I consider use of volunteers / interns (especially, aspiring biology students) as one form of a labor exploitation.
Their labor were paid cheaply, and sometimes they have to pay by themselves to get a volunteer position. Sure, those field sampling experience would be to some extent valuable, but this does not necessarily leads to their carrier advancement. In academic, carrier advancement is determined not by the number of years spent in field sampling collections, but the number of research papers published. This requires more of research, analytical, and writing, skills than field data collection skills. However, those skills are not provided during their volunteer periods. The field data collected by the student volunteers/inters will eventually be published, but their name will never appear anywhere in the publication (possibly, acknowledgements if the professors are very generous). Some of the students could be invited to apply for graduate school if the professor consider highly of them. But, that's again depends on amount of funding, which is not guaranteed. These issue also applies to Non-profit research organizations. Not many staff at non-profit organization publish peer-reviewed papers, and they don't have that much money to promote the volunteer to a regular staff. I also hope those volunteers are fully covered by insurance during field work period by the organization they were volunteering. Looking beyond larger social issue: Use of volunteers would naturally exclude those who cannot afford to be a volunteer (e.g., poor/minorities). Many of them need to earn tuition money during summer. When those field volunteer experience is viewed as the students' "dedication" to the research subject, then those who cannot afford to volunteer have less chance to enter graduate school. Toshihide "Hamachan" Hamazaki Alaska Department of Fish & Game Division of Commercial Fisheries Arctic-Yukon_Kuskokwim Region 333 Raspberry Rd Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-267-2158 Fax: 907-267-2442 E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
