Pejepscot History Center’s internship programs allow college students to gain skills and experience in a public history setting. As a small nonprofit museum and archive, PHC makes every effort to design internship projects and responsibilities with an eye towards providing students with opportunities to explore career plans, apply knowledge learned in the classroom, and explore different aspects of operating a local museum, archive, and two historic sites.
Outcomes for Student: Public History Internship
Students interested in a broad introduction to public history and museum work will benefit from this internship that touches on several key aspects of operations. Skills and experience gained in this internship can be applied to a variety of future career paths. The internship takes place during PHC’s busy visitor season (May-Oct) and includes work in some combinations of Visitor Services, Outreach, Research, Collections Management/Curation, and Buildings & Grounds projects.
The internship can run for as many weeks as suits the student and their college requirements and may be anywhere from 10-30 hours per week. The student’s work includes responsibilities in the following key areas:
- Historic House Museums: Students learn about the history, architecture, collections, and visitor experience of one or both of PHC’s 19th century historic house museums, the Skolfield-Whittier House and the Joshua L. Chamberlain Museum. They may welcome and orient visitors, give tours, help make changes or updates to museum spaces and tour materials, work in the museum shop, assist staff and volunteers with physical plant projects, and more.
- Research, Collections, and Exhibits: Students conduct research in PHC’s archives and object collections to assist patrons, produce content for on-site or digital exhibits, and/or create, and potentially deliver, programming (e.g. public lecture or Zoom program, walking tour, etc.). Through this work, students learn how to handle, digitize, properly house, and analyze historic documents, photos, and objects. They receive training in searching and cataloging in CatalogIt, the cloud-based collections database used by PHC.
- Outreach and Communication: Students work on select projects to improve member services and communication content for PHC. This may include social media posts, drafting and distributing physical promotional materials such as member renewals and program flyers, writing segments for the e- or print newsletters, tracking visitor data, and connecting with business and in-kind sponsors.
Responsibilities and Expectations:
- PHC will provide any required documentation prior to, and at the conclusion of, the internship for the student and/or the student’s college.
- PHC will provide all training, materials, work area, equipment, and staff/volunteer support to promote a successful experience for the student.
- Internship hours must take place within PHC’s visitor season office schedule, approximately 9-4 Tuesday-Saturday (with some flexibility for Monday hours). At least one staff member or regular volunteer will be on-site whenever the student is in attendance. PHC records all volunteer/intern time provided to the organization. The student is responsible for communicating with the Executive Director and Outreach Manager in advance regarding any changes to their schedule.
- When on-site, the student is expected to follow the same guidelines and expectations required of volunteers.
- The student may be asked to provide a short written summary of their experience for inclusion in PHC materials
PHC does not offer a stipend for internships, so we like to work with universities that have subsidized internship programs— and we are more than happy to help student with any paperwork that will assist them in getting funding or academic credit from their university.
