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Summer Internship Awards for Graduate Students

The UNC History department is delighted to announce this year’s call for proposals for the Graduate Summer Internship Award, which is made possible thanks to the generous donation of Mark Clein. Three awards will support graduate students with a $3,000 stipend and health insurance in the summer in order to undertake summer internships in a broad range of organizations outside of traditional academia. Thanks to this funding the Department can offer these internships to potential host organizations without requesting financial support from them. This opportunity is available to students who have finished the M.A. degree and therefore can dedicate time in the summers to the experience of a service internship.

In order to apply for the award, graduate students will need to identify an organization in which they propose to work. Internship sites might include non-profit organizations, corporations, government agencies, labor unions, museums, libraries, historic sites, or media organizations, among other possibilities. Potential internship sites on campus include, but are not limited to, The National Park Service, Carolina Digital Library and Archives (Wilson Library), and UNC Office of Faculty Governance or other campus administrative units. Other possibilities can be found at http://publichistory.web.unc.edu/resources/about-public-history/.  Special consideration will be given to students seeking an internship with UNC Press. All inquiries regarding this particular opportunity can be directed to Lucas Church, Associate Editor, at lucas_church@unc.edu.

Our goals for these internships are to provide students with exposure to the work historians can do in a variety of sectors; a deepened understanding of the relevance of historical research and analysis to a wide array of current policy, business, and political challenges; a wider network of professional contacts; opportunities to learn valuable skills and experiences as well as to providing useful services to community organizations. We expect that in some cases these internships will offer opportunities for research work that may contribute to dissertation development. Our expectation is that students will work approximately 20 hours per week for a period of six to eight weeks during the summer.

In order to apply, students should scan and put together a digital file with the following elements:

  • Work plan, put together in collaboration with the site-based internship supervisor (2-3 pages)
  • Letter of endorsement from the student’s advisor
  • Current CV

This three-part application should be sent to the Graduate Student Coordinator Joy Jones (joyjones@email.unc.edu) by March 25. For further information, students may contact Sarah Shields, Director of Graduate Studies, at sshields@email.unc.edu.