The National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE)’s Internship Program is a partnership with the National Park Service and other Federal agencies with cultural resource protection and public land management responsibilities. The purpose of the program is to accomplish needed and important work on federally protected lands while providing program participants with professional experience in their chosen fields. Interns work under the guidance of agency staff who are subject area experts to carry out the mission of the park.

To be eligible, applicants must be between 18 and 30 years old (or 35 if a veteran) when starting the internship, a college student or recent graduate (within the past 12 months at the time of application), enrolled in a degree-seeking program, and a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

The successful candidate will work with the cultural resources staff from Effigy Mounds National Monument and the Midwest Archeological Center’s curation and archeology staff to meet National Park Service (NPS) curation standards for managing archeological collections. The intern will gain experience in a variety of curatorial activities such as archeological collections research, cataloging objects using official NPS cataloging software (MCMS) and Excel spreadsheets, and packaging and preparing artifacts and archives for storage. The intern will work solely on the archeological collections from Effigy Mounds National Monument as part of a larger effort to meet museum standards and accountability. Work will be performed at the Midwest Archeological Center, Lincoln, NE. The intern will be provided with a stipend to assist with housing and transportation.

A background security investigation may be required prior to the start date. All NCPE internships accrue 4 hours of PTO for every 80 hours worked.

Qualified NCPE interns who complete their internships may count their position towards earning a Public Land Corps (PLC) Non-Competitive Hiring Authority certificate.  Once earned, the PLC certificate may be used to apply for eligible Federal permanent, temporary, or term positions. Visit https://preservenet.org/ncpe-internships/ for details about this benefit. Successful completion of the internship does not guarantee Federal employment.