North Carolina

The University offers an MA in History with a concentration in Museum Studies or Historic Preservation; or, an MS in Interior Architecture with a concentration in Historic Preservation or Museum Studies. In addition, the Department of Interior Architecture administers a Certificate in Historic Preservation, which introduces students to current issues and practices in the field by having them take three core Historic Preservation courses (Historic Preservation: Principles and Practice; History of American Landscapes and Architecture; and Preservation Planning and Law), a for-credit internship, and one elective. The Historic Preservation Certificate is ideal for professionals who already have a job in the field (and are seeking further training) or people who already have a Master's and want to gain additional skills.

Master of Arts in History:
The Museum Studies concentration offers a broad-based training in how to build relationships between history and public audiences, focusing on the theory and practice of telling stories through museums, historic sites, and other cultural institutions. It introduces students to the tools that public historians use; examines contemporary models for how best to reach audiences in ways that make history meaningful; and offers concrete experience in the development of public projects, collaboration, and leadership. Students engage in re-thinking how the professional practices of collecting, preserving, and interpreting the past are changing in the 21st century.

The Historic Preservation concentration trains students to see the past in the tangible world around us. Students focus on the theory and practice involved in “reading” the built environment, developing skills in researching the stories these sites tell, and making informed decisions about the appropriate treatment of historic buildings and neighborhoods. Students gain tools that help them inject historic preservation into contemporary discussions about urban planning, economic development, and environmental impact.

Master of Science in Interior Architecture:
The MS in Interior Architecture program is a post-professional degree with opportunities for concentrations in historic preservation, museum studies, interior product design. It approaches Historic Preservation from the designer's perspective offers opportunities to identify, document, evaluate, restore, rehabilitate, and adapt the historic built environment. As preservationists work with historic buildings, neighborhoods, urban downtowns, and rural districts, they directly impact the quality of life for local communities as they protect and enhance their sense of place. Career paths include preservation-related design and planning practice, architectural survey fieldwork, architectural conservation, and historic site interpretation or administration.

The MS in Interior Architecture approaches museum studies from the designer's perspective offers special opportunities to tell stories visually and graphically through designing exhibits or interpreting historic interiors. Students learn how to present the past in meaningful ways to the larger community. Career options include working at a museum, historic site, or other public history venue as an exhibit designer, graphic designer, web designer, and historic site interpreter or administrator.

MA in Public History prepares its students to work in a variety of public and applied history settings; archives, museums, libraries and other public history facilities. Public History is viewed as an approach not only to scholarship but to the practice of history and engagement with the world. Public history is the way in which they make history relevant to our communities, states, and nation. They promote the collaborative nature of public history, the importance of relevance over objectivity, and the civic role of the public historian.

The Museum Studies Program offers intense training in museology theories and methodologies, preparing students to work with public audiences in museums, historic sites, and other cultural institutions. The program introduces students to the tools that public historians use: material culture, shared inquiry and authority, weighing relevance against objectivity, and professional ethics. Through the development of public projects, students learn the benefits of collaboration and the responsibilities of leadership.

The Heritage Studies Program provides students with professional skills to work for local, state, national, and international organizations as well as private institutions in developing concepts and strategies for the conservation, rehabilitation and promotion of cultural resources and heritage sites. They will be able to design and implement plans for the protection and development of heritage properties, and create models for sustainable tourism around historic and heritage sites.

Archival studies is offered through a dual degree program with the School of Information and Library Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The dual degree program allows students to pursue an MILS degree in archival management as well as an MA in public history in museum studies, heritage studies, or a tailored curriculum to complement their archival degree. The dual degree program was created in response to today’s marketplace demands that archivists, manuscript curators, and records managers have both historical knowledge and advanced information management skills. The new archival workforce must both be able to appraise and describe historical records, and create World Wide Web sites and preserve electronic documents. ... Students must apply and be admitted to each graduate program separately, identifing their interest in the dual degree prior to admission.

Offers an MA in Public History, which trains students to understand and perform rigorous historical research and analysis in the academic world, and also recognize the public’s interest and curiosity in history.  Public Historians work collaboratively with other professional historians to create a bridge between public and academic history. We design an environment that enables the public to actively experience, view, and interpret history.  Public historians work in fields such as museums, archives, cultural resource management, and historic preservation.