Encyclopedia Virginia Equity Internship

ORGANIZATION 

Encyclopedia Virginia’s mission is to provide a free, reliable, multimedia resource that tells the inclusive story of Virginia for students, teachers, and communities who seek to understand how the past informs the present and the future. 

SPONSOR 

Peter Hedlund, Director, Encyclopedia Virginia

PURPOSE 

This internship will allow students to develop an understanding of all aspects of an editorial workflow for a born-digital publication. They will also contribute to the efforts of ensuring that the content published by Encyclopedia Virginia is inclusive and equitable. 

CAREER DEVELOPMENT 

This internship will prepare interns for careers in any of the following: 

  • Non-profit 
  • Communication, Outreach, and Publishing 

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT 

This internship will provide experiences to develop and polish the following skills: 

  • Communication to diverse audiences 
  • Interdisciplinary team collaboration 
  • Marketing 

RESPONSIBILITIES 

The main responsibility of the intern will be to help Encyclopedia Virginia develop and coordinate a racial equity audit of published content. This process will involve working with Encyclopedia Virginia staff to develop a rubric that can be used to assess previously published entries through a racial equity lens. Elements of the rubric might include a consideration of an entry’s language, use of media, narrative omissions, and narrative perspectives. The intern will work with external partners to evaluate whether scholarship on the subject matter has been advanced since the entry was published. The intern will work with Encyclopedia Virginia’s editor to help prioritize and implement the audit’s results. 

The intern will attend Encyclopedia Virginia meetings and participate in developing project priorities and strategies.   

Additional project needs include assisting with marketing and outreach 

MENTORING PLAN 

If desired, office space will be made available for the intern at Virginia Humanities’ Dairy Market location. The intern will meet formally with the Encyclopedia Virginia team every other week and one-on-one with the director on opposite weeks. These one-on-one meetings will serve as an opportunity to assess internship progress and discuss challenges that arise. Currently all Encyclopedia Virginia meetings take place over Zoom, but as the COVID pandemic allows, we hope to return to meeting in person. In addition to the scheduled meetings, each member of the team (editor, assistant editor, media editor) will be available throughout the internship for informal discussions about the internship, the project, and the public humanities. Encyclopedia Virginia’s director will be the main point of contact and will coordinate all aspects of the internship. EV’s director will also set up meetings with other staff members at Virginia Humanities, the larger organization within which Encyclopedia Virginia operates.  

Other programs at Virginia Humanities include, a state-wide folklife program which is dedicated to the documentation, presentation, and support of Virginia’s rich cultural heritage; the community initiatives program, which serves as a coordinating office for projects and partnerships across the state and works to strengthen Virginia Humanities’ relationships with new and diverse audiences; the Virginia Festival of the Book, an annual weeklong public book festival which brings together writers and readers to promote and celebrate books, reading, literacy, and literary culture; With Good Reason, a nationwide radio program featuring the scholarship of Virginia’s state colleges and universities. What all these programs have in common is the goal of making all aspects of the humanities accessible to a public audience. Virginia’s Humanities’ executive director will also meet with the intern to provide an organizational overview of Virginia Humanities and offer an overview of the larger world of public humanities. 

DESIRED QUALITIES 

Virginia Humanities and Encyclopedia Virginia welcome applicants with a general understanding of and interest in American history and a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. 

DURATION AND EFFORT 

The internship could occur during the Summer 2022 and/or Fall 2022 semesters. 

FUNDING 

PhD+ interns will be funded $5000 per semester ($25 per hour for 200 hours per semester). 

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