CCHS Internship Program: Nurturing Community Engagement by Developing Infrastructures of Support

Presenter: Mary P. Sheridan – Commonwealth Center for Humanities & Society/Arts & Sciences

In 2024, the Office of Community Engagement’s Gheens Foundation grant supported the Commonwealth Center for Humanities and Society offering 6 internships. Embedded within CCHS’s Arts and Cultural Partners, interns received individualized mentoring with hands-on projects including producing podcasts, writing newspaper articles, conducting oral histories, gathering diverse voices into the collections, and developing user guides for primary materials. This presentation addresses the steps needed for such partnerships. First, I examine the importance of structural “on ramps” for students to be prepared and supported. Second, I call for university structures to better support faculty trying to create and maintain these student opportunities.