For the last five years, Amy Hale has been director of university relations for online giant America Online (TWX ), based in Dulles, Va. In that time, her operation has grown to include numerous student- and faculty-driven consulting projects and an innovative training program for finding talented MBAs, some of whom are then recruited for full-time positions.

Before arriving at AOL, Hale managed a $25 million federal environmental education grant program. She has served as both a faculty member and assistant dean at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Va. She says AOL's pioneering culture makes it a wonderful workplace for innovators. Hale recently spoke with BusinessWeek Online reporter Francesca Di Meglio. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:

Q: What are the most interesting programs that you offer?
A: The programs that are of the most interest to MBAs are the Partnerships in Excellence Program (PEP), which includes student consulting projects, and Project Infusion, a training program that brings in faculty-nominated MBAs as AOL employees.

About 350 students will participate in PEP in spring 2005. One of the first PEP projects was AOL International. There were five teams and each was assigned a country or region -- Britain, Japan, Latin America, France, and Germany. Those teams did a marketing plan and extensive analyses for each culture. There were three or four faculty [members] grading students on each element of their presentation.

We piloted Project Infusion just last year. We solicit nominations for MBA graduates from the faculty with whom we've worked. We do an extensive review of the nominated candidates and interview everyone at least by phone. Those 20 or so graduates who are hired come into a semi-structured 12-month to 18-month experience to guide them through their initiation to AOL.

They all have a manager, sponsor, and mentor. They do a lot of shadowing, and we have a speaker series for them. They travel together and become a cohesive group. They really have access to more resources than almost any other employee in the company. The jobs are permanent positions, and they are assured of this, unless there is some dramatic failure.

Q: What was the motivation behind developing these programs?
A: The executives in their wisdom said, "There's a lot we can learn from students and faculty, and we need to capitalize on that. The only way to do it is to build solid relationships with universities."

Q: Do students get hired after doing these projects?
A: Last year, about 10% of the students who had worked on university relations projects were hired by AOL. Our first initiative was to really challenge the students and see what we could learn from them. It didn't take long for us to figure out that we were getting a better view of how students perform, research, think, speak to executives, and demonstrate teamwork.

We also found out that many of these students loved what they were doing and had a passion for it. Those are the things we look for in a hire. We started inviting HR staff and, later, managers throughout the company to the PEP presentations.

We label the students with color tags based on whether they are interested in full-time employment, internships, or nothing at all. There was a senior vice-president in the audience one day, and he was impressed with two of the students, who had on pink tags, which means they had other jobs. The SVP asked for their number and convinced them to turn down the other jobs they had accepted in the fall, and they are now two of our top performers in the company. In the short time they've been here, they have received bonuses and awards at ceremonies at AOL.

Q: What can students participating in these projects do to stand out?
A: They can start by doing good research that includes out-of-the-box thinking, and an ability to give us new ideas. A lot of it has to do with presentation. It's always interesting to see how good they are on their feet in the last half hour of a presentation when they have to answer questions.

Q: Have you put into practice any of the suggestions students have made in presentations?
A: Last summer, we had about 20 teams developing a product that would have value to college students. That is now in the pipeline and being worked on at a very serious level, and many of those student recommendations are being followed. It's cool for the students when they realize they could affect the lives of the 90 million people worldwide on the AOL service –- and now as we expand to the Web, it could be an even greater reach.

Q: Do you think this is going to be a trend and other companies will follow suit?
A: We don't know of other companies [doing it]. But we do know the schools are pleased with these programs. The students are getting real-time projects to work on, feedback from AOL executives, and working on a day-to-day basis. For the most part, we try to bring all the students to AOL and provide a substantial audience for them to present their findings. Afterward, they have to defend their research. It's a challenging experience, and the schools just love it.