With regards to your request for info as to how others manage internship
programs in their museums:

I have been working in the museum field in Canada for the past 17 years in
a variety of institutions, in both curatorial work and exhibition project
management.  I find that the calibre of interns I have been getting over
the past three-four years is dramatically higher than that of those I used
to get 10-14 years ago.  Back then, they were usually undergraduate
students in their early 20's with little or no experience in the museum
profession.  Now they tend to be in their late 20's; usually have or are
completing a Masters degree, and often have several years of contract and
short-term project work experience.  I think this is a sign of the economic
times, as well as an increasing professionalization of the museum field.

The interns I get are from a variety of programs, and in the past they
generally came to work as part of their course requirement and received
some kind of stipend or honourarium through their academic program, usually
provided through Canadian federal government grants, known in our country
as the Museum Assistance Program.  These grants are drastically being
reduced due to government cutbacks.  And, in addition to students enrolled
in programs, I am increasingly receiving requests from people who wish to
undertake internships with me who have graduated already from a Masters
program, and want to do an internship as a means of gaining experience and
getting a foot in the door.  Such individuals have no access to government
grant programs or to any other kinds of funding to pay for their
internships.  In the past couple of years I have been able to take two such
interns and find some honourarium from within my institution's budget to
give them.

The first was a graduate of an M.A. Program in Art History from the
University of British Columbia, in Vancouver.  She had a specific interest
in women's history and the history of childhood.  At that time, I was
curating an exhibition on the history of childhood in western Canada, and
we were able to take her on for six months as a research assistant to our
exhibition team.  We were able to provide her with a stipend of $800.00 a
month.  One of her objectives in her internship was to gain some grant
writing experience.  I was interested in developing a project proposal, at
the time, to organize a regional consortium of museums and high schools to
establish programs for teenagers in our museums, which came to be known as
"The Youth Curator" Project.  This intern assisted with the grant proposal,
which happened to be successful, and as a result, she got a one-year
contract as we wrote a job for her into the grant application.

Since this past summer, she is employed half-time as an art curator at our
museum, and continues on contract half-time for a second year as project
coordinator for Phase II of The Youth Curator Project.

Another example is someone who approached me just as she was graduating
from the University of Toronto's Master of Museum Studies Program, who was
interested in developing interpretive theatre programming at our museum.
As this was an area that interested us and had never been tried before at
our institution, we were able to find money to provide her with a similar
amount for four months, which enabled her to develop a piece of
interpretive theatre to complement one of our new permanent galleries.
This individual has been able to continue on contract with us, developing
other interpretive theatre programming.

Both of these are good examples where we managed to go the extra mile to
find some funding within our existing budget to bring two talented interns
to our institution, who have benefitted enormously from the experience, and
have been able to continue to work in our institution.  By the same token,
our museum has benefitted a great deal from the new ideas and fresh
approaches of both individuals.

Sandra Morton Weizman
Senior Curator of Cultural History
Glenbow Museum
Calgary, Canada