Expectations for undergraduate interns working for academic credit

We will work with students and their academic advisors to structure an internship that meets the students' needs, the requirements of the students' academic programs, and project needs, to the extent possible within our ethical responsibilities, including our code of conduct and promises we've made to interview narrators. The following, however, are our general expectations.

1. An intern in a 3-hour course will work for the Texas After Violence Project a minimum of 8 hours a week for twelve weeks, or 96 hours total during the semester. These hours should start no later than the second week of the semester (or the 15th class day).

Interns should check with their academic advisors about additional expectations at your institution. For instance, please note that the College of Liberal Arts (COLA) at UT Austin has established more stringent minimum standards for internships conducted for academic credit, requiring that a student intern complete approximately 10-15 hours of week during a semester, for a total of 120-160 hours.

Some institutions require students to write a paper, or to produce something else tangible (a video, a journal), in order to receive credit for an internship. The 96 hours required for an internship at the Texas After Violence Project do not include the time the intern spends writing a paper required to fulfill such academic requirements.

We strongly recommend that students complete their minimum hours in twelve weeks, so that they are not trying to complete their hours in the final weeks of the semester!

2. Each intern will negotiate an individual plan for the semester with the Texas After Violence Project director. This plan must be signed by the student; we strongly recommend that the student review this plan with her or his academic supervisor and obtain this supervisor's written agreement, as well.

3. In general, each intern will spend her or his time in the following way:

a) One-third of her or his time, or three hours per week, in training, normally at the office on the same day and at the same time each week: Friday afternoons, 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. See more below.

b) Approximately one-third of her or his time working on to fulfill project needs, which will be any or all of the following, depending on the intern's skills. See more below.

c) Approximately one-third of her or his time on a specific individual project, designed by the student with guidance of her (or his) supervising faculty member or academic advisor and the project director. This individual project will also serve TAVP's needs, but will be more focussed on a topic of the student's interest.

We expect that the intern will participate in training throughout the course of the semester, but that the time allotted to service to TAVP and an individual project will change. Early in the semester, the intern will spend more of her time transcribing and processing interviews; as she gains knowledge and experience we hope that she will develop a specific individual project and gradually spend more of her time on that.

4. CORE TRAINING – mandatory for each person who works at the project – includes an hour of orientation to the project, and all of the following (not necessarily in this order):

a) Oral history I – introduction to oral history: rationale, methods & ethics including consent (3 hours)

b) Oral history II – recording the interview; sound & sight; technology (3 hours)

c) History of the death penalty in Texas (race, religion, region) (3 hours)

d) Procedures in capital punishment cases from arrest & pretrial proceedings, jury selection, two-part trial, appeals & habeas (3 hours)

d) Grief & mourning (3 hours)

e) Trauma & self-care (3 hours)

OTHER TRAINING TOPICS may or may not be offered in a given semester. These may include:

f) criminal justice system in Texas

g) juvenile justice system in Texas

h) execution practices in other states or countries

i) special topics in oral history

j) special topics in death penalty law such as “future dangerousness,” jury selection, mitigation, or pending controversies

k) local tours of jail(s)

l) field trips to Huntsville or Gatesville

m) demographic analysis

n) introduction to legal research

o) other topics of interest regarding causes of violence, its effects, ways of responding to violence, restorative justice, transitional justice, healing, incarceration and alternatives, or anything else useful.

5. SERVICE TO TEXAS AFTER VIOLENCE PROJECT

Interns will spend approximately one-third of their time in service to the overall needs of the project. Specific assignments will depend on an intern's skills and talents and the needs of the project at the moment, but everyone should expect to transcribe at least one interview.

a) transfer oral history interviews from the camera tape to DVD
b) transcribe oral history interviews
c) proofread and format oral history interviews
d) correct errors in transcripts as directed by oral history narrators
e) process interviews and other digital materials, once public, for uploading to the Human Rights Digital Initiative of the UT Libraries
f) upload interviews and supporting materials to the Human Rights Digital Initiative server
g) record oral history interviews
h) translate written transcripts into Spanish
i) orally translate interviews into Spanish for web publication
or h) help with other project needs.

No one should plan to intern with the project if she or he is unwilling to transcribe oral history interviews. Any intern, volunteer, or other participant in the Texas After Violence Project who experiences distress, deep sadness, or any emotional or physical discomfort should immediately talk to the project director. If transcribing or working directly with interview material is too painful for an intern, or gets to be too much, we will make alternative arrangements. There are many critical tasks an intern may perform, many of which are less stressful.

Knowing yourself and your limits is a sign of wisdom, never shame or weakness.

6. INDIVIDUAL PROJECTThe intern and TAVP will decide on an individual project and its scope based on the student’s interests, ethical considerations & constraints, and project feasibility.

No student will write or speak about any interview that the narrator has not fully released to the public. Interns may not write or speak about ANY confidential material for ANY purpose outside of the office. Academic supervisors must understand that the student will not be able to write about or discuss any interview or other information that a narrator has not released to the public.

Examples of potential projects:

a) Writing about a particular episode or set of tragedies, explaining the particular conditions that gave rise to the specific acts of violence, prosecution, trial outcomes, and public reaction.
b) Looking at differences between counties that have never sentenced anyone to death and counties that have frequently sentenced people to death.
c) Reviewing interviews that narrators have permitted to be published to examine a particular theme or population: grief in police officers, histories of child abuse in people later convicted of violent crimes, experiences of media witnesses, experiences of prosecutors, disenfranchised grief of siblings, what jurors wondered about during the trial...
d) Making a short video on a particular topic (for instance, the role of religion in juror deliberation; the questions "What is it about Texas" or "What is it about Harris County?")

7. The intern will meet with the project director or assistant director regularly.

8. Internship hours must be completed either in the Texas After Violence Project office, 611 South Congress Avenue, Suite 350, OR, with prior approval of the director or assistant director, on assignment with a Texas After Violence Project colleague. Examples of work conducted out of the office include:
- recording an interview
- reviewing closed case files at the Texas State Archives and/or Court of Criminal Appeals file room
- observing a trial
- attending or presenting at a conference

9. Interns will record their hours at the project on the day they work, and a project coordinator, the assistant director or director will sign. The interns will not ask for TAVP members to sign for hours for work done out of the office except for assignments approved in advance.

10. An intern should not ever spend any of her or his own money for project needs; she or he should not offer to do so; no Texas After Violence Project team member will borrow or loan any of his or her money to anyone else in the office or in connection with work.

11. The intern should immediately let the project director or assistant director know about any possible conflict, misunderstanding, disagreement or ambiguity in the instructions s/he is receiving from a faculty member and the Texas After Violence Project, so that the problem may be cleared as soon as possible. The intern should NOT wait until late in the semester to identify any such conflict.

12. All interns must agree to abide by the Texas After Violence Project Code of Conduct.

We do not have any paid internships at this time.