As Director of Public History at the University of Central Florida, I work closely with faculty, non-profit institutions, and government agencies to build and expand internship opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in our History B.A. and M.A. degree programs. None of our current internships are paid, yet most student applicants seem unfazed by that. They welcome the opportunity to gain “real world” experience and 3-6 hours of History course credit while reflecting on skills gained/lessons learned through weekly blog posts and an end-of-semester project showcase. The best of these unpaid Public History internships serve as incubators for
B.A. Honors in the Major or M.A. thesis projects, and some lead to temporary or permanent paid positions with the host institutions. For example, an undergraduate History major who interned with the Museum of Military History in Kissimmee, Florida, in Fall 2015 was recently hired there as Historian and Curator. Another undergraduate who signed on for an unpaid summer 2015 internship with the Friends of Lake Apopka accepted a paid position to continue his digital archiving work in the Fall. Rarely, however, do any of our internships come with pay attached. History students seeking paid internships typically find them outside of our department offerings, either on their own or through UCF’S Office of Experiential Learning (OEL), which advertises hundreds of placements but leaves academic advising/oversight to home departments.
Our biggest ethical conundrum arises over whether certain UCF Experiential Learning internships — those not clearly identified with History but potentially relevant/valuable in terms of skills and training – should be encouraged and counted for History degree credit. In other words, should we keep History-credit internships tightly focused on preparation for History- specific jobs/careers, or should we add skill-oriented internships with the aim of expanding “experiential learning” and contributing to the University’s newly emphasized goal of “integrative learning for professional and civic preparation”? Ethically, would a paid research position with Lockheed Martin be equal, perhaps even preferable, to an unpaid museum educator position with the Polasek Museum and Sculpture Garden? This is a very real issue for us, as UCF’s Office of Experiential Learning would like to recruit more History majors for non-History internships and perhaps – with our permission — waive the requirements (GPA of 3.0 or higher, prerequisite course on History & Historians) currently demanded of prospective interns by the History Department. Should we keep the highly regarded system we have, which benefits a relatively small number of History majors per year? Should we lower the bar to entry and promote skills- and training-based internships for ALL History majors, with the aim of expanding opportunity and diversifying the workforce? Should we consider creating a two-tiered program, with both credit and non-credit internship opportunities, to expand participation while ensuring adequate preparation and more selective placement for certain kinds of internships vs. others?
I believe internships are vitally important to the training of Public Historians, and am interested in strategies for expanding participation through a range of opportunities –unpaid, paid, History-specific, or Research/Skill-oriented. I am also interested in learning how PublicHistory internship programs relate to broader service learning initiatives, as UCF is looking to increase service learning (as a measure of community engagement) by 50 percent over the next several years.
~ Dr. Scot French, Director of Public History, University of Central Florida
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