A Guide to Becoming an Historic Preservation Professional: the Work You Can Do, What Employers Want, and Educational Considerations
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A Guide to Becoming an Historic Preservation Professional: The Work You Can Do, What Employers Want, and Educational Considerations Jeremy C. Wells, Ph.D. With additional assistance from: Assistant Professor Priya Chhaya School of Architecture, Planning and Associate Director of Publications and Programs, Preservation, University of Maryland, College Park Preservation Resources, National Trust for Historic [email protected] Preservation o you dream of someday getting paid for your passionate interest in historic buildings and places? Do you wonder what a career in historic preservation might look like? If this describes you, D continue reading, because in this guide, I’ll describe how to get from where you are now, with little or no education or experience in the field, to gainful employment. This guide, while informed from my own practice experience, is largely based on empirical evidence from various areas of practice within historic preservation and current literature that explores the future of the field. To my knowledge, it is the first and only such guide to thoroughly reference the kinds of skills historic preservation employers con- sistently seek and relate these skills to the field’s future. I’ve worked in all of the major ar- eas of practice that I describe in this guide and, since 2011, have been teaching in an historic preservation program of some kind; I am currently Figure 1. Mission San Xavier del Bac in Arizona, built between an Assistant Professor in the Historic 1783-1797, undergoing conservation work. While high style buildings from many cultural groups have always been a focus Preservation Program at the Univer- of preservation practice, today there is an increased interest in sity of Maryland, where I specialize in the everyday built heritage of non-dominant cultural groups preservation planning. I am also the whose heritage has been substantially underrepresented. co-editor (with Barry Stiefel) of Preser- (Photo by author.) vation Education: Sharing Best Practices and Finding Common Ground (University Press of New Eng- land, 2014) and Human-Centered Built Environment Heritage Preservation (Routledge, 2019). Through my professional experience and research, I will attempt to provide a rigorous explanation of the way in which the field is divided into specific sectors of practice, reveal the first census of the skills that historic preservation employers seek, and provide an overview of educational options that you should consider based on your specific interests. — A Guide to Becoming an Historic Preservation Professional — There are two things I need to explain before I begin. First, the phrase, “historic preservation”, is more closely associated with rules, laws, and regulations and a politi- cal movement than with a specific career path. This observation might seem odd, but while there are plenty of historic preservation laws, there are no job titles with the phrase “historic preservation- ist” in them. Calling oneself an “historic preservationist” can de- scribe an advocation as well as a sense of mind, a calling, and an Figure 2. Historic preservation is about more than just build- ethical prerogative, but it won’t be ings. Its practitioners also focus on the full richness of cultural diversity in all kinds of settings in the built environment and in your job title. It’s therefore im- cultural landscapes. (Courtesy of Eric Garcetti under a CC 2.0 portant to be clear that the way in license.) which I use “historic preservation” is quite specific in this article with a focus on career paths that involve, in a significant way, the iden- tification, treatment, interpretation, and/or protection of older buildings, places, structures, and/or landscapes in the United States. My focus is therefore on old things that are very difficult or pretty near impossible to move. (Ever try moving a cultural landscape?) Technically, what I’m addressing is the conservation of immovable, tangible heritage, but that’s quite a mouthful, so I’ll stick with historic preservation for the sake of simplicity. Second, I need to be clear that this document is heavily influenced by the current state of the field of historic preservation, which is to say that it is primarily driven by regulatory compliance and influ- enced by past practices that focused on the buildings and history of rich, white men to the exclusion of women and racial, cultural, and sexual/gender minorities. Today, we recognize that historic preser- vation needs to be broader and more inclusive of all people, regardless of sex/gender, sexual orientation, race, or ethnicity. The stories of the oppressed and marginalized need to be uncovered, recognized, and told to balance past injustices. To give you a sense of the magnitude of this issue, of the 95,214 properties currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places (maintained by the National Park Service), which is the nation’s official instrument to recognize the historical significance of build- ings, sites, landscapes, and archaeological resources: • 2.00% are related to African American history; • 0.42% are related to women’s history; • 0.14% are related to Latino heritage; • 0.10% are related to “Asian” history; • 0.03% are related to LGBTQ history. We need new people to enter the field who can broaden its diversity and focus on the historical and contemporary contributions of all Americans to our history and the vibrancy of our built environment and cultural landscapes. Much of this work will need to incorporate new methods to understand in- tangible heritage and its relationship to the built environment. While understanding the physical 2 — A Guide to Becoming an Historic Preservation Professional — characteristics of buildings and places will remain a core feature of historic preservation, future practi- tioners will increasingly need to understand and apply perspectives from the social sciences (e.g., an- thropology, sociology, psychology, urban and regional planning). Historic preservation is one of the only fields where you can combine the natural sciences with the humanities all within the context of making the world a better place for people. The brightness of our field’s future is therefore very much dependent on increasing diversity and inclusion in all forms in all contexts. What kind of work do people do in historic preservation? There has never been an attempt, as far as I am aware, to understand and analyze the historic preservation field from the perspective of employment numbers or activity. The federal government does not track data on historic preservation careers or employment and only recently does any data exist on the number of historic preservation majors in colleges and universities. Career advice in his- toric preservation is, therefore, largely anecdotal and not particularly reliable in many circumstances. In order to address this lack of knowledge, from April of 2016 to May of 2017, I performed a census (as opposed to a survey) of all “historic preservation” jobs that meet the definition I described, above, and were posted to the indeed.com job aggregator.1 For each job that I found, I performed a content analysis in order to understand, from the employer’s perspective, the specific skills, knowledge and abilities required. This process also helped me understand the field as a whole and major areas of practice, which I will refer to as sectors. Figure 3 shows the major sectors in historic preservation, which are, in order of most to least prominence: regulatory compliance, architecture and construction, historic sites and museums, preservation advocacy, and downtown revitalization. Now, let’s analyze the kind of work that each sector performs. Figure 3. Percent dis- tribution of historic preservation job post- ings in the US de- 4% rived from a June 1, 6% Regulatory compliance 2016 to May 31, 9% 2017 census from Architecture and indeed.com. construction 11% Historic sites/museums 70% Preservation advocacy Downtown revitalization 1 For more specific details on this study, see J.C. Wells, “Challenging the Assumption of a Direct Relationship between the Fields of Historic Preservation and Architecture in the United States,” Frontiers of Architectural Research, vol. 7, no. 4, 2018. See www.sciencedirect.com/journal/frontiers-of-architectural-research 3 — A Guide to Becoming an Historic Preservation Professional — Regulatory compliance The majority of work in this area is performed by what are known as cultural resource management (CRM) companies and, secondarily, by local, state, and federal government entities. True to its de- scription, nearly all activities done by employees in this area are driven by specific regulations, which are: • 36 CFR Part 800 (the implementing rule of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act [NHPA]); • 40 CFR Parts 1500 to 1508 (the implementing rule of the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA]); • state historic preservation statutes (varies, but often mirrors the NHPA); • local historic preservation ordinances (varies, but typically design review of listed historic buildings and places by an historic preservation commission). Each federal agency is required to have an “historic preservation officer” who is ultimately responsi- ble for the agency’s compliance with Section 106. Similarly, in or- der to receive certain kinds of fed- eral funding, the federal govern- ment requires each state (and de- pendencies of the United States) to have a “state historic preservation officer” (SHPO) who coordinates Section 106 work between