My interest in participating in this particular working group comes from my experience as a museum and archives professional and a faculty member. From 2001 through the summer of 2008, I served as archivist and then founding director of a history and art museum. Since 2008, I have taught in the museum studies program at Baylor University. There are several questions I would like to raise within this working group. How can academic programs work with institutions to alleviate the financial burden placed on students who accept unpaid internships? Are there ways in which we can work together to address the costs of internships, including the cost of receiving academic credit (i.e. tuition and fees), the cost of relocation, and the cost of housing? How might academic programs provide support to institutions that hire interns to make sure both student and institutional site supervisor have a quality experience? As teachers in public history we concern ourselves with making sure our students are prepared for the internship. We also review staffing and internship responsibilities at internship sites to make sure the student will have a professional experience with a trained staff person. Yet, we rarely consider whether that staff person is adequately prepared to mentor an intern. I look forward to the group discussions and to identifying ways in which to address this problem within my own program and within the field.
I hired my first intern in 2001, my first summer with the Pearce Civil War and Western Art Museum. I had two objectives for the internship program: to provide professional support to the collection and to provide graduate students with paid professional experience. The museum, or rather the collection (the museum did not open until 2003), was supported financially by private benefactors and by its parent institution Navarro College. Over the course of seven years, I hired 13 interns. Ten of the 13 received a stipend and on-campus housing and board. (The three who were unpaid were local residents who sought out an internship after the application deadline.) The funding for the internship came from a partnership between the benefactors and the college with the benefactors providing the stipend and the college providing room and board. Still, this funding situation had its limitations. Because we were located in a small east Texas town, it was a less than ideal location for many potential applicants (i.e. limited cultural opportunities, no public transit, etc.). Our funding model also limited the applicants we could hire. For example, one year we had a single mother among our finalists. Insurance restrictions on the dorms meant we could not offer her and her child on-campus housing, so instead we offered her an equivalent housing stipend to cover the cost of living off campus. Still, the stipend was insufficient because summer rentals in the area were very limited and very expensive. From a supervisory standpoint, it was challenging. I realize in retrospect that I was insufficiently trained in how to supervise and mentor graduate students. Moreover, the larger institutional context made it extremely difficult to provide an optimal experience for the students. From 2001 through 2003, the institution was in the midst of a capital campaign for the museum. In the summer of 2003, interns assisted in the move into the new building. Although this provided interns with valuable experience, it also limited their opportunities to learn other skills such as archival processing or exhibit design or the accessioning of new objects.
From 2008 through 2011, I was a full-time lecturer in the museum studies program at Baylor. In 2011 I was promoted to assistant professor and in 2013 I became graduate program director. In my current position, I have a different role to play in students’ internship experiences. Instead of a labor force to be recruited and hired to support my institution, I find myself being placed in almost a guardianship role. Some of that comes from the past history of the program itself. From the program’s inception in the 1990s through 2004, the program and its affiliated museum had been under the leadership of an individual who believed he and the students could be the saviors of the museum world. Do you have a small, volunteer-run museum in need of professional assistance? The museum studies program can provide you with free labor and save your museum. Need a new exhibit, or a collection cataloged? Free student labor. No need to hire staff. Although that attitude has changed, there are still individuals in our region who look to our program as a source of uncompensated yet professionally trained labor. So, in my role as professor and program director, I have worked to change this perception. It is a work in progress as evidenced by two emails I received at the beginning of the current academic year asking for student assistance (i.e. free labor) with a couple of projects. Ideal class projects!
Until 2008, Baylor University offered both a Bachelor of Arts in Museum Studies and a Master of Arts in Museum Studies. In 2008, the undergraduate program was changed from a major to a minor. Students in the undergraduate program when it was a major were required to complete a six-hour internship. From 2006 through 2011, when the last undergraduate major graduated, 18 students completed this six-hour internship. I do not know how many received compensation though I suspect that number to be very small. I personally supervised 5 of those 18 students. Only 1 of the 5 received compensation. Another 13 undergraduates completed 3-hour internships between 2006 and 2016. Again, I do not know how many were compensated. I personally supervised 7 of those 13. Of those 7, only 1 received a stipend.
