Wesley,

I wish to clarify a few points below, as one who has processed over 900 interns for our museum and has personally trained and supervised over 200  interns.

 

·         A good internship should be designed to benefit BOTH the intern and the museum, not just the intern.   

 

·         A student does not have to apply for credit in order for the experience to be deemed an internship, unless the credit stipulation is designated by museum policy.

 

·         A paid or unpaid internship experience is something that is decided upon by the museum. Even though one could be a paid intern does not classify it as a part-time, temporary or seasonal job since the structure of the experience, expectations and outcome for both the intern and the supervisor are different than a job. In addition, may internships that are paid offer a stipend not an hourly wage.

 

You have described your internship experience and how you personally define an internship based on your own experiences but it is only one kind of an internship and that is not the norm for the variety of museums out there.

 

Dawn Scher Thomae

Milwaukee Public Museum

 

 

Good Morning Beth,

Here’s my two cents…….. on the question of paying interns.

Perhaps we should first define what is an INTERN -- in a museum context.

1.)        Intern – The intern experience is designed for the benefit of the student. The intern experience is the “real world/vocational” part of the student’s formal (and often theoretical) education in museum studies.  The student MUST be receiving academic credit (by the college/university s/he is enrolled in) for the intern experience. Museums should not confuse the word “intern” with a part-time, temporary, or seasonal job.  Since the intern is a student, the intern is not normally paid. In fact, the intern is paying the college/university for the credit hours s/he is enrolled in for the “internship.”  Usually the intern has to submit an academic paper to her/his college/university, providing a detailed description of the “practical skill-sets” that were learned during their internship.  Often, the work that the intern produces during their internship – such as collection catalog or a program-planning document – is submitted to their college/university for academic credit/grade.

            An internship in a museum may be seen (in the best of cases) as analogous to a medical internship in a hospital; where the intern is exposed, over a year, to a variety of medical fields and specializations.  Back in the Bronze Age, when I was a graduate student in museum studies, I was blessed to have such a museum internship.

2.)        Part-time, temporary, or seasonal job – Such an experience, is designed for the benefit of the museum. The museum needs some type of work to be done, so the museum pays people to perform those tasks. These experiences are JOBS not, internships.  Often these jobs are filled by students, who need the “museum experience” to put on their resumes.  A student filling such a job may or may not be enrolled in a college/university.  Academic credit is not awarded to the student for such an experience.  Physically putting registration numbers on archaeological materials for an entire summer is a summer job, it is not an internship in my humble opinion.

3.)        In over 30 years of museum work, I have never paid an intern…..but, I have paid many college and university students to work (in part-time, temporary, and/or seasonal jobs) in a museum environment.  Many of those students and recently graduated young professionals, have learned a variety of museum-related skill-sets that have assisted them in preparing them to work in the museum field.  All I am saying is…. call a job a job….. and an internship, an internship.

Best Wishes and have a Wonderful Weekend!

Wesley

 

Wesley S. Creel

Administrator of Programs

Pink Palace Family of Museums

Memphis, Tennessee

www.memphismuseums.org

 

 

 

 

 

========================================================= Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).