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Dr. Ann McCleary
Public History Coordinator
History Department, Office: TLC 3-211
678-839-6041
amcclear@westga.edu
Course Objectives
An internship is an excellent opportunity
for a student to apply knowledge gained through course work in public
history and in history courses to a hands-on work experience. Through
internships, students may also identify careers that they would like
to pursue. The goals of an internship are:
| 1. |
To learn more about the public history field.
Students may pursue internships to determine which aspects of public
history work best match their own interests and talents. The intern
will be exposed to ethical issues in the field and will learn more
about the broad range of knowledge and skills that are required
in various sectors of this field. |
| 2. |
To develop and hone skills in public history for
future employment, from museum interpretation and registration
to grantwriting or archives arrangement or description. Public history
internships offer practical work experience that prepares students
for careers. Students can list internships as work experience on
their resumes. Sometimes, internship positions may even lead into
part-time or full-time work. |
| 3. |
To interact with and learn from other public historians
in a work setting. Internships offer students the opportunity
to network with other public history professionals. The professionals
with whom interns work may become valuable sources of information
for students in their careers and these individuals may also help
students obtain jobs. |
Internship sponsors view an intern as they would one of their own employees.
Interns should return the respect of their employer and consider an
internship as they would a job experience. Interns are expected to abide
by the policies of their sponsor, to report to their work as determined
by the internship sponsor, to complete the work assigned to them according
to the schedule agreed upon by the sponsor and student, and to act professionally
at all times. Interns represent the university and their conducts reflects
upon the university, the history department, and the public history
program. Your success ensures that opportunities may be available to
students from our school in the future; if you are not successful, the
sponsor may chose not to accept another intern from our institution.
Therefore, we expect you to be a good ambassador for our program.
Some internships may offer compensation
for the hours work. In such situations, this compensation will be determined
ahead of time and arranged between the intern and the sponsoring institution.
However, the majority of internship are unpaid.
Arranging an internship
Students are responsible for arranging
the internship in cooperation with the public history faculty at UWG.
Public history internships can include a variety of types of organizations,
including museums, historic preservation agencies, historical societies,
archives, state humanities councils, state and regional parks, the National
Park Service, and other government and private agencies and community-based
organizations which present history to the public. Positions are also
available in several campus departments and programs, including special
program opportunities through the Center for Public History.
The Public History Coordinator maintains a listing of available opportunities
in an internship notebook. As new internships become available, these
will be posted on the public history bulletin board and added to the
notebook. We ask each sponsor to develop a position description. In
some cases, these descriptions may remain consistent from year to year
and in other cases sponsors develop new internship positions. We are
also willing to pursue other internship sponsors that students select
if opportunities are available at those agencies.
Students should try to arrange the internship as far in advance as
possible. Some agencies, like the Atlanta History Center, require students
to apply in advance according to their schedule.
To apply for an internship, students
should first contact me to discuss your specific interests and backgrounds.
Each student must meet certain basic criteria:
| 1. |
An overall undergraduate GPA of 2.8 or better or a
history GPA of 3.0 or better; |
| 2. |
Sufficient course work in history and public history
to successfully meet the internship expectations; |
| 3. |
A completed internship application with a written
statement describing the student's reasons for wanting to pursue
an internship; |
4. |
The name of one reference in the History Department
who knows the quality of the student's work and can speak to the
student's dependability and reliability.
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Once the student's application has been received, s/he should meet
with the Public History Coordinator to discuss the internship possibilities
of interest to the student and for which the student would qualify.
The student is then responsible for contacting the selected sponsor
and for arranging a time to meet with the internship sponsor. The internship
sponsor will make the final determination as to whether the student's
interest and abilities match those of the agency.
Course Requirements
| 1. |
Complete an internship application and identify
a sponsor for your internship before the semester begins or, at
the very latest, by the end of the late registration period.
Instructions on how to arrange an internship are included with this
syllabus. The internship application must be on file with me by
the first day of classes. |
| 2. |
Develop a work contract with your internship sponsor
and provide a copy of this contract to me by the end of the first
week of class. I will provide the work contract form for you
to complete. Please be as specific as possible on the form in identifying
the objectives of the internship, the work responsibilities and
activities you will undertake, the approximate number of hours to
be allocated to each activity area, the specific work products you
will complete and/or create, the required dates for completing this
work, and your weekly work schedule. Also, please be sure to record
sufficient contact information for your supervisor so that I can
easily reach him or her. |
| 3. |
Perform 150 hours of internship work experience
for three-hours of internship credit. Internship hours include
time spent reading for the internship, correspondence, writing,
or other work-related assignments. All hours must be completed by
the final class day of the semester. Based on previous student experience
here at UWG, I advise you to schedule your hours throughout the
semester. If you put them off until the end of the semester, you
may find that you have insufficient time to complete the required
hours. You must complete all 150 hours and you must document these
hours through a journal to pass this class. |
| 4. |
Maintain a daily journal. Write a journal entry
for each day worked, recording the number of hours worked, the types
of work that you performed, and any observations, thoughts, or comments
that you want to share relevant to what you have learned that day.
You should maintain the journal on a daily basis so that you can
reflect on the work in which you are involved. |
| 5. |
Attend required internship meetings with UWG internship
supervisor. Interns are required to attend several types of
meetings. I will arrange meetings for all UWG interns to meet as
a group once during the semester to share internship experiences
and to reflect on what you are learning. I will contact you about
potential meeting dates and times. Also, whenever possible, I will
plan a site visit to meet you when and where you are working to
learn more about your work and to meet your internship sponsor and
discuss your work. These meetings will usually take place sometime
around the middle of the semester. I will count on you to advise
me of several possible meeting times and to schedule the meeting
with your sponsor. |
| 6. |
Communicate regularly with me throughout the semester.
Please keep in touch with me so that I know how your internship
is progressing, through a combination of meetings, telephone conversations,
and email communications. I ask that you talk with me at least once
very two weeks, at the minimum sending an email update describing
what you are doing. If any problems or issues arise or if you need
assistance in a particular area, please contact me as soon as possible.
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| 7. |
Complete a written mid-term evaluation answering
all questions on a form that I will provide to you by the date that
I request it. For 15-week internships (Fall and Spring semesters),
please submit this evaluation sometime during the 8th week of class.
For summer internships, please determine the mid-term date and submit
the evaluation at that time. |
| 8. |
Develop a portfolio of your internship work, including
an essay that evaluates your internship experience, and submit the
portfolio to me by the first day of final exams. The portfolio
should include examples of the types of work that you completed
during the course of your internship. This portfolio could include
photographs of you at work, samples of letter sor other written
work that you complete, newspaper articles about your work, sponsor
evaluations of your work, etc The essay evaluation should be about
five to six pages assessing what you learned from the experience
and your performance during the semester. The final internship evaluation
form provides specific questions for you to answer in writing this
essay. |
Grades
All students will receive a letter grade for the internship, unless otherwise arranged in advance. I will assign the grade, based upon several factors:
| 1. |
Successful completion of the required internship
hours; |
| 2. |
The completion and quality of the written products-the
mid-term evaluation, the daily journal, and the internship portfolio; |
| 3. |
My assessment of the intern's work performance
and the skills and knowledge that he/she developed, based on our
internship meetings and discussion; |
| 4. |
Evaluations of the intern's work provided by
the internship sponsors at the mid-term and at the end of the semester. |
| 5. |
The intern's ability to apply their training
in history and public history to a work setting. |
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