MUSEUM STUDIES PROGRAM UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE  
Museum Studies Internship (MSST-464) Guidelines  

Purpose of Internships
The Museum Studies undergraduate internship is a 150-hour minimum, full-time or part-time equivalent supervised work experience designed to complement the instruction received in Museum Studies 403 and to help acquaint a student with professional museum work. Internships are customarily completed during the academic year in a single semester, but also may be done during the summer months. The internship is an opportunity for a student to develop patterns of professional behavior and skills, and to apply his/her academic knowledge in a museum work situation. The internship may provide experience appropriate to a position that the student may ultimately seek in the museum field (i.e., curator, conservator, educator, collections manager, exhibit designer/fabricator, development officer, museum director, etc.). In the ideal scenario, student interns and sponsoring museums benefit equally from the internship relationship. For the student, the purpose of the internship is:

• To learn to function as a professional within his/her institution as well as the broader community of museums, and to understand current museum issues.
  
• To learn to function within the organizational structure of a museum and to develop a knowledge of governance and administrative operations.
  
• To develop knowledge and skills related to specific areas of museum work.
  
• To develop the ability to identify, assess and solve on-the-job museum problems.

• To assess individual wishes and needs for professional development.

In order to accomplish these goals, the intern should be integrated into the work of the museum and treated as a regular staff member. The intern should assume professional level responsibilities and complete a single project or discrete portion of a major project during the period of the internship.

Placement of Interns
All internships undertaken for academic credit must be approved by the Program Director. Notices for some internships are posted on the bulletin board outside of the Museum Studies Program Office. However, students who wish to arrange their own internships should furnish the prospective museum sponsor with a copy of these guidelines, develop a written statement of content and objectives (see below) to be signed by the student and the proposed internship supervisor, and then submit the proposal for approval by the Director.

Internship Requirements
The intern will (in advance, if possible, but in no case later than two weeks after beginning work) send the Director of the Museum Studies Program an information form (supplied by the Program) and a two-page description (including proposal) of the projected internship. This document must be signed by the intern and the internship supervisor. The Program Director reserves the right to insist on modifications that will insure a positive and productive and productive internship experience. A final report is required to receive credit for the internship. The report should be a 6-10 page, double spaced, word-processed report on the internship experience, which will be retained in the Program’s student file. A copy of this report may be sent to the intern’s supervisor at the sponsoring institution. This report is due two weeks after the terminal date of your internship, and should include the following:

• Describe the mission of the museum at which the internship was undertaken, and identify and characterize the museum’s role in the community. Describe the governance/administrative /operational structure of the museum, identify the division or department with which you have been working, and briefly describe its purpose. Discuss the rationale for its location within the administrative structure.

• Restate your learning objectives and discuss the degree of success you had in achieving them. Were there any special skills you learned? How was your knowledge base expanded?

• Briefly recount the purpose, focus, and content of the project (or discrete portion of a major project). Describe the methodology employed as well as the final product. What was the work schedule? In addition to the your project, what else, if anything, did you specifically contribute to or accomplish for the museum?

• Identify and briefly discuss both the positive and negative features of your internship experience.

• Discuss the nature and quality of your supervision, as well as the suitability of the division /department and museum for future internships.

• Attach as appendices copies of any materials produced that you feel are significant to the project.

Site Visits
Mid-way through the internship period, the intern should schedule a site visit with the Director of the Museum Studies Program or other UD faculty advisor. The Director will travel to the internship site on a mutually convenient date for a visit of approximately one hour with the intern. A brief meeting with the host institution internship supervisor should be scheduled along with this meeting. In instances where geographical distance makes a site visit impossible, communication with both the intern and the supervisor about the progress of the internship may take place by telephone.

Academic Credit  
The undergraduate internship course results in three credit-hours. The internship grade will be based upon the final written report and the evaluation submitted by the internship site supervisor. Be sure to register for the internship course (MSST-464) in the appropriate semester.

Financial Arrangements
Financial compensation, if any, for the internship is the responsibility of the student and the sponsoring host institution, and not the responsibility of the Program. We feel that the students who have completed three or more hours of classroom instruction and may have previous museum experience are adequately prepared to be productive and useful staff members in their internship capacities.

Procedure for the Participating Museum
So far as practicable, we hope that sponsoring institutions will treat interns as they would any trained and qualified professional staff members. Interns should observe the same work rules as other staff members, attend staff meetings as appropriate to a beginning professional, carry out work assignments productively and on time, and accept supervision. We hope that interns will be given an opportunity to learn about the entire institution and undertake a project (or projects) requiring the exercise of independent professional judgment. We do not ask that interns be exempted from the tedious parts of museum work, but we do ask that their training be well used and their enthusiasm challenged by work that is important and useful. Only in this way will they learn the maximum and the institution get the most for its investment.

Report from the Participating Museum  
As soon as possible (preferably within one week) after the conclusion of the internship, we ask that the internship supervisor at the sponsoring institution write the Director of the Museum Studies Program a one-page letter describing and evaluating the intern’s work. We will also welcome any suggestions for improving the internship program at the University of Delaware. Janis A. Tomlinson Acting Director Museum Studies Program 209 Mechanical Hall University of Delaware Newark , DE 19716-2558 Phone: (302) 831-8003 Fax: (302) 831-8037 E-mail: jat@udel.edu