Kuyper Student to Begin Internship with the Grand Rapids Police Department

Alex Owens recently became the first Kuyper College student ever to secure an internship with the Grand Rapids Police Department. Beginning in the fall, he will be working with the Victim’s Services Department, which provides information, support, and resources to victims of crimes occurring in the city of Grand Rapids.

The senior social work major says this role fits perfectly with the ethos of his program: advocating for justice and embracing the dignity and worth of all people. “Basically, we’ll help make sure that people who have been victims of any kind of crime are taken care of,” explained Owens, who also plays on Kuyper men’s soccer team.

Director of Social Work Field Practicum and Associate Professor of Social Work Kelli Hoffman said internships help students gain confidence in their abilities as future social workers.

“They give students the opportunity to put into practice the knowledge and skills they learn in the classroom,” she emphasized. “Internships truly reinforce our program’s practice-based approach and how essential it is to not only learn about social work, but how to do social work as well.”

Owens’ connection to the GRPD goes all the way back to a childhood that saw him tagging along with his father, a career city employee who started out in wastewater treatment before moving to the motor pool at the GRPD. He says this history made choosing an internship location easy.

“They’ve known me there since I was little, so I got in contact, interviewed, and got the job,” he said with a smile.

His choice of major and internship location both reflect a desire to support others through all of life’s highs and lows, which can also be seen in his KuyperWorks position.

Owens leads the Student Success team, a group of student coaches who partner with other students to help them navigate various aspects of college life – academic, emotional, social and spiritual included – with the goal of fostering a close-knit campus and a more positive college experience overall.

“We do things like tutoring and guidance on homework assignments, or even just making sure they turn things in on time,” he said, adding that the job essentially means being a reliable, steady presence in the lives of fellow students.

This role in KuyperWorks – the most visible aspect of Kuyper’s work college initiative, which integrates in-classroom learning with workplace learning – also gave him the opportunity to travel with a group of Kuyper students and staff to Washington, D.C. for the Work Colleges Consortium’s Advocacy Days event last year.

The annual event creates the opportunity to meet with lawmakers and share the importance of continued support for the federal Work-Colleges Program, which helps fund institutions that make a comprehensive work-service-learning program integral to their identity.

“It was so much fun. We got to talk to people on Capitol Hill and tell them why the program is so important, and we got to meet students from other work colleges and hear their stories,” Owens said.

Someday, he hopes to put the knowledge and skills he’s building through his studies, KuyperWorks, and internship with the GRPD to good use as a school guidance counselor.

“My guidance counselor in middle school was my inspiration to study social work in the first place. I saw how much of a difference she made in my best friend’s life, and I want to be that same difference-maker in somebody else’s life,” Owens said simply.