Requirements
The program consists of the following requirements:
- HISTORY 659 Public History graduate seminar.
- Two courses in a defined area of public history practice, e.g., archives management*, community and oral history, cultural resource management, digital history/new media, museum studies, and writing for popular audiences; students may also design their own program, with the consent of their certificate adviser. At least one of these courses must be outside the student's home department.
Some sample tracks:
Museum Studies
- HISTORY 662 Museum and Historic Site Interpretation; or
- HISTORY 661 American Material Culture; and
- ART-HIST 634 History of Decorative Arts, ART-HIST 782 Museum Studies, or ANTHRO 597AE New Approaches to Public Commemorations and Social Memory
Historic Preservation
- LANDARCH 609 Studio X – Historic Preservation and ART 597V American Urbanism; or
- ART-HIST 642 19th-Century Architecture; or
- LANDARCH 544 History and Theory; or
- HISTORY 697U/797U Landscape and Memory
Writing for Popular Audiences
- HISTORY 691W Writing History; and
- JOURNAL 497M Art of the Profile
New Media
- HISTORY 693B Digital History
Cultural Resource Management
- ANTHRO 525 Archaeology and Law and HISTORY 662 Museum and Historic Site Interpretation; or
- LANDARCH 597B Cultural Landscapes
- 300 hours (6 credits) of internship experience. Internships may be paid or unpaid, but must conform to the policies set forth at www.umass.edu/history/public-history-internships. Students may complete this requirement at a single site, or divide the time between two separate sites.
For further information, contact Associate Professor Marla Miller, Public History Program, Herter Hall, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, tel.: (413) 545-1330 fax: (413) 545-6137; website: www.umass.edu/history/public-history.
*The Archival Management track is available through courses at Simmons College, offered on the campus of Mount Holyoke College. See https://www.simmons.edu/graduate/academic-programs/graduate-and-certificate-programs/archives-management-certificate.