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Affiliation/Internship Agreements

For faculty and staff who assist in the placement of student interns, the University requires that a student internship agreement be completed and signed by the University and the placement site (Affiliate) prior to the student beginning his or her placement.

Internship Agreement Updates (March 12, 2025)

Internship opportunities are an important tool allowing students to gain valuable hands-on experience, contribute to career readiness, and elevate a student's application for graduate education and professional schools. As a high-impact practice, internships also contribute to our Metric 10 score. The University of West Florida coordinates hundreds of internships each semester resulting in a constant need for student internship agreements with external affiliates. The number of internship agreements needed has been challenging to manage and changes were needed to improve this process both for the student's ability to be placed as well as the departments that oversee the internships.

We want to provide an update on some of the improvements being made to Internship Agreements.

Internship Agreement Templates
The agreement templates used for internships are being updated. In consultation with the Office of the General Counsel (OGC), a new Agency Affiliation Agreement template is now available for use. This template is for an agreement between the affiliate, also known as the agency or internship provider, and UWF. The template is appropriate for non-clinical and clinical (medical and teaching) internships with the inclusion of one of the clinical addenda.

  1. For new internships where an existing agreement is not already in place:
    • Send the affiliate the Sample Agreement, which is located within the Academic Affairs Agreements heading on the Legal Forms Confluence page, to determine if they will agree to use the University's template. Proceed to the next step depending on the response of the affiliate. Refer to Adding and Viewing Existing Affiliation Agreements for information on how to access and upload agreements.
      • OGC-approved template (no changes) - If they agree to use the OGC-approved template and no other changes are needed, OGC review is not required and the agreement can be processed "as is."
      • OGC-approved template (with changes) - If the affiliate agrees to use our template but requests changes, a Word version is available for the affiliate to make their requested redlines. This version of the agreement is locked into track changes only. Any changes to the template must be submitted through a Jira ticket to the OGC for review prior to finalizing.
      • Agency's template - If the affiliate refuses to use the UWF template and instead wishes to use their own template, then a Jira ticket must be opened for OGC review prior to finalizing.
    • Once the agreement has been fully executed, prepare a Notice of Internship for the student(s) who will be interning with the affiliate.
    1. For internships where an agreement is already in place:
      • Confirm that the agreement will be in effect during the time that the student(s) will be interning with the affiliate.
        • Check the dates in the Term portion of the agreement for effective and expiration dates.
        • If the agreement will remain in effect, then go to the next step.
        • If the agreement will expire before the end of the internship, inquire of the Affiliate if they will consider a renewal and then consult with the OGC.
        • If the agreement has already expired, then a new Agency Affiliation Agreement must be entered into as described above in paragraph 1.

    Work is continuing on creation of a new template for situations where an Agency Affiliation Agreement is not required.  Additionally, there may be revisions to the Notice of Internship form.  These changes will be part of Phase 2.

    Affiliation Agreement Repository
    We are also pleased to announce the development of an Affiliation Agreement Repository. Progress on this repository will be seen in phases, with Phase 1 now available. Working with ITS, this project is being developed to better achieve the following goals.

    • Capture all active affiliation agreements in one searchable database;
    • Allow UWF faculty and staff to find existing agreements that can be used for internships;
    • Allow UWF faculty and staff to view the details of an agreement;
    • Link the approved agreements to the Notice of Internship form, for accurate statistics and reporting; and
    • Streamline the process for training internship coordinators to use the new system.

    The launch of this project will move forward in two phases, as follows.

    • Phase 1 includes development of the new Agency Affiliation Agreement template, DocuSign routing via the passthrough page, and the ability to upload OGC-reviewed and approved agency agreements to the database via the passthrough page.
    • Phase 2 will include development of a student internship agreement (between the student and UWF with acknowledgement by the agency), populating the searchable database with existing active agency affiliation agreements, and the ability to link Notice of Internship forms with existing agreements in the database.
    • Additional refinement may be made once the project is launched and efficiencies are identified.

    Affiliation agreements should now be processed using the High-Impact Practices and Professional Opportunities (HIPPO) application. Recently processed agreements will need to be added to the database manually at a later date. Until that time, you should continue to retain your completed agreements within your office.

    We believe these changes will greatly enhance and streamline the student internship agreement process.

    Additional Information in Confluence

    Student Insurance for Clinical Placements

    • Student Specified Professional Liability - Provides protection against claims for damage or injury due to negligence in the performance of specific coursework in certain medical-related academic programs. The policy provides coverage for the students of the programs specified in the application, but only while participating in activities which are part of and a requirement of the students' curriculum at the University, and faculty members of the University with respect to claims arising out of the supervision/instruction of the insured students for covered incidents. This mandatory coverage must be specifically requested in advance and funded by the requesting department.
    • Please contact Pennie Sparks (850.474.2177 or by psparks@uwf.edu), Risk Manager, Environmental Health and Safety, if you have questions or need further information.