The genesis of this working group was a conversation I had with Lexi Lord at last year’s NCPH meeting in Baltimore. After the Public History Educators’ Breakfast Lexi expressed to me her concerns about the emphasis on internships, the vast majority of which are unpaid, in public history graduate programs. From her vantage point at the Smithsonian, she worried that the high costs borne by unpaid interns effectively barred students of modest means from prestigious internships at elite institutions. As the public history job market became increasingly competitive, she wondered, did this dynamic threaten to make public history an exclusive profession open only to those who could afford to do an internship? I could see her point. I had a talented graduate student back in Utah looking at Smithsonian internships. She knew that the competition for a Smithsonian internship would be fierce, but she also fretted about the cost; “What if I do get it? How do I pay for my travel, and rent, and food?” Like nearly all of my students who come from lower middle class and working class backgrounds she could not fall back on family money. The conversation in Baltimore ranged to other economic and ethical concerns about internships. With often limited and uncertain funding, it was certainly understandable that institutions would rely on unpaid labor, but how might these institutions work toward a more equitable system? What impact does the prevalence of unpaid interns have on the job market for new public history professionals? Does the ready availability of unpaid labor drive down their earnings or even reduce their job opportunities? And what of the burden placed on practitioners who had to assume teaching duties beyond the scope of their job descriptions? While we could not answer these questions we agreed that they needed to be addressed. And so we proposed this working group.
For the past fifteen years I have taught public history at large public research universities in the American West. At the same time I have remained a practicing public historian, working for American Indian nations and federal land management agencies, and partnering with local and state humanities organizations to present public programs. For eight years I taught at Colorado State University in a history department with a long-standing public history program. Internships were a central part of that program. I am currently an associate professor of history at the University of Utah, where I also serve as director of the American West Center. I have worked to formalize public history training at Utah, in a history department with only scattered attempts to train public historians. In this regard I have developed and taught a public history methodology course, supervised numerous internships, and developed a successful proposal for a public history certificate that will be in place this fall. Previously, the only consistent public history offering at Utah had been the internship course.
At the American West Center I hire graduate students to work on projects for the NPS, USFS, American Indian nations, and other clients and communities. The center’s graduate assistantships could be viewed as long-term internships (some projects run two or more years) but I tell my student employees to think of their work as a “real” job and to express it that way on their Vitas. I do not do this to devalue internships, but because experience matters in the job market. There is also a fundamental difference that is at the heart of the issue we are considering; shorter (generally one-semester) for-credit internships are not tied to contracted projects and thus lack funding dedicated for labor.
Internships serve an essential role in public history education. Ultimately public history is about doing. The theory and methods taught in the classroom must be tested and put at risk in the real world to truly be of value. For this reason my students must complete two 3-credit hour internships, each requiring at least 150 hours at the hosting institution. I require that my students do their two internships in substantially different fields (museums, archives, preservation, etc.). Unless we teach in specialized programs, we are training our students to be generalists with broad skill sets that will allow them to adapt to a range of career options. Diverse internships bring diverse experience, and – hopefully – make more marketable graduates. Diverse internships also increase the students’ networking possibilities while clarifying for them the fields for which they are most, and least, suited.
Of the dozens of internships I have supervised nearly all have been unpaid. The internship hosts have ranged from small community museums to university archives, from a grassroots community effort to record oral histories to the Utah Division of State History. The key factor in making these internships viable for my students has been their proximity to home. This has not offset all of their expenses, but arguably the lessons they learn on the job more than make up for their investment. Yet, the reliance on local internships also brings with it limitations. The institutions are generally small and underfunded. While students get a valuable up-close look at the challenges most working public historians face, they might not get exposure to the latest and most sophisticated methods, nor the prestige that might come with a nationally recognized internship.
A small number of my students have been able to secure paid internships. At Colorado State four of them did cultural resource assessments of NPS units for the National Parks Conservation Association. In addition to their paid travel expenses they received reasonable stipends. More recently the Utah Division of State History engaged one of my PhD students to curate an exhibit of historic maps that will soon be on display at the Utah State Capitol. The Division is also assembling funding for another paid internship for a student to work on commemoration exhibits and events for the World War I centennial. Another student, the one who worried about the costs she would incur should she get a Smithsonian internship, ended up staying closer to home and did a paid internship at the Hill Aerospace Museum in Ogden, Utah. Her modest stipend was not enough to live on, but it did cover the cost of her seventy-five mile round trip each day she worked at the museum as well as supplement her income as a graduate research assistant. The museum’s 501(c)(3) friends group funds the internship program but also requires interns to complete 240 hours on the job (far more hours than I require for three credits). If an additional 80 hours or so is factored in for travel, my student made approximately $6.50 an hour. Still, if she did not make a living wage she did gain invaluable experience working with a talented and dedicated curator. Moreover, her efforts were treated as valuable work that deserved compensation.
Our conversation should explore ways to make internships more equitable for all the parties involved. The NCPH’s best practices document for internships serves as a starting point with which we all should be familiar.
The authors operate under a valid premise: internships entail professional work and that “Recognizing the value of public history work and the skills possessed by students, every effort should be made to see that interns receive compensation for their work commensurate with the qualifications required for a position.” We all should make this effort, however, we must also find a wide range of creative ways to relieve the financial burden on interns while supporting the institutions and practitioners who provide such essential educational experiences.
I offer just a few suggestions beginning with what we can do for student interns. Our most basic obligation, faculty and institutional supervisors alike, is to ensure that interns are performing specialized tasks and gaining professional skills and experience. This vigilance should apply to all internships but is particularly important for unpaid interns. We should also be well networked and stay apprised of paid internships. Another tactic that I have used to reduce the financial burden on students is to allow summer interns (who are the majority) to register for credit during fall semester as part of their regular course load and avoid additional tuition payments. This has been particularly helpful for students with departmental assistantships and those working at the American West Center who also receive tuition waivers. So far this tactic has not drawn objections from higher administrators.
Internships should also provide tangible benefits for the host institutions and for the practitioners who mentor interns. Institutional administrators should recognize this effort and find ways to credit practitioners for their time and effort. Moreover, administrators should never be used as a replacement for professional staff. Finally, faculty supervisors must carefully vet students and sponsor only those who will approach an internship in a professional manner. For this reason I never serve as a faculty supervisor for a student I have not had in class or know fairly well.
Again, these are but a few suggestions to facilitate our conversation. I look forward to working on this critical issue with all of you.
~ Gregory E. Smoak, American West Center and Department of History, University of Utah
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