Internship Opportunities are short-term work experiences that allow you to participate in a professional working environment to explore your academic and career interests. For museum internships, students can apply directly to one of the funding sources below.
(1) MUSEUM STUDIES SELF-DIRECTED INTERNSHIPS
LILAC will provide funding for four summer positions for students who wish to intern in museums, galleries or other arts organizations. These grants will enable you to explore the field of Museum Studies and enhance your education with the practical experiences of a summer internship. To apply for this summer grant, you will need to identify a museum, gallery or arts organization that will sponsor your internship. Bryn Mawr’s Special Collections is one option for this summer internship.
LILAC Funding is available for unpaid summer internships that involve at least 30 hours of work a week for 8-10 weeks (or, a minimum of 240 hours). Students MUST secure the internship before they apply. Internships should take place sometime between the end of the spring semester and the resumption of classes for the fall semester. Placements may be in any field, both in the for profit and nonprofit sectors. The key requirement is that the internship provide the student meaningful and educational experience that can contribute to one’s academic, career, and/or personal interests.
Applications received by the first deadline (March 11) will be reviewed first. Applications received after March 11 will be reviewed in April after the final deadline (April 11). Students are encouraged to submit their applications as soon as possible.
(2) MUSE INTERNSHIPS
Bryn Mawr has additional funds to support four students for summer internships related to Museum Studies. Funding is available for internships that involve at least 30 hours of work a week for 8-10 weeks (or, a minimum of 240 hours). These internships provide special opportunities to conduct museum studies internships in Philadelphia museums. They provide a specially tailored opportunity to take museum studies investigations outside of the classroom into varied facets of museum work. These internships are organized and directed by Monique Scott, Director of Museum Studies. Applicants must have prior experience in museum studies.
In the summer of 2016, there are two potential sites for internships: The Philadelphia Museum Art and the American Philosophical Society.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
This internship will provide students with an interest in Museum Anthropology to work on research projects related to the representation of culture at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Interns will get a behind-the-scenes window into the Museum’s departments of education, community outreach and public programming. In particular, interns will work with the education department on educational programming and audience research for this summer’s “Creative Africa” exhibition.
Creative Africa is a series of five exhibitions embracing art and design from the African continent that ranges from centuries-old bronzes of the Kingdom of Benin to contemporary fashion, photography, and architecture. At the heart of the season’s offerings is Art from Africa: Looking Closely, a major exhibition drawn from the collections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The works of art presented encompass a diversity of materials, techniques, and visual traditions, with an emphasis on cultures of West and Central Africa. Other exhibitions will focus on traditional African textiles from the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s own collection, Vlisco fabrics and fashions, contemporary urban street photography, and the architecture of Francis Kéré. Accompanied by a dynamic schedule of related programs and performances, this season will generate conversations between past and present, tradition and innovation, and local and global concerns across African art and design.
American Philosophical Society
Curatorial interns work alongside curators in the American Philosophical Society (APS) Museum. Interns will assist curators in researching and planning the Museum’s upcoming exhibition, The Artistic and Scientific Peale Family (working title), to open in April 2017. The intern will join a small, versatile staff and will have the opportunity to see all aspects of museum work in action. Research sources include the archival papers of the Peale family, and the wide range of archival and book collections of the APS Library, the APS Museum object collections, and outside scholarly sources. Interns will have the opportunity to assist curatorial staff on the preliminary stages of the exhibition—exploring the Peale family archival collections, conducting research on the family and wider context, and choosing papers and objects for exhibition. Interns will gain skills in archival research, collections research, exhibition development, and exhibition management, and will also have opportunities to observe conservation, education, outreach and collections management work at the Museum. The APS Museum seeks an intern whose interests include cultural history, history of science, art history, early American history, Philadelphia history, material culture, and/or museum studies.
Examples of duties include the following activities:
- Assist with scholarly historical research for use in Museum exhibitions, public programs, and publications using Museum, Library and outside sources
- Identify potential collections and/or objects for exhibition
- Determine the provenance of archival or object collections
- Photograph, describe, and document artifacts
- Create and maintain databases of the exhibition checklist
- Review concept documents for exhibition development
See LILAC Muse Internships for details on the submission process. Applications are due Monday, March 21 2016.
(3) DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, RARE BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS INTERNSHIPS
The Friends of the Library have provided funding for a student to conduct a 10-week internship in the Department of Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. During the 10-week internship, the intern will explore the work of rare books and mauscript collections, which may include description and cataloging, conservation, research and writing for an exhibition, and digital reproduction and presentation of cultural items. Freshmen, Sophomores, and Juniors are eligible to apply. The intern will receive an award in the amount of $4000.
To apply, please submit the following to Marianne Hansen, Department of Special Collections (mhansen@brynmawr.edu), by Monday March 21 2016:
* 1-2 page letter explaining your interest in the position, relevant experience, and how the internship meets your academic, professional and personal goals
* Resume
* Name of one faculty member who would be able to speak about your qualifications
(4) DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, ART AND ARTIFACTS INTERNSHIPS
The Friends of the Library have provided funding for a student to explore working with collection objects. The 10-week internship will provide opportunities in a number of areas of special collections work, with a focus inventorying, cataloging and photographic collections. Freshman, Sophomores, and Juniors are eligible to apply. The intern will receive an award in the amount of $4000.
To apply, please submit the following to Marianne Weldon (mweldon@brynmawr.edu), by Monday, March 21 2016:
* 1-2 page letter explaining your interest in the position, relevant experience, and how the internship meets your academic, professional and personal goals
* Resume
* Name of one faculty member who would be able to speak about your qualifications
(5) EXTERNALLY FUNDED INTERNSHIPS
Students also can apply for funding directly from the particular Museum or Art Gallery in which they hope to work. Please contact LILAC or Monique Scott, Director of Museum Studies, for advice in the application process: mrscott@brynmawr.edu
We started our visit off with a lunch of authentic New York pizza and conversation with six incredible members of the museum’s education department. Each educator talked to us about their path to their current position, and as somebody who is interested in museums and their intersections with education programming, I was fascinated to hear how they had become part of the museum’s team. After lunch, we made our way into the inner-workings of the museum building and quite literally got to go behind the scenes. On the way to our next stop, we walked through hallways lined with offices and cases full of artifacts. It was breathtaking to realize that even though the museum has an amazingly large amount of artifacts and objects on display, there are even more artifacts that are not on permanent display. If only museums had infinite amounts of space!
Besides being in awe of having the opportunity to see a side of the museum that not many visitors get access to, by walking through the hallways of the museum behind the scenes, we got to literally walk in the footsteps of Margaret Mead, who through her work helped popularize American Anthropology. This is where the geeking out came in! As an Anthropology major, it was surreal to be a place where not only one, but two prominent individuals in your field had once worked and left their mark on. Franz Boas, who is known as the father of American Anthropology also worked at the AMNH, and according to one of the curators we were fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with, the museum is where Boas decided American Anthropology should be taught using a four- field approach including Cultural, Biological, Linguistic, and Archaeology, a practice the Bryn Mawr Anthro. department still practices today.
