The National Park Service and Temple have announced the creation of ProRanger Philadelphia, a unique new program that will offer 12 to 20 Temple freshmen every year with the rarest of commodities in a tight job market: paid summer internships, professional training and, upon graduation, a guaranteed full-time job.

It gets better. The interns will work in the nation's scenic and historic national parks, and the jobs that are waiting for them at the other end are prestigious, well-paying, career-tenure positions serving the nation as park rangers.

Temple is the only institution in the nation chosen by the Park Service to host the four-year program.

"We chose Temple because of its national reputation in the criminal justice arena, its rich diversity of students and its location," said Stephen Clark, the National Park Service's acting northeast regional chief ranger. "Our goal is to recruit and retain bright, passionate individuals who care about the parks and protecting America's treasures. There's no better place to find and train people like that than Temple."

           

Thirteen Temple students selected to be the first ProRanger Philadelphia trainees were fingerprinted and measured for uniforms by National Park Service officials at a ceremony on Main Campus in March. The first class of trainees includes underclassmen and upperclassmen (future cohorts will begin as freshmen) representing six different majors ranging from criminal justice to horticulture.

"I really want to discover the history of our country and explore law enforcement," said Timothy Oh, a junior criminal justice major. "I can't wait to apply my classroom education and see how it works in the real world."

In the coming weeks, the students will find out where they will be placed as interns. Most will be placed in iconic parks in the eastern United States, including Colonial National Historical Park (Virginia), Prince William Forest Park (Virginia), Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine (Maryland), Antietam National Battlefield (Maryland), Gettysburg National Military Park (Pennsylvania), as well as parks in the District of Columbia and Greater Philadelphia, such as Valley Forge and Independence national historical parks. As the program continues, the National Park Service hopes to expand the range of parks where students are placed from Maine to the Deep South.

           

The ProRanger Philadelphia program will provide selected students with a paid summer internship working as a seasonal employee in a national park between their freshman and sophomore years and another paid summer internship in a national park between their sophomore and junior year. Trainees will also take a special one-credit seminar course co-designed by the National Park Service and Temple focusing on the mission and functions of the National Park Service, the role of law enforcement in the parks and the reflective park experiences of the cohort. Between trainees' junior and senior years, the National Park Service will pay for the students to participate in the Temple Criminal Justice Department's 10-week Seasonal Law Enforcement Training Program, which includes rigorous firearms training.

"In today’s job market, with employers cutting back on recruiting and training, ProRanger Philadelphia is highly unusual," said Rachel Brown, director of Temple's Career Center. "We're grateful to be able to give our students this tremendous opportunity."

The program is open to all majors. To participate, students must meet academic standing, citizenship, age and other requirements. For more information, including requirements and application materials, visit the National Park Service ProRanger Philadelphia Program page on the Career Center web site..