LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- Dr. William M. Strahle (left) of Yardley, PA, associate professor of marketing at Rider University, is on paid research leave for the fall semester to examine the value of experiential learning as it applies to internships in the college curriculum.

Utilizing former Rider graduates who had been placed in an internship program based on experiential learning principles, those who had not, and intern sponsors, Strahle hopes to demonstrate a clear cause-and-effect between the benefits and perceived performance readiness after graduation. The results will be viewed from both an employer's and student's point of view.

To this end, he is developing, pretesting, and field testing two separate questionnaires -- one for the employees and one for the employers. Results will be entered into the University's computer system, codified, and analyzed. The final report will be available to faculty and administrators at the University and submitted to an appropriate journal, such as the Journal of Marketing Education.

Dr. Strahle initiated the internship program for students in Rider's marketing department several years ago and is its current director.

A current supervisor for Lower Makefield Township, Dr. Strahle earned his Ph.D. and M.B.A. degrees in marketing from Indiana University. His research has been published in the Journal of Business Forecasting, the Journal of Consumer Policy, and others. He is listed in the 1998 Who's Who Among American Teachers, an honor based on nomination by one or more former students who themselves have been listed in The National Dean's List.

Among his other honors are the Mu Kappa Tau Award for "Best Paper of 1996" published in the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. He also won the award in 1986, and in 1989 the Academy of Marketing Science awarded him the best dissertation of the year award.

This summer he participated in the fifth Recent Advances in Retailing and Services Science Conference in Baveno, Italy, where his subject matter concerned the growing influence of expenditures either made directly by children or on their behalf. Experts estimate that retail market to be worth between $150-$200 billion.

Rider University is an independent, coeducational, nonsectarian institution with a 353-acre main campus in Lawrenceville, New Jersey and a 23-acre campus in Princeton, New Jersey. The University offers 58 undergraduate programs and 17 graduate programs in the Colleges of Business Administration; Liberal Arts, Education, and Sciences; Continuing Studies; and Westminster Choir College. Ninety-three percent of the faculty hold doctoral or other appropriate advanced degrees.