Glacier National Park Conservancy, Hispanic Community Outreach Internship, Summer 2023

Every summer, The Bill Lane Center for the American West offers many opportunities for Stanford undergraduates (including graduating seniors and co-terms) to work with organizations throughout the West. Through these internships, students can explore careers in natural history, conservation, land use, museum curation, resource management, energy and more.

All internships are full-time and last ten weeks during the summer. They are fully funded by the Lane Center.

The Lane Center has placed over 200 interns in positions across the West since 2005. As such, we have developed strong relationships with host organizations and work hard to ensure interns have successful and enriching experiences.

For more information about our internship program, please visit our FAQs page, or email Education Manager Corinne Thomas.

Read more about past interns' experiences here.

Stipend Information:

The Bill Lane Center will provide a base stipend of $7,500 with additional funding for student financial aid and cost of living adjustments for the internship location, if applicable.

Description of the Agency and an Internship Overview:

The mission of the Glacier National Park Conservancy is to preserve and protect Glacier Park for future generations. It is located in Columbia Falls, Montana.

The Glacier National Park Conservancy is the official non-profit fundraising partner of Glacier National Park. The Conservancy works to preserve and protect Glacier National Park for future generations. It supports park projects, programs, and services in four areas:

• Preserve Glacier - to preserve the park experience including rehabilitation of trails, historic structures, and cultural resources

• Discover Glacier - to provide curriculum-based education programs for students and improve Internet learning opportunities

• Research Glacier - to research the park ecosystem and its components and enable wildlife and visitors to co-exist safely

• Celebrate Glacier - to spotlight Glacier's cultural heritage and unsurpassed beauty

Additionally, the Conservancy operates non-profit bookstores to support Glacier National Park interpretation and education activities and programs. It also serves as an official park partner specializing in educational and interpretive materials.

Wallace Stegner famously called our National Parks "...the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst." While Stegner's aspirational view is appreciated, it seems that the challenge of "reflecting us at our best" would include creating content that includes the more than 40 million people in this country who speak Spanish at home as a first language. With the help of past Lane Center interns, the Conservancy made an important first step to create and publish one of the first websites of a National Park "Friends" group into Spanish through the voice of a native Spanish speaker. Now it's time to take the next step, and you can be the one to do just that.

The Hispanic Community Outreach Intern will build upon the work of the Spanish Translation Intern (also through the Lane Center) in expanding Spanish translation of the Glacier National Park Conservancy's website and social media platforms and create a specific outreach program to engage the Hispanic community in learning about Glacier Park and the work of the Conservancy.

Unfortunately, since the information provide in Spanish on the website has aged and is no longer always applicable, the Conservancy recently made the decision to remove the button allowing viewers to choose Spanish as their language of choice for accessing the information about Glacier Park and the Glacier Conservancy.

As a result, this summer's intern will be have the exciting responsible of bringing glacier.org in Spanish back live. This will involve analysis of current content and translation of updated content to Spanish, particularly in the initial phases of the internship. In addition, the intern will work with the Conservancy's team to develop a digital outreach plan targeted to the Hispanic community. This will include learning about and creating Facebook and Google campaigns, connecting with existing platforms (like latinooutdoors.com) and researching new partnership opportunities, and developing an email strategy for the Conservancy to implement to develop an authentic, lasting, and meaningful relationship with growing and diverse group of people interested in  national parks generally, and Glacier Park specifically.

Internship Work Environment:

The intern will be part of a dynamic team. Under the direction of the Executive Director, the intern will work closely with the Communications Lead, the Creative Lead, the Director of Park Stores, the Special Assistant and others to integrate Spanish language into the Glacier Conservancy lexicon. Most of the work is indoor/office work, but we encourage all co-workers to experience park projects we support with in-person interaction in the park.

This is an in-person internship and housing will be provided. The Glacier Conservancy has workforce housing for seasonal employees and a space will be made available for the Bill Lane Center intern. The cost for housing is $75 per week and it is in a communal setting in Hungry Horse, Montana. The Glacier Conservancy owns a five-bedroom house that hosts roughly 10 people (two per room) for the summer season. The other occupants are seasonal employees who staff the Park Stores that the Conservancy runs for the benefit of the park inside the visitor centers in the park.

Please note: It is helpful for the intern to have a car. 

Location: Columbia Falls, Montana.