Through alliances with The Horizon Institute of Technology and Rural Sourcing, Inc., Arkansas Rural Sourcing has supported the implementation of Virtual Internship Programs in three universities in Arkansas—Arkansas State University (http://business.astate.edu/vip/), Southern Arkansas University, and the University of Arkansas-Monticello, with companies such as Cardinal Health and Mattel. These programs allow students to work with Fortune 500 companies on business projects as a part-time paid employee without leaving campus. This innovative university/business partnership has been highlighted in USA Today. In addition, Southern Arkansas University’s Virtual Internship Program won a top national award recognizing the innovativeness of this business/university partnership. To date, over one hundred Arkansas students have participated in these programs.

Sonya Langrudi, Mattel:

"I am very excited about VIP. (The interns) have done a great job staying on top of their assignment and completing them on time with high quality. They have been in daily contact with our system analyst and technical lead to follow up with their assignment and (get) more responsibilities. I am amazed that, even though they are working remotely, the communication and response time has been as (if) they are sitting at a desk on another floor in our building here in El Segundo. This has been truly a team effort both from Mattel and from Southern Arkansas University."

Arnie Weller, Cardinal Health:

"Entering into the VIP program with Arkansas State University has afforded us ready access to top-notch technology talent. We have several interns working for us at any given time and we have always been very pleased with the quality of their work. As a VIP employer, we are able to recruit and attain the best and brightest to work on live projects—this benefits both the interns and us. We get high quality work at competitive rates, and they get real work experience. Cardinal benefits from being able to influence the tools and technologies that students learn and use, and students and faculty benefit from the additional access to current business tools provided by the VIP lab. We are pleased to be part of such a unique internship program and our partnership with Arkansas State University."