In the graduate program, between 2006 and 2012, 16 students completed either three- or six-hour internships for academic credit. Only 1 of those 16 students received compensation. In the 2013-2014 academic year, our department revised our graduate curriculum to include internship as a capstone experience option. (The other options are project or thesis.) Allowing students to complete an internship in lieu of a project or thesis has created complications. It has required us to step up our requirements for the internship experience, which has strengthened the program. It has also placed a different kind of financial burden on our graduate students. The 16 graduate students who completed internships for academic credit between 2006 and 2012 represent about 50% of the total students enrolled in the program during that period. The other 50% who did not complete an internship for academic credit still held internships. They gained the professional experience without paying for the academic credit. Now students who opt to complete an internship for their capstone experience have no choice but to pay tuition and fees. Granted they would have to do this for a project or a thesis. However, students who complete a project or thesis often complete the research locally or at least regionally and often can complete their research while holding a graduate assistantship or other paid position. This minimizes the costs of completing the capstone experience. Students who select the internship option face financial challenges such as relocating and giving up a graduate assistantship (at least temporarily). Thus, for some students, internship is the more expensive option especially if the internship position is unpaid. Generally, all students who complete the capstone experience receive financial support from the department in the form of tuition remission. Support is awarded on a competitive basis, so levels of support vary. Of the 7 students I have supervised since this change took effect in 2013, 5 have had unpaid internships. As a group my colleagues in the department have supervised an additional 14 capstone internships. Of those 5 were unpaid. As a department, 10 of the 21 students who have completed a capstone internship have not received compensation from their host institution. For 10 weeks or more, these students have worked unpaid all the while temporarily giving up the paycheck they receive from their graduate assistantship and also paying university fees and perhaps even some tuition as well as living expenses. Although slightly more than 50% of our students received compensation for their capstone internship, that statistic hides some serious problems. First, each of those students who accepted an unpaid internship selected an internship close to home whether it was their apartment in Waco, which was already paid through the summer, or close to family where they had access to free housing. As a result, students’ choices were limited to very specific geographic areas. Second, each of these unpaid students like their paid colleagues had to pay tuition and fees to receive academic credit for their internship. All students who have registered for a capstone internship have received some form of departmental tuition assistance. However, this tuition assistance does not include fees. So even those students who receive full tuition remission will pay more than $1000 in university fees. That expense along with the cost of relocation often leads students to take out additional student loans for the summer, which can have long-term consequences for students, particularly those already burdened with student loan debt.
Only a small percentage of our students have completed an internship at a major institution like the Smithsonian. I am aware of only 3 students who have completed such an internship for academic credit. Of those 3, only 1 received compensation. All 3 of those students came from families who could provide additional financial assistance. More typical is the experience of a graduate student who held a summer internship at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2015. Initially, she planned to complete this internship for academic credit. She received a minority scholarship from the Smithsonian as well as tuition remission from the department. Still, that was not enough support to cover the expense of relocation, housing, and university fees. Ultimately, the student decided to forgo academic credit for the experience. When she returned to Waco, she worked with her academic supervisor to develop a project for her capstone experience.
As a department we have started to explore ways in which we can better support our students and the institutions who hire them. Likely, we will need to look beyond our institution as the university has shifted toward a funding model that places a greater financial burden on master’s students.
In this working group, I would like to explore more deeply ways in which we could implement the recommendations of the Best Practices in Public History Internships document. We need to find creative ways to support both the student and the institution without placing an undue burden on either one. Students who complete unpaid internships in small to mid-size museums often have quality experiences and provide vital professional support to the institution. We need to find ways to make those opportunities more financially viable for all concerned. We also need to find ways to support students who are interested in internships at major institutions. Those internships should not be limited to students who can turn to their families for financial support. Finally, although I have not mentioned this earlier, I would like to discuss the recommendation for faculty workload. At my institution, the internships I supervise are not included in my teaching load. I have had semesters where I have supervised 4 internships, 3 to 4 theses or projects, and taught my usual course load of 2 to 3 courses (while on the tenure track!). Such a situation is ineffective and unsustainable for all concerned.
I look forward to reading the other case statements and to further discussions about how we might begin to address this critical issue.
~ Julie Holcomb, Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director, Museum Studies, Baylor University
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