Derian Internship: Faculty-Led, Community-Engaged Research

The Derian Summer Internship is a faculty-mentored and community-informed research internship program administered by ProCES.

Derian supports collaborations between faculty, undergraduate interns, and community experts. Interns support faculty in discipline-specific or discipline-spanning research or practicing artistry that is being conducted in collaboration with, and/or that directly benefits, locally, nationally, or internationally-located community partners and that facilitates the growth of students as community-engaged scholars. In addition to working directly with Derian faculty mentors and community partners, interns will participate in regular ProCES programming designed to scaffold the experience through community-engaged scholarship methods workshops and reflective practice. Over the course of the eight-week, 35 hour-per-week internship, students will develop an electronic portfolio documenting their experiences, identifying the skills and capacities they are building, and articulating a strategic narrative of their work and learning.

Projects have included: language revitalization; filmmaking; community-building; sustainable agriculture; archival research or archive development; meeting and event facilitation; creating best practices reviews; designing assessments; developing curricula; generating research-based content, such as policy briefs or communications materials; grant writing; oral history; community history; digital humanities; environmental impact studies; and/or interviewing or surveying community members. 

The Derian Student Internship fund is named in honor of Patricia "Patt" Derian, a human rights activist and a U.S. State Department official in President Carter's administration.

Funding

ProCES provides students with a $600 weekly living stipend which includes on-campus housing and meal plan as well as $150/week supplemental funding (total summer stipend is $4,800), with additional funding for project-related expenses available on an application basis.  

Critical Dates

  • January 2024: Available projects for Summer 2024 posted
  • February: First-round applications due
  • March: Placements confirmed
  • April: Program orientation
  • Early June-end of July: Eight-week internship period

Contact Tania Boster [email protected]