The Newport Restoration Foundation (NRF) is accepting applications for its 2015 summer internship for graduate students in museum studies, public humanities, art history, and related fields. The internship provides a high quality, immersive experience in professional museum practice that jointly fulfills the educational needs and interests of the intern and advances the mission of the NRF. The 2015 intern will work with staff in the Curatorial and Education Departments on various initiatives that include the online collections database and public programs. The intern will also complete an individual project, tailored to the student’s interests.

Responsibilities and requirements:

• Assist the curatorial and education staff in departmental initiatives.

• Work with the Curatorial Department in ongoing cataloguing of collections and assist with continuing

development of The Museum System digital database for written and pictorial records.

• Assist the Education Department with the implementation of this season’s public programs. Examples

include: educational programs for youth and adults at Prescott Farm and programs related to Rough

Point’s annual exhibit (focused this year on ceramics in the collection as well as seven site-specific

works created by contemporary ceramics artists from the U.S., Mexico, Hungary, and China).

• Applicants must be graduate students, or those completing their program of graduate study before the

beginning of summer.

• Applicants must be able to work from an eight-foot stepladder, and lift and carry forty pounds.

Compensation and living arrangements:

Compensation is $14.65/hour for 10 weeks (longer or shorter duration negotiable). Holidays and other time off are not paid. Although start and end dates are flexible, typically the internship begins the first week of June and ends in August. Some weekend and evening hours are required. Housing is available at $100/week (for a furnished one-bedroom apartment).

Application:

NRF is an equal opportunity employer; minority applicants welcome. Please send a letter of interest, résumé, and three letters of reference to Liz Spoden, Education and Programs Coordinator, Newport Restoration Foundation, 51 Touro Street, Newport, RI 02840. Electronic submissions accepted; send all materials in a single PDF to liz@newportrestoration.org. For questions: liz@newportrestoration.org or 401/846-4152 x122.

Closing date is February 13, 2015; applicants will be notified in early March.

Emily A. Laird was an M.A. student in museum studies at the Cooperstown Graduate Program, Cooperstown, N.Y. when she came to Newport as a Newport Restoration Foundation collections intern in 2011. During her time at the NRF, Emily displayed a passion for scholarship, dedication to her work, and a keen interest in her museum colleagues, the local community, and the unique qualities of Newport and environs. She worked closely with staff and had made an excellent start on her individual project before falling critically ill in mid-summer. She died on September 29, 2011.

About the Newport Restoration Foundation

Founded by Doris Duke in 1968, NRF was created to rescue Newport’s 18th-century homes, many of which were at risk of being demolished. Since its founding, it has restored or preserved 83 buildings. Today, NRF owns 82 historic structures, with 70 lived in by individual tenant-stewards. The NRF also owns and operates three museum properties: Whitehorne House, featuring the Doris Duke Collection of 18th-century Newport Furniture; Rough Point, Doris Duke’s Newport mansion; and Prescott Farm, a site of historic buildings on a rural landscape. The foundation continues to be actively engaged in historic preservation, educational programming, and scholarly research.