The NPS Southeast Archeological Center's Public Interpretation Initiative was developed in response to the growing public interest in archeology, and out of the realization within the professional community that archeologists can no longer afford to be detached from the mechanisms and programs that attempt to communicate archeological information to the lay public. The Initiative helps to accomplish the goals set by the Secretary of Interior's statement for a national strategy in Federal archeology that emphasizes public education and participation as well as interagency information exchange. The basic premise of the Initiative is that many past failures in the realm of public interpretation of archeological and historic sites have resulted from intrinsic differences in perspective between archeologists and professional interpreters and educators. Public archeologists, invariably thrust into arenas of interaction and communication with teachers, museum educators, and park interpreters, have had to reevaluate their relationships with these front line communicators.

Course of Study

A recent project of the Initiative is the coordination, in association with the NPS Mather Training Center, of the National Park Service's Archeology-Interpretation Shared Competency Course of Study. The Course of Study is designed to meet newly revised competency-based standards and strategies for NPS-sponsored training courses. The goals of this effort are to strengthen the relationship between archeology and public interpretation and ultimately to improve how archeology is presented to the public. Archeologists, interpreters, and educators are collaborating in developing a course of study curriculum that will be used by NPS in training employees in the three career fields. Employees will be trained together in the skills and abilities (shared competencies) needed to carry out a successful interpretation program. Among the main precepts of the curriculum are the needs for interdisciplinary communication and for sensitive interpretation to multicultural audiences. 

The course of study is entitled "Effective Interpretation of Archeogical Resources: The Archeology-Interpretation Shared Competency Course of Study." A detailed outline of the training module, Module 440, is posted on the NPS Interpretive Development web site as well as the SEAC Web site. The Archeology-Interpretation Shared Competency Course of Study Module was developed by an interdisciplinary team of interpreters and archeologists in association with the NPS Albright Training Center and Mather Training Center.  Two recent outcomes of the course of study training module have been the development of the "Archeology for Interpreters" and "Interpretation for Archeologists" distance learning knowledge guides. These and other background resources are used in a Service-wide interdisciplinary 40-hour training course.