The National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE) Internship Program is a partnership with the National Park Service and other Federal agencies with cultural resource protection and public land management responsibilities. Its purpose 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 to complete projects or undertake programs in furtherance of the park’s mission.

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 University of Montana Anthropological Collection Facility (UMACF) houses collections of prehistoric and historic artifacts from archaeological sites across Montana and ethnographic collections from Northern Plains and Southwestern cultures accessioned for curation and use in teaching and research at the University of Montana. A primary mission of the UMACF is to create and facilitate an environment for research and learning. In order to support this primary goal, the facility makes its collections accessible to faculty, researchers, graduate students, culturally affiliated groups, and other qualified individuals.

The position is a part-time, 740-hour internship with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) at the University of Montana, in Missoula. The position is tasked with creating an itemized inventory of BLM collections held at UMACF.  The successful candidate will utilize collection documentation, project and site reports, and existing site-level inventories to create a catalog of individual items in accordance with the BCC’s cataloging and packaging standards. By the completion of this project, the intern will have produced a catalog of BLM projects and collections held at the UMACF.

A background security investigation may be required prior to the start date. All NCPE interns accrue 4 hours of paid time off (PTO) for every 80 hours worked. A housing allowance is also available.

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.