Marshall University and N3 celebrated an official ribbon cutting ceremony for their new on-campus internship facility located in Holderby Hall on Monday. 

“This is a great example of Marshall’s intent to make internships available to our students and also to assist local and regional businesses,” Marshall President Jerry Gilbert said. “We’re opening a center here in Holderby Hall where our students will work for N3 as paid interns.”

There are two spaces in the lobby area that will be dedicated to the program. 

“N3 is an outsourced Inside Sales firm,” according to their website. 

Students will have the opportunity to work part-time for the company with a paid internship. The program offers 10-20 hours per week working around class schedules. 

“We think it will be good for N3, good for Marshall and also good for our students,” Gilbert said. “Marshall is definitely committed to economic development in our region and in our state, and we believe that higher education should be a partner with industry and business and that we should service as an economic engine for the economy.”

N3’s headquarters is located in Georgia with offices around the world, including Charleston, W.Va. 

Ken Boggs, vice president of strategy and operations at N3, said the idea to bring N3 to Marshall started around November 2019. 

“There was a phone call in November perhaps,” Boggs said. “I called Sara (Payne Scarbro) as I was between meetings and said, ‘Hey, we really ought to look at starting an internship right on your campus,’ and that was all I said.” 

Boggs credited Scarboro, who is the associate vice president for external engagement at Marshall, and the team that put everything together after hearing his idea. He also spoke of the reason behind bringing the internship to campus. 

“It’s not a secret, I hope it’s not, why N3 would partner with Marshall and come onto campus and start an internship,” Boggs said. “Some of you, most of you perhaps, had the privilege last week to be at the CEO panel down at the Keith Albee Theater. I believe it was Brad Smith himself that said or at least one of the distinguished members that said, ‘Companies go where the talent is.’

And if you’re in West Virginia and you’re trying to scale a business much like we are, recruiting is an everyday challenge and there is a lot of tremendous talent that exists on this campus that we are keenly interested in employing in the future and the best way for us to reach them and stay in contact and be a name that everyone recognizes is to be right here among you.”

Marshall students interested in the internship can find more information and apply through JobTrax. 

“It is distinctly our honor to be here and we look forward to this partnership,” Boggs said. “Many thanks to all that made this happen.”

Brittany Hively can be contacted at [email protected].