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Spotlight on One of Our Newest Internship
Organizations:
NATIONAL CENTER FOR CULTURAL RESOURCES: DEVELOPING
DIVERSE HISTORIC PRESERVATION PROFESSIONALS
by Antoinette J. Lee
Tania
Uriante-Méndez spent the summer of 2001 in Washington, DC
researching, reviewing, and editing lesson plans for the Teaching
with Historic Places program of the National Register of Historic
Places, National Park Service. While Tania is a law student at the
University of Puerto Rico, she also is dedicated to developing her
skills as an educator. Jessi Glick, a public history major at North
Dakota State University, also spent the summer of 2001 in Washington,
DC. She catalogued museum collections at Arlington House, home of
Robert E. Lee, which is part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway
and the National Park System. Both Tania and Jessi were participants
in the Everett Public Service Internship Program. They were also
two of 20 interns who participated in the Cultural Resources Diversity
Internship Program-a program of the National Center for Cultural
Resources, National Park Service.
The
National Park Service is a federal government bureau that manages
385 units of the National Park System and administers many programs
that assist communities across nation with the protection of their
historic places and cultural heritage. Through its broad mandate,
the National Park Service protects thousands of historic buildings,
sites, and structures on national parklands. The National Park Service
also assists the public and private sectors with the preservation
of possibly millions of historic places and cultural resources throughout
the nation outside of national parks.
The
National Park Service administers many of these park and community
programs through its National Center for Cultural Resources. The
National Center is located in Washington, DC, and employs dozens
of historians, archaeologists, ethnographers, historical architects,
historical landscape architects, and curators. These professionals
work with their counterparts in National Park Service regional offices,
national parks, State Historic Preservation Offices, other federal
agencies, local governments, and the private sector to administer
some of the nation's best known historic preservation programs-including
the National Register of Historic Places, National Historic Landmarks,
Federal Preservation Tax Incentives, American Battlefield Protection
Program, Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering
Record, Historic Preservation Fund, and the Tribal Preservation
Program.
Although
many of these programs now address historic places associated with
the nation's diverse cultural groups, few diverse professionals
work in the field at the National Park Service or its partner organizations
in the public and private sectors. Three years ago, the National
Park Service established the Cultural Resources Diversity Initiative
to address this situation. The Initiative is responsible for developing
programs that will increase the number of diverse individuals who
work as historic preservation/cultural resources professions; increase
the number of historic properties associated with the nation's diverse
cultural groups that are identified, preserved, and interpreted;
and increase the number of diverse colleges, universities, organizations,
and communities involved in historic preservation work. Additional
information on the Cultural Resources Diversity Initiative is available
at its website: www.cr.nps.gov/crdi.
As
part of this effort, the Initiative established the Cultural Resources
Diversity Internship Program in the summer of 1999. This Program
provides a 10-week career exploration experience for diverse undergraduate
and graduates students. Students undertake projects such as conducting
research on exhibits, cataloguing historic artifacts, assisting
with public outreach programs, and editing lesson plans for teachers
and students. In 2001, the National Center for Cultural Resources
joined the Everett Public Service Internship network, which helped
support the work of Tania and Jessi.
Over
a period of time, it is hoped that many "graduates" of
the Cultural Resources Diversity Internship Program will decide
to work in the historic preservation/cultural resources field and
will seek the additional academic training and work experience they
will need in order to be competitive when jobs in historic preservation
and cultural resources stewardship become available. Thus far, we
are pleased that several former interns are pursuing graduate studies
in history and related fields and participating in other internship
and job-related experiences in this field.
Perhaps
a decade from now, when people think of historic preservation, they
will imagine a group of history-related professionals who reflect
the full multicultural nature of the United States. Diverse historic
places will be understood as readily as European-derived places
and diverse communities will actively use historic preservation
tools and programs to protect their historic places and cultural
heritage. This will be a fitting legacy to the Everett Internship
Program, as well as to the National Park Service's National Center
for Cultural Resources.
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Antoinette
J. Lee is Special Projects Manager, National Center for Cultural
Resources, National Park Service and founder of the NPS Cultural
Resources Diversity Internship Program.
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