Internships offer an excellent opportunity to acquire some "real world" work experience, to apply some of one's training and skills and to learn about job opportunities in history and related fields.
Requirements
Enrollment Process
Choosing a Host Institution
Testimonials
History Internship Form
The Undergraduate Program
The Department of History's internship course (HIS 4933) is appropriate for students pursuing the Bachelor of Arts in History Degree. They are allowed to apply up to 6 credit hours of internship toward their degree.
Students pursuing the Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in Social Studies - who intend to teach social studies in high school -- are not encouraged in enroll in internships. Their degree plan has no room for electives (and student teaching could be considered its own form of "internship.")
The Graduate Program
Students in the Master's program are also encouraged to participate in internships in HIS 6993. Graduate students can also use a total of 6 hours toward their degree plan and must document 150 hours working on site for three credit hours. The one notable difference with graduate internships is that graduate school guidelines require that students receive a standard grade ("A" or "B" etc.).
Students typically enroll for a three credit hour internship course; each three credit course requires a total of 150 internship hours during the semester, usually working at the host institution site. Students submit time cards with the department office that specify the hours worked at the host institution. If they have logged in the requisite 150 hours and performed to the satisfaction of the site supervisor they receive the three credits but no grade - hence participation in an internship will not affect a student's G. P. A.
The great majority of internships are unpaid, but a few institutions do offer a modest stipend.
You can inquire into more internship possibilities by checking with Career Services - see their website at http://www.utsa.edu/jobbank/
A number of local institutions have supported UTSA interns in the past and are happy to use more, among them:
37th Training Wing History Office: Located at Lackland Air Force Base, the 37th Training Wing is responsible for the initial training of all air force enlisted personnel. The History Offices houses a large quantity of historical documents from Lackland as well as nearby Kelly AFB (now closed). The staff at the History Office is responsible for preparing official reports that go to senior officers, documenting historic sites and artifacts, and preparing historical publications and exhibits for the public. Past interns have digitized photographs, researched historical figures associated with the base, and conducted oral histories. Students with a military background may find this a particularly rewarding experience. All branches of the military have a strong sense of history and employ a sizeable number of professional historians in various capacities.
Contact: Mr. Tracy English (210-671-2217): tracy.english@lackland.af.mil.
The Alamo: By far the most popular historic site in San Antonio - with 2.5 to 3 million visitors a year. The site of the 1836 battle is administered by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Interns are invited to engage in a variety of activities that might include collection management (the preservation and display of artifacts), research, transcribing documents, interacting with the public, and preparing web exhibits. This is a relatively large historic site - with a library, museum and the historic chapel - located near the River Walk, so it is readily accessible with public transportation. With a large professional staff the Alamo offers an excellent orientation for those interested in pursuing a career in museum work.
CONTACT: Dr. Bruce Winders (210-225-1391 ext. 27) bwinder@thealamo.org http://www.thealamo.org/
American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE): ARCE is a non-profit research organization supporting research on Egyptian history and culture, as well as fostering a broader knowledge about Egypt, and promoting American-Egyptian cultural ties. This is accomplished through its fellowship program, scholarly research program, the preservation of Egypt's cultural heritage, as well as through additional programs. ARCE was founded in 1948, by a consortium of members, and only recently hired an Archivist to organize and maintain its archival records of organizational documents and documents relating to its mission. ARCE is seeking interns to assist in the assessment, arrangement and description of its archives, which are housed in its San Antonio Business Office, 8700 Crownhill Blvd., Suite 507. ARCE's main offices are located in Cairo, Egypt.
CONTACT: Rachel Mauldin (210-821-7000), rnmauldin@gmail.com
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio, needs interns to help processing a large collection of records and papers left behind by some retiring church officials - among them former Archbishop Patrick Flores. The also seek assistance in microfilming other church documents. The Catholic Archives is located at 2718 West Woodlawn - not far from St. Mary's University. Normal working hours at the Archives are Mon. through Fri, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Applicants will need to pass a standard security check.
CONTACT: Brother Edward Loch at (210) 734-2620 or eloch@archdiosa.org http://www.archdiosa.org/
The AT&T Archives and History Center: Over the last 130 years, the American telecommunications industry has undergone a bewildering number of mergers, acquisitions and an historic divestiture ? the breakup of the storied Bell System. This nationwide telephone system, owned by American Telephone and Telegraph Co. (AT&T), was the world's largest private company with over $150 billion in assets, one million employees and three million shareowners, a giant unparalleled in American business history. To settle a lengthy federal antitrust suit, AT&T, also known as "Ma Bell," spun off two-thirds of its assets in the biggest corporate reorganization in American history. On January 1, 1984, AT&T became a stand-alone long-distance/telecom-equipment manufacturing company, while seven regional holding companies, affectionately nicknamed the "Baby Bells," inherited 22 local Bell operating companies -- each over 100 years old. After divestiture, the industry remained fairly static until the signing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Soon afterwards, SBC Communications Inc., the smallest Baby Bell, aggressively expanded in scale through three major mergers with its siblings (completed in 1997, '98 and '99). But the truly industry-changing event occurred on November 18, 2005, when SBC acquired a much smaller AT&T Corp. and adopted the legendary name of its former parent. Today, the new AT&T Inc. is one of the world's largest telecom holding companies and the largest in the United States. The historical materials of the former SBC are stored at the company's state-of-the-art archives at 4949 Von Scheele Dr. (near the Medical Center). In the past, student interns have helped organize and catalog archival records, handle reference inquiries and design on-line exhibits. This is an excellent opportunity to learn about the growing field of archives.
