Internships – Fellowships – Volunteerism
The History Program encourages its majors to pursue various internship, fellowship, and volunteer opportunities during their undergraduate experience. These opportunities can be paid, providing stipends to their recipients, or unpaid, exposing students to invaluable hands-on research experiences and professional skills. Occasionally, majors might receive academic credit for their experience in those cases where formal agreements have been reached between the internship, fellowship, or volunteer site prior to and in advance of the student’s participation in the activity. For more information, or assistance with applying to any of the programs on this page, please contact your academic advisor.
Local/Regional Opportunities
Preservation Scholars Program (Sumer Internships)
Friends of the Texas Historical Commission
Where: Austin/Statewide (Texas)
Application Deadline: March (Annually)
Website and Application Materials
Description: Through the Preservation Scholars Program, the Friends of the Texas Historical Commission seeks to build interest in historic preservation among students from underrepresented cultural and ethnic groups, engaging a wider range of communities and perspectives in the effort to discover and share Texas’ historical narrative. Launched in 2007, the program is a 10-week, paid, summer internship placement within the Texas Historical Commission.
Internships are available to college students from Texas or studying to receive their undergraduate or graduate degree at a Texas college or university. Over the course of the internship, students work under the supervision of THC staff at the agency’s headquarters in Austin and/or in the field at historic sites to complete a project of their choosing. Select internship projects allow the option for remote participation in the program. Students meet with staff in each of the THC’s divisions and attend weekly “Brown Bag Presentations” with outside preservation organizations to learn about the preservation work happening across the state.
Texas Historical Commission Internship Program
Texas Historical Commission
Where: Austin, TX
Application Deadline: Varies (Jan. 1-Spring/ May 1-Summer/ Sept. 1-Fall)
Website and Application Materials
Description: The Texas Historical Commission (THC) Internship Program is designed to provide undergraduate and graduate level students unpaid internships within a selected agency division or program; thereby exposing them to the benefits of choosing historic preservation as a career. This is in compliance with the mission of the THC to protect and preserve the state’s historic and prehistoric resources for the use, education, enjoyment, and economic benefit of present and future generations.
Internships can include, but are not limited to, practical experience in archeology, architecture, community development, historic preservation, history, economic development and planning, marketing communications, and administration. By working closely with THC staff, students should gain hands-on knowledge relating to their coursework in a specific field.
Texas State Parks Ambassadors Program
Texas Parks & Wildlife Department
Where: Statewide
Application Deadline: Summer, Winter, Spring (Seasonally)
Website and Application Materials
This competitive volunteer program serves as a leadership and professional development opportunity for young adults, ages 18-32. While previous outdoor experience and a desire for a career in natural resources or interpretation/informal education is not required. Those interested in being a State Park Ambassador will need to apply online by midnight on September 28th (linked below). Once selected, Ambassadors attend a five-day regional training (November 10-14) at a Texas State Park where they participate in sessions on leadership, outdoor recreation, Leave No Trace, and Texas Parks and Wildlife programming. After the training, they begin their partnership with a nearby State Park to complete 40 hours of hands-on service, community outreach, and social media projects over the course of six months (this breaks down to approx.. 7 hours per month). More information about the program and a link to the application form can be found here: Texas State Park Ambassadors – TPWD.
National Opportunities
The Robert Frederick Smith Applied Public History Fellowship for HBCU Graduates
National Museum of African American History & Culture
Where: Varies (Nationally)
Application Deadline: September (Annually)
Website and Application Materials
Description: Internships provide guided learning experiences consisting of hands-on training, mentoring, attendance at educational events, and cultivation of contacts for the next generation of researchers, scholars, curators, and other museum, library, preservation, and heritage professionals – individuals who will assume the mantle of identifying, documenting, curating, and digitizing treasured artifacts that reflect African American history and culture.
Intern Benefits
- $850 per week stipend to defray living expenses during the tenure of the appointment
- Flexible start and end dates
- Structured mentorship opportunities both within the Museum and with outside professionals
- A calendar of professional development seminars catered to the needs of historically underrepresented individuals in the cultural sector
- Paid registration and travel to attend the Association of African American Museums annual conference
- Academic credit (not required)
The Robert Frederick Smith Applied Public History Fellowship for HBCU Graduates
National Museum of African American History & Culture
Where: Washington, D.C.
Application Deadline: January (Annually)
Note: Bachelor’s degree required to be eligible for fellowship
Website and Application Materials
Description: The Robert Frederick Smith Applied Public History Fellowship for HBCU Graduates offers a two-year appointment providing advanced training and scholarly support in public history, museum management, outreach programming, and partnership building.
This fellowship is best suited for a recent master’s degree recipient with some professional experience, but without an established career in the field of cultural management. An ideal candidate will already be working or desire to work in the cultural sector and have academic training in museum or cultural management and African American history and culture. If a candidate has no prior relevant professional experience, either through internships, fellowships, or employment, it may be too early to be considered competitive. If a candidate has more than two years’ of full-time work experience in museum or cultural management, it is likely they will have moved beyond the reach of the program. A competitive applicant will be prepared to enter the field as a mid-career employee upon completion of the fellowship.
HBCU Library Alliance Summer Library Conservation/Preservation Internship Program
Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation and HBCU Library Alliance
Where: Nationwide (Varies)
Application Deadline: March (Dependent Upon Funding)
Website and Application Materials
Description: HBCU undergraduate students interested in the humanities, arts, and sciences will have the opportunity to learn and practice hands-on library preservation skills during this virtual six-week internship under the mentorship of professional conservators and library staff at a host site. Successful internship candidates will demonstrate a strong interest in libraries and archives and an attention to detail, as well as interest and academic success in history, the arts, and/or the sciences.
Interns will work on a range of possible projects, including:
- surveying the condition of library collection materials;
- historical research;
- digitization projects;
- environmental monitoring; and/or
- constructing custom storage enclosures for fragile archival materials.
Schomburg-Mellon Humanities Summer Institute
The New York Public Library
Where: New York City, NY
Application Deadline: March (Annually)
Website and Application Materials
Description: The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation have created the Schomburg-Mellon Humanities Summer Institute to encourage minority students and others with an interest in African-American, African and African Diasporan Studies to pursue PhDs in the humanities.
The program mixes seminars and research. It invites students to explore how the past is influencing the present and how the present can shape the future.
Institute fellows will explore a variety of disciplines (including history, literature, arts, religion, and cultural studies) and historical periods. The Fellows will have an opportunity to examine, among others, questions about identity, culture, arts, gender, migrations, mental health, and criminal justice, and reflect on how they will affect the future.
Mellon Scholars Internship and Summer Workshop Program
The Library Company of Philadelphia – Program in African American History (PAAH)
Where: Philadelphia, PA
Application Deadline: March (Annually)
Website and Application Materials
Description: Historically, the internship has introduced award recipients to multiple experientially based learning activities, including: guided primary source research in the Library Company’s African Americana Collection culminating in the production of a short research paper and a capstone colloquium; a special project such as cataloging or creating an annotated bibliography of items in the collection; and, professional development through workshops on the graduate application process, mentoring by established scholars, networking, and field trips to local repositories. More information about current activities and details related to the award can be found by reviewing the program’s website or contacting the program director.