Robert Frederick Smith Internship and Fellowship Program
Opportunity Description:
The Robert Frederick Smith Fund for the Digitization and Curation of African American History was established to advance the digital curation, community outreach, and internship initiatives at the Museum. As part of the Smith Fund Internship and Fellowship Program, the Museum will select and provide funding for interns who will be located onsite with the Museum and offsite at select African American museums, art galleries and museums of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), cultural institutions and historic sites, or other related institutions dedicated to the study and preservation of African American history and culture. All internship opportunities with this program will focus on work related to digital imaging, media preservation, digital preservation of personal and community objects, digital content management, collections information management, recording and preserving oral histories, or digital filmmaking.
Internships will provide guided learning experiences consisting of hands-on training, mentoring, attendance at educational events, and cultivation of contacts for the next generation of researchers, scholars, curators, and other museum, library, preservation, and heritage professionals – individuals who will assume the mantle of identifying, documenting, curating, and digitizing treasured artifacts that reflect African American history and culture.
Intern Benefits
- $600 per week stipend to defray living expenses during the tenure of the appointment
- Additional need-based housing and transportation stipends of $150 per week are available. Students qualify by selecting their need to pay rent during their term on the application.
- Flexible start and end dates
- Structured mentorship opportunities both within the Museum and with outside professionals
- A calendar of professional development seminars catered to the needs of historically underrepresented individuals in the cultural sector
- Paid registration and travel to attend the Association of African American Museums annual conference in Summer 2020
- Paid professional memberships
- Academic credit (not required)
Length
- Internships are 12 weeks in the summer
- 35-40 hours per week
Minimum Qualifications and/or Eligibility Requirements:
Interested applicants must meet the following requirements:
- Undergraduate students (must have completed at least one year of study) OR
- Graduate students OR
- Recent graduates (up to 2 years out of school)
- Career-changers in the cultural field less than 2 years
- Applications from individuals who have had prior internships or fellowships with any unit of the Smithsonian Institution will not be considered.
Strongest consideration will be given to applicants with no more than 1-2 prior related work experiences.
Application Process:
Onsite Positions
Apply for onsite positions at the National Museum of African American History using the Smithsonian online application system. You must select either Digitization or Time Based Media Conservation as a position of interest.
Offsite Positions
View available offsite internships here. Download and fill out an application form (pdf) and submit along with the documents below as Word or PDF attachments to RFSInternships@si.edu with the email subject: "<First Name_Last Name> - Internship Application 2022" by 11:59 p.m. February 15, 2022.
- Cover letter (no more than 2 pages) detailing your past and present academic history and other experiences which you feel have prepared you for this internship and an outline of what you hope to learn during this internship.
- Resume
- Unofficial transcript(s)
- 2 academic and/or professional letters of recommendation. Letters of recommendation should be submitted by the intern applicant along with all other application materials.
Applications submitted as Google documents, links to files, or other cloud platform applications will not be considered.