Internships Equity and Museums
As art museums seek to serve and represent audiences that more fully represent their communities, many institutions have focused increased attention in recent years on diversifying staffing across levels, including college level internships. And while museums have historically not paid their interns, thus perpetuating inequitable systems of privilege, many have, in recent years, begun to offer paid internships. Yet, to advance systemic and equitable shifts in staffing and overall internal culture, museums must do more to attract and retain students from a diverse range of backgrounds. As institutions with long histories of exclusion, compensation as a means of mitigating barriers remains insufficient, particularly for students from historically marginalized backgrounds. Over the last two years, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has developed MFA Pathways, a fully paid undergraduate internship program with a holistic approach that advances participation among students from historically underrepresented backgrounds while fostering a culture of reciprocal learning through professional development, mentor support, and student networking. This paper presents the work of the program in the interest of stimulating national and international dialogue around the role of paid internships in shaping museum culture both now and in the future. In addition to offering paid compensation, what strategies are museums developing that help address issues students continue to face, from racial inequities, limitations on staffing capacity, access to professional opportunities beyond internships, to navigating complex internal systems? What can museums do now to support a more diverse, transparent, equitable, and vibrant future for museum professionals?