Contact: William Caughlin (210-697-1763) or william.d.caughlin@att.com
Center for Archeological Research: The Center engages in a variety of research projects that explore the archeology of San Antonio, South Texas and South America. The site is located on the west side of the UTSA 1604 campus within easy walking distance of the HSS building. The CAR facility preserves a vast quantity of artifacts - bone, shells, ceramics, chipped or burned rocks, nails -- dug up over the roughly thirty year period that the Center has been in operation. Interns are needed to help the staff clean, catalog, weigh and preserve their collections, which they use for the many reports they prepare on archeological sites for governments as well as private citizens.
Contact: Marybeth Tomka (210-458-7822) Marybeth.tomka@utsa.edu
Frontier Times Museum is situated on 13th St. in Bandera, Texas, one block north of the Courthouse. The museum contains paintings and artifacts documenting the history and culture of the American West. It is seeking a student intern to assist in a comprehensive inventory of the museum's permanent collection. The intern will be assisting the museum's collection manager in the inventory and cataloguing of historical artifacts, photographs and documents. The intern will receive training in basic museum registration systems and hands-on instructions on how to properly care for museum artifacts. The position will also require the intern to enter information onto the museum's collection database. The position is available for both spring and summer sessions with flexible hours to be determined by the student and the museum collection manager.
Contact: Rebecca Norton (830) 496-3864 [information@frontiertimesmuseum.org] http://www.frontiertimesmuseum.com/about.htm
Holocaust History Project: The project is devoted to disseminating information on the Holocaust, primarily over the web. It has emerged as one of the world's pre-eminent websites devoted to challenging holocaust deniers. It holds a very large collection of primary resource documents - many of them in German - that it translates and digitizes. The facility is located in San Antonio's northern suburbs and is not easily accessible by public transportation. Internship work is more purely research oriented working with the documents, photographs and recordings. Students with a working knowledge of the German language would be especially welcome.
Contact: Gregg Michel (210-458-5701) Gregg.michel@utsa.edu http://www.holocaust-history.org/
Institute of Texan Cultures: The ITC is housed in a large building Downtown near the Hemisfair Tower. It maintains a museum devoted to the history of the many ethnic and racial groups that have made Texas their home. The Institute also maintains an educational program on Texas history with the schools, publishes numerous brochures and books on ethnic cultures within the state, and sponsors the Annual Folklife Festival. Interns help out by doing research on coming exhibits, and helping to organize their small body of collections. The Institute has a number of intern opportunities and is happy to craft projects that suit a student's interests. Another excellent opportunity for those who want to learn something about the museum field.
Contact: Shirley Mock (210-458-2337) Shirley.mock@utsa.edu http://www.texancultures.utsa.edu/public/index.htm
National Park Service: The largest employer of professional historians - those with some level of graduate training - is the Park Service. In San Antonio the NPS maintains four historic missions located south of downtown along the San Antonio River. Large numbers of visitors come to the sites each year, especially Mission San Jose. The sites include the ruins of the Spanish missions established in the early 18th century, much of which is restored, as well as museums and interpretive programs. Interns have assisted the park rangers by researching some of the structures and helping in the preparation of exhibits. Students with an interest in Texas and colonial history will find this site especially interesting
Contact: Crystal Fleeger (210-627-2021) http://www.nps.gov/saan/
The San Antonio Conservation Society plays the leading role in preserving historic structures in San Antonio and in urban planning. It consequently has extensive holdings dealing with historic sites in the area. It is prepared to offer paid internships to individuals prepared to help them inventory their archival records before they are shipped out for storage. The work will need to be accomplished at the Society's Headquarters at 107 King William Street (in the King William District not far from Hemisfair Park).
CONTACT: Bruce MacDougal (210) 224-6163 Bmacdougal@saconservation.org http://www.saconservation.org/
San Antonio Museum of Art: One of San Antonio's largest museums, SAMA maintains an extensive art collection in a former brewery located just north of Downtown. Their collections include a number of paintings and sculptures and other artifacts from Latin America, Asia and the Ancient world and they appear in a number of rotating or visiting exhibits. If you have strong aesthetic sensibilities or an interest in foreign cultures or the ancient world this museum may prove especially worthwhile.
