faculty and staff to oversee the usage of the funds.
SVU previously received a grant of $25,000 from SCHEV dedicated to expanding student work-based learning opportunities in November 2025. This grant has been used to fund campus visits from employers, graduate programs, and experiential learning experts, improve the Launch Center space, fund Handshake — the University’s career management platform — and encourage students to share post-graduation plans. It will also be used for internship stipends for students and welcome local employers and community leaders to campus over the summer.
“We have been able to build a roadmap for the experiences and opportunities we want a graduate to have had before graduation,” said Orr. “This includes helping students identify their strengths, develop foundational career readiness skills, gain quality experiences, and launch into successful lives and careers. New courses and asynchronous modules, a campus culture and emphasis on work-based learning, and more intentional academic and career planning will help us get there.”
The grants are administered by SCHEV through V-TOP, which is funded by the General Assembly’s Commonwealth Innovative Internship Fund and Program.
Individuals or organizations interested in partnering with Southern Virginia University on internships, projects, or mentorship for students can reach out to career.services@svu.edu.