Engaging the Public

Faculty and students in the department of History and Art History share their scholarship with a variety of audiences in person, online, and in a range of media. We collaborate with historical organizations and community groups to collect material, interpret sources and develop exhibitions on-site and online.

Faculty at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media create open educational resources for K–12 history education in digital media and run workshops to provide professional development for teachers.  

Through public lectures and presentations, faculty engage with community groups in Virginia, Washington DC, and Maryland. Recently, podcasts produced by RRCHNM on the history of topics ranging from antisemitism in the US to the Appalachian Trail have reached audiences throughout the US and beyond.

The history faculty trains students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in the craft of public history, teaching them how to make historical research accessible and relevant to popular audiences. Likewise, the department’s art historians offer instruction on how to curate an exhibit. Students specializing in these areas benefit from the unique resources of the capital region, interning at museums and historic sites throughout Washington DC and Northern Virginia. 

Every semester our internship programs place students at relevant cultural institutions all around the greater Washington area: all branches of the Smithsonian, Fairfax County Historical Society, Mt. Vernon, Gunston Hall, and beyond. Through these internships, students engage hands-on in historical work alongside professionals practicing in the field. Whether this work is behind the scenes in the archives or public-facing at a museum or interpretive center, our internship program leverages Mason’s unique location within as dense a network of museums and historical sites as exists anywhere in the United States. In this way our students gain valuable experience in the way that historical work is practiced and communicated in settings well beyond the university.