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At Guangdong Teachers College of Foreign Language and Arts

With the rapid development of society, the contemporary society demands of graduating college students the request to be more and more successful. For the soon-to-be college graduates, in order to better adapt to the increasingly rigorous employment situation and to integrate into society as quickly as possible after graduation, many of them participated in an internship program before graduating. The internship programs can help them learn more about society while also laying down a solid foundation when they get into the real world. As the saying goes, the opportunities are waiting for those well-prepared.

Internships as opportunities for students to participate in communities of practice of professional cultures, have a huge effect on what and how the student learns (Sides & Mrvica, 2007). Moreover, many employers would like to hire who have direct experience in the position they are looking for to fill. Related work experience is very important for many kind of works. That is the reason why internships play a significant role in the future career of soon-to-be college graduates.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of my proposed program is to develop an internship with an existing Arts Administration Program at Guangdong Teachers College of Foreign Language and Arts (GTCFLA) in Guangdong, China. Internships, can lead to a job opportunity whether paid or unpaid, and serve as valuable steppingstones that help young people land future jobs. The internship program will help students gain considerable knowledge and experience in a corporate environment and make sure their area of study is a good choice. More importantly, it is a chance to apply the knowledge and skills learned at school in the real world.

Audience

The audiences of my proposed program will be the administrators of Arts Administration Program at GTCFLA and the local arts organizations which can provide art-related internships to students. Because of GTCFLA is located in Guangdong and the arts administration involved in many kinds of arts organization, the local arts organizations will be:

1. Guangzhou Opera House: the biggest performing center in Guangdong.

2. 53 Art Museum: the first non-profit private contemporary art museum in Guangdong.

3. YouYou Contemporary Art Centre: one of the most popular art spaces for contemporary art in Guangdong.

4. Shenzhen Grand Theater: one of the eight famous cultural facilities in Shenzhen City, Guangdong.

5. Guangdong Times Museum: a non-profit arts institution in Guangdong.

Need for the Program

With arts administration’s burgeoning development, the people who engaged in this field must have some relevant experience so that they are able to handle arts administration work. That’s why work experience became more and more important today as a part of Arts Administration Programs. Students majoring in Arts Administration at GTCFLA are having difficulty finding jobs related to arts administration after they graduate because of lack of experience; they may eventually find another job for financial reasons, rather than following their own interest—Arts Administration. “With the need for training and specific skill sets identified as crucial to the field of arts administration, three possible training approaches were identified: formal higher education programs, short-term professional development seminars, and other methods such as internships and on-the-job training” (Dewey & Rich, 2003, p. 24).

Although GTCFLA already has an Arts Administration Program, there is a lack of actual internships for students to have the chance to use knowledge from classes in the real work environment. What they gain from the program relates entirely to theory rather than practice. However, what Arts Administration Programs really need is not only theories but also real practice in the real world. In order to change this situation, developing an internship for existing programs is necessary. Not only will the students benefit from it, but also GTCFLA and the employers. Students, employers, and schools all are beneficiaries of the internship program (Coco, 2000). For example, the students will have an opportunity to use classroom concepts to practical application; the employers will gain competent assistance with low spending; GTCFLA offers this kind of program with an internship shows a good perspective, it will attract more students to GTCFLA to be a part of Arts Administration Program.

Definition of Terms

Internship. An internship is a short-term undertaking which emphasizes on the on job apprentice as opposed to employment and it can be compensated or not. If for instance one wants to pursue a publishing career, then they have to undergo a practicum before they acquire skills and expertise for the real job. “Internships are supervised introductory career opportunities provided in partnership between academic institutions and professional organizations” (Sides & Mrvica, 2007, p. 1).

Arts Administration. Art administration or arts management is a field concerned with business operations that take place around arts organizations. Arts administrators facilitate the daily operations of the organization as it pushes to accomplish its missions. The duty scope of the art administrator includes management of the human resource, budgetary allocation management, maintenance of public relations, seeking funds, program and project development and evaluation as well as chairing board meetings to create a board rapport.

Brief Overview of the Proposed Program

My proposed program is aims to provide an internship for students majoring in Arts Administration at GTCFLA, which will help them gain practical experience in order to better meet the change and developments of social environment as soon as possible, and learn to how to prepare for the future career. Content in the next the relevant literature and an existing internship program will be reviewed. Theoretical frameworks included in my proposed program chiefly is academic curriculum; humanistic curriculum will be included as a minor part. I was made aware the related existing internship program by my interviewee—Professor Li, the details will be discussed in the corresponding section.

I will further discuss the description of my proposed internship program with three parts: setting, participants and procedures. Through internship experience, the students majoring in Arts Administration at GTCFLA will have more opportunities to get a relevant job after their graduation. Without doubt, there are some limitations in my program and there is still room for improvement which I will discuss these in the last section.

Background and Review of Literature

In recent study, arts administrators’ job positions have involved in “a wider range of not-for-profit, for-profit and public organizations in music, theatre, opera, dance, museum, literature, arts/humanities, councils, presenting organizations, service organizations, theme parks, broadcast media, the film industry and the recording industry” (Dewey, 2005, p. 8). For those who would like to work in these places, experience is required in most cases. But how can college graduates gain these valuable experiences? Having an internship during the school year would significantly help the students better prepare themselves for their future career.

Internships are a crucial part of the Arts Administration Program (Cuyler & Hodges, 2015). Internships can provide value learning experience to students’ cognitive learning and help the students better prepare for their future career. On the other hand, since arts administration require professional skills, arts administrators have a better chance for future employment if they have practical experiences (Dewey, 2005). With the need of actual practice for arts administration, internships would be a good choice for students directly transfer the classroom theory into real work environments (Dewey & Rich, 2003).

Successful internship depended heavily on recognizing that there are certain administrative responsibilities sites would do well to meet (Sides & Mrvica, 2007). Establishing a secure foundation for the internship results in avoiding unnecessary confusion and mistakes that any new interns might be prone to make. What’s more, meeting those responsibilities fosters the creation of an environment in which learning and professional growth are foremost, and the environment are expected to diminish as intern progress when become fully functional professionals in the discipline.

For the reason that experience is required for many job positions, students should understand that in