Another avenue for staffing National Parks was quietly closed, alongside February’s mass layoffs within the National Park Service (NPS). Since 2011, the NPS Academy Cohort has offered internships to college students, particularly those from marginalized groups. As a partnership between the NPS and the nonprofit organization American Conservation Experience (ACE), the program aimed to diversify the NPS workforce and acted as a pipeline for young NPS employees with a passion for working outside.
This year would have been the program’s 15th cohort. But in February, in the fallout from the Trump administration’s mandated termination of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, the NPS suspended it.
An announcement on the ACE website for the 2025 cohort says, “THIS POSITION HAS BEEN CLOSED!” and the interest form used to apply for more information about the program now says it is “no longer accepting responses.”
Deja Charles-Tomkins, a former NPS Academy member manager, told SFGate she was reviewing applications for spring when she was notified that the program was ending. Then, she was laid off from her position at ACE. According to her, massive Park Service layoffs left no one to manage the intern program.
“How can we have an internship program if there’s no middle management staff to manage them?” Charles-Tomkins told SFGate. “There were concerns that there wouldn’t be adequate support for the interns this summer.”
According to her LinkedIn profile, Charles-Tomkins now works for a conservation nonprofit. GearJunkie attempted to contact her for this story but did not hear back. Numerous attempts to contact ACE for comment were also unsuccessful.
However, after more than a week of daily follow-up emails, NPS offered this statement about the end of its Academy internship program.
“The National Park Service is currently reviewing the NPS Academy program,” the email to GearJunkie read. “We continue to provide a variety of opportunities for young adults to engage in the management of public lands. These include multiple programs in partnership with non-profit service-oriented groups that will host dozens of paid young adult internships this year in support of park operations.”
National Park Service Academy: 15 Years of Outdoor Internships
According to a 2020 comparison of its workforce against the U.S. population, 78% of NPS employees are white, 18% more than is represented in the population. According to the report, Black, Asian, and Hispanic NPS employees are all underrepresented.
One of the primary goals of the NPS Academy was to change that. Per its own description of the program, it aimed to create a more “inclusive and representative future” for America’s public lands.
Every year since 2011, the NPS Academy has accepted roughly 20 interns between the ages of 20 and 30 for positions throughout NPS. The interns helped answer guests’ questions, gave presentations, checked for permits, worked on trail crews, learned about vegetation management, monitored wildfires, and in some of the smaller national parks, assisted with search and rescue operations.
The program started with a 1-week orientation in Grand Teton National Park. Then, interns embarked on a 12- to 16-week work exchange at different national parks around the country. Interns worked in Acadia, Cabrillo, Grand Teton, Glacier, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, and Yellowstone National Parks.
These internships were paid positions, and NPS provided housing for all participants. The roles also came with a weekly living stipend, offered hands-on experience, ACE and NPS mentorship, and eligibility for the AmeriCorps Education Award (~$1,820).
The NPS Academy helped build connections between young outdoor enthusiasts. It deepened their knowledge about and relationship to NPS, and, according to ACE, it developed a network of future conservation and park leaders by “building ambassadorship, storytelling, and leadership skills.”
Many NPS Academy graduates, like Charles-Tomkins, went on to take positions within the National Parks.
Ending ‘Radical and Wasteful’ DEI Programs
In February, around the time the decision to suspend the NPS Academy was made, thousands of park employees were fired. While some have returned to work in subsequent months, many others took voluntary buyouts or early retirement. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is also aiming to cancel certain essential NPS office leases.
In March, Donald Trump signed an executive order “ending radical and wasteful DEI programs and preferencing throughout the federal government,” according to the White House website.
NPS did not respond when asked if this suspension would be indefinite. GearJunkie will update this article as more information becomes available.
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