Cultural Resources Diversity Internship | Heritage Documentation Programs Internships | National Council of Preservation Education Internship Program

Cultural Resources Diversity Internship
The Cultural Resources Diversity Internship Program (CRDIP) provides career exploration opportunities for future cultural resources professionals of diverse backgrounds.  CRDIP features internships at all governmental levels and with private preservation organizations. 

The CRDIP is a 50/50 cost share program between the National Park Service (NPS) Cultural Resources and the intern host.  The program is administered in partnership with the Student Conservation Association (SCA).  Any cultural resources/historic preservation organization is eligible to apply for an intern.  Intern hosts have the flexibility of recruiting and selecting interns, who must be between the ages of 18-25. 

Any organization focused on Native American issues is eligible to participate in this program (including Indian tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations, Alaska native villages and corporations, THPOs,  non-profits focused on Native American issues and others) to develop and fund internships for Native American students and/or for projects relating to Native American cultural resources.  Native American students can also apply for a CRDIP internship to gain experience in the cultural resources field. 

Since the CRDIP began in 1999 there have been Native American CRDIP interns and internships dealing with Native American cultural resources.  Native American students have both independently applied to the CRDIP and have been actively recruited by intern hosts.  An internship during summer 2012 at Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail in Hawaii involved integrating Native Hawaiian cultural heritage and practices into NPS management practices using community-based participatory research methodologies.  A Native Hawaiian graduate student was recruited and selected for this internship.  The 2012 intern hosts at Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, North Dakota actively recruited for an intern from the area around the park unit.  An upcoming high school graduate was selected. 

In addition to providing opportunities for Native American students, many CRDIP internships each year feature projects relating to Native American culture directly and indirectly.  For example, an intern at Navajo National Monument in Arizona worked with park archeologists to record sites throughout the unit.  The Glades Historical Society in Belle Glade, Florida had a 2012 CRDIP intern work on an exhibit at the Lawrence E. Will Museum entitled, “We Were Here:  We the People of Belle Glade Culture Welcomed You in 1513.”  Projects such as these two allow non Native American interns to learn about Native American culture.

For more information including an intern host application and the intern application.

Contact Us
Paloma Bolasny, Historian, at 202-354-2174 or Paloma_bolasny@nps.gov

Heritage Documentation Programs Internships
Heritage Documentation Programs seek applications from qualified students for summer employment documenting historic sites and structures of architectural, landscape and technological significance throughout the country. Duties involve on-site field work and preparation of measured and interpretive drawings and written historical reports for the HABS/HAER/HALS Collections at the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Projects last 12 weeks, beginning in late May or early June. 

IStudent participation for HABS drawings is also encouraged through the Charles E. Peterson Prize, an annual competition for the best set of drawings to HABS standards.

Students and professional architects, engineers, and landscape architects can participate in the annual Leicester B. Holland Prize, which recognizes the best single-sheet measured drawing of a historic site, structure, or landscape prepared to program standards.   

The Sally Kress Tompkins Fellowship, a joint program of the Society of Architectural Historians  and the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), permits an architectural historian to work on a 12-week HABS project during the summer. 

The Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) and the Council of American Maritime Museums (CAMM) cosponsor the HAER Maritime Documentation Internship, that permits a student or recent graduate of architecture or history, interested in maritime preservation, to work as a summer intern on a HAER maritime documentation project.

Any Native American is eligible to work with HABS, HAER and HALS to create documentation, participate in summer programs, donate drawings or cooperate with professional staff in other ways to record important elements of their community.

Contact Us
Richard O'Connor, Chief, at 202 354-2186 or richard_o’connor@nps.gov

National Council of Preservation Education Internship Program
The Historic Preservation Internship Training Program gives students opportunities to undertake paid short-term research and administrative projects with NPS either during the summer or the school year.  The Internship Training Program trains future historians, archeologists, architects, curators, planners, and archivists by fostering an awareness of NPS cultural resource management activities and providing the opportunity to work under the direction of experienced professionals in the field of historic preservation.

The Internship Training Program is operated jointly with the National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE), a nonprofit consortium of colleges and universities offering academic programs in historic preservation and allied fields.  The Program places students in National Park Service cultural programs headquarters and field offices and in units of the park system with historic preservation and cultural resource management responsibilities.  Students learn about and contribute to the national historic preservation programs operated in partnership with State Historic Preservation Officers and to NPS efforts to preserve and manage historic properties.  In a partnership arrangement, some internships have also been offered in other bureaus of the Department of the Interior, General Services Administration, and the Defense Department.

Internships are available to graduate and undergraduate senior students in historic preservation programs and related disciplines.  Interns have had the opportunity to work in a number of different offices on projects of importance to Native American communities including NAGPRA and the American Indian Liaison Office. 

Contact Us
Guy Lapsley, Architectural Historian, at 202 354-2025 or Guy_Lapsley@nps.gov