GM Lays Off Co-Op Students From Former GMI

(WWJ) General Motors Corp. has laid off 103 of its co-op students from Flint's Kettering University, the former General Motors Institute.

Spokeswoman Patricia Mroczek said 70 Kettering co-op students remain employed at GM, either because they're seniors working on their final-year "capstone project" or because they're working on areas the automaker deems critical, such as fuel cells.

Kettering took its present name 11 years ago. The school has long been known for its unique educaitonal model where students alternate between one term in the classroom and one term in paid co-op jobs related to their majors.

In the GMI days virtually all of those co-op jobs were at GM. But Kettering has diversified its co-op positions with hundreds of employers over the past decade. Today, GM co-ops represent only 6 percent of Kettering's total co-op jobs.

Mroczek said Kettering is working on finding new co-op positions for the students laid off.

"General Motors remains a very important co-op partner for us," Mroczek said, adding that GM will still hire Kettering co-op students for critical areas.

GM director of news relations Tom Wilkinson said GM has cut back overall on the number of co-op students it is hiring due to its current economic condition. GM will cut about 350 of its normal 800 to 1,000 co-op and paid internship students this year, Wilkinson said.