Hands-On History!
Historic preservation is hands-on history!
Not only do you get to "do" the work of history, you learn from professionals committed to ensuring "our past is your future." Our faculty members come from a variety of academic and professional experiences, providing students with real world insight,
knowledge, and mentorship. What we teach can be applied to sites locally or around the country.
Whether you’re a college student, a working professional, or just a lover of history looking for a challenge, everyone is welcome to participate in our unique program!
Experience Historic Preservation at Bucks:
• Online and on-campus
• Hands-on projects
• Experienced instructors
• Spring, summer, and fall courses
• Open enrollment
• No prerequisites
Hands-On Projects
Every course in Historic Preservation gives you both the "why" and "how" of what we do. Every course we offer introduces you to a theory and asks you to apply it in real-world scenarios, from writing a National Register nomination to an at-home archaeological dig to documenting or remediating damage on a historic building to contributing to the historic preservation component of your local government's comprehensive plan. At Bucks, you learn to both "think" preservation and "do" preservation.
Hands-on projects and volunteer opportunities ensure experiential learning in your hometown and at your own pace.
Internships
To earn the Certificate in Historic Preservation, every student completes HIST203: Internship in Historic Preservation, a professional-level project.
With the help of a faculty mentor, the student invests 200 hours in a project important to them. Learning project management skills, students apply what they have learned to an independent project under the guidance of a site supervisor at a historic site, organization, or agency.
Some recent students projects include:
- Untold Stories: Rediscovering the Mount Moriah Community: An Antebellum African American Neighborhood in New Hope, Pennsylvania
- Archiving the Doreen Faust Papers (Cheltenham Township, Penn.)
- Historic Structure Report: the Danboro Episcopal Methodist Church (Plumstead Twp, Penn.)
- National Register of Historic Places Nomination for [Redacted Archaeological Site] in Sequoia National Forest (Tulare County, Calif.)
- Gather Place: Building Community to Save an A.M.E. Church (Yardley, Penn.)
- Historic Research Survey: Digital Archiving, Preservation, and Database Creation
- Section 106 Review: US220 Project (Mineral County, W.V.)
- Restoration at Jordan Pond Gatehouse (Hancock County, Me.)
- Collections Care Questionnaire: Contextualizing Preservation Best Practices at Historic Sites in Delaware County, Pennsylvania
- Research and Writing on the Mercer Museum's Obscure Collections (Doylestown, Penn.)
- Reconsidering Older Houses and Realtors Changing Perceptions
- Perkasie Borough Historic District Architecture (Perkasie, Penn.)
- Preserving History at Government House (St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada)
- The 19th at 100: Centennial Weekend at the National Museum of Industrial History (Bethlehem, Penn.)
- A Bridge on the Move: The Historic South Perkasie Bridge Perkasie Historical Society (Perkasie, Penn.)