Contact: Olga Samples Davis (210-978-8151) olga.samplesdavis@samuseum .org http://www.samuseum.org/
Texas Parks and Wildlife: Like the National Park Service, the state of Texas also administers a number historic sites. Some of the more prominent in the San Antonio area include the Casa Navarro State Historic site in Downtown San Antonio (home of Tejano patriot José Antonio Navarro), the Sauer Beckman Farm near the Lyndon Baines Johnson ranch in Stonewall (a working farm interpreted circa 1918), and the Government Canyon State Natural Area.
Contact: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/
TSA Archives: The UTSA archives has been collecting and preserving the papers of local organizations and individuals for the past 15 years. They make use of a number of UTSA students to help them organize the often large bulk of historical material - letters, official records, photographs - that they are processing for their collections. The UTSA Archives also is visited by numerous scholars - most from out of town - who seek to make use of their collections in their research. The facility is located on the third floor of the Institute of Texan Cultures building near the Hemisfair Tower downtown. Students who desire more experience with primary resources and hands on experience with the process by which archival collections are organized would find the intern experience here especially valuable.
Contact: Gerrianne Schaad (210-458-2385) Gerrianne.schaad@utsa.edu
Witte Museum: The Witte is located on Broadway - not far from the San Antonio Zoo - and takes history and natural science as its main thematic areas. It has a large artifact collection and organizes a number of exhibits each year - many focusing on the culture of the Southwest. It has a history collection with everything from Texas furniture to farm implements, a large textile collection, including the gowns worn by Fiesta "royalty," as well as anthropological and natural science collections. Past interns have helped catalog their collections, researched objects and exhibition topics and developed their web site. This is another fine site for persons interested in entering the museum field.
Contact: Michaele Haynes (210-357-1861) michaelehaynes@wittemuseum.org http://www.wittemuseum.org/
Students are welcome to make contact with public or private agencies on their own to establish internship possibilities. The internship should introduce students to the type of work environment and responsibilities they might expect to encounter after they graduate, where they can put their research and writing skills to good use, and where they might also learn something about how history is "done" outside an academic setting. In your discussions with the supervisor at the host institution make sure you identify your specific duties as you will need to record these in your Internship Application form.
Internship opportunities - often paid - are sometimes announced in the History Department newsletters circulated to graduate students and undergraduates, so stay posted. The Careers Center also has information about internship openings, and you should talk to the careers professional responsible for advising history majors, Mike Zucker. You can reach him at 458-7138 or Michael.Zucker@utsa.edu. Their webpage devoted to internships can be found at http://www.utsa.edu/jobbank/Internet%20links/Intern.htm.
After students have made arrangements to work at a host institution during a given semester, they can fill out the Internship Application form. Bring the form around to be signed by your faculty advisor and drop it off in the History Department for further signatures from the chair. You can return a few days later to pick up the form and see that your paperwork is in order and that the Department has a record of your internship. You will be furnished with a code that you can bring to enrollment services to get yourself enrolled (as you cannot do this on-line). You will need to pay for the 3 or 6 credit hours the same as you would for any other credit hours going toward your degree. And remember - only a total of 6 hours of internship credit hours are permitted under current catalogs.
After you start working at the host institution remember to keep track of your hours and turn in the time sheets to the History Department - signed by your supervisor - recording the total hours worked per day.
Over the years UTSA history students have participated in a variety of internships. Here are four examples.
Amanda Wallace-Wittnebel worked at the Holocaust History Project where she initially worked on The Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals. She helped organize the documents to make them easier to locate, and then helped scan many of the most fragile ones and put them on the web. Her work with the Holocaust History Project came to the attention of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., where she recently went to work as an intern in their Archives.
At the A T & T Archives Mathew Martin inventoried the Archives's collection of pamphlets and other publications put out by the Bell system, processed a photographic collection from Ohio Bell, assisted in physically moving the Archives to its new location, guided tours for occasional visitors at the facility, and answered queries for researchers regarding the company's holdings. He also designed a webpage that presented the history of data communication - from smoke signals to the internet. The training Mathew received at A T & T was a critical factor in helping him land a paid position in the UTSA Archives after he graduated in December of 2005.
Eduardo Uribe spent the summer of 2006 in Washington D. C. working for the U. S. Department of Veteran Affairs. Eduardo signed up for 6 credit hours that required him to put in a total of 300 hours, which was easily enough accomplished as he was actually a paid employee working 40 hours a week for ten weeks. His major assignment was to produce a "finding aid" or guide to help researchers make use of the Burial Registers from the Civil War era. These ledgers recorded not only where individuals were buried but offered first hand accounts of the circumstances surrounding their deaths. The highlight of his tenure at the VA was an invited tour of Arlington National Cemetery by its official historian.
The Alamo Iron Works contacted the History Department in 2004 about hiring one or more graduate students to help it celebrate its coming 125th Anniversary. Amy T. Clemens worked under the supervision of company president Tony Koch for well over a year in preparing an exhibit, a CD, and an illustrated book. Much of her time Amy was digging through closets and hauling out old documents and dusty artifacts.
For more information contact the chair of the History Department at 210-458-4033.