Students in humanities fields will soon have new internship opportunities through the Wichita Humanities Internships Reward Employers (HIRES) program.
The program was launched by Wichita State in spring 2026 with a $2.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to create more paid internship opportunities for students pursuing a path in the humanities.
“In the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, this is going to include cultural anthropology, communication studies, English language and literature, history, linguistics, modern and classical languages and literature, philosophy, religion, sociology, and the qualitative part of sociology,” said Lisa Parcell, the director of the Elliott School of Communication. “And in fine arts, it would include students that are studying art history, musicology, and theater.”
The Mellon Foundation is a private foundation that focuses on providing grants for humanities and the arts.
This allows for schools around the nation to adopt a similar program to the one coming at WSU in various ways, ranging from amount to lifespan. WSU has the funds for $2.5 million to fund this program for about 5 years.
“They (the Mellon Foundation) are interested in helping institutions of higher education start these programs in a sustainable manner,” Sarah Beth Estes, dean of Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said.
The program includes an internship course credit. The students will also form a cohort to share information about their experience.
“(They) will be able to reflect on what they are learning in their internship and work together to understand all of the different ways that humanities majors can make a difference out there in the working world,” Parcell said. “Personally, they get a job where they will get real hands-on applied experience, and it will be paid.”
Estes said the internship opportunities are provided by businesses and organizations in the Wichita Metro area.
“We have had conversations with employers about how (the HIREs program) is going to look like,” Estes said. “We have talked with the symphony, Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum… in some medical humanities that we are still fleshing out. Probably also in Al-Sevu, which is run by Dr. Rachel Shostak out of Modern and Classical Literature and Languages.”
Parcell said a website and email for the program will be available closer to its launch.
Parcell said the program is meant to help humanities students learn about the careers available to them.
“This is for you. This is designed specifically for humanities majors,” Parcell said. “So if you’ve ever wondered how you’re going to find a job in the humanities field, this is an excellent start.”
“You can really see that commitment from WSU and the fact that they have committed to matching grants and to committing resources of our foundation to securing funding for internships in the humanities,” Estes said. “There are a lot of partners in this grant, like Shocker Career Accelerator, which is a big partner, as well as others, obviously, the (Wichita State) Foundation. So it’s really been a university-wide effort.”
