Extending NPS Career Opportunities to Diverse Young Conservationists
This week marks the beginning of SCA NPS Academy 2015, as 20 young conservationists hailing from myriad backgrounds gather in Grand Teton National Park for a 7-day look at what it’s like to work for the National Park Service as protectors and promoters of America’s pricelessly wild publics lands. All 20 will continue the experience this summer when they serve as SCA AmeriCorps interns at national parks from coast to coast.
This week also happens to mark the 5th year of SCA NPS Academy’s existence, which began in pilot form at Grand Teton way, way back in 2011. The program, a now nationwide collaboration between NPS and SCA, provides college students of diverse backgrounds with a clear path to public lands stewardship career opportunities, making it part and parcel to the broader goal of developing a public lands workforce that is as diverse as the people that it strives to serve—all Americans.
2012 NPS Academy alum Millie Jimenez is now the Diversity Outreach and Volunteer Coordinator for Grand Teton National Park.
While the Grand Teton participants will take what they’ve learned back to their respective campuses at week’s end, SCA NPS Academy orientation season continues on with Great Smoky Mountains National Park (TN and NC), Kenai Fjords National Park (Alaska), and the National Parks of New York Harbor (NYC) hosting sessions of 20 students each from March 15th-21st.
America’s parks are for everyone to enjoy. SCA NPS Academy is one way that we’re working to make sure that people of all backgrounds feel welcome to enjoy them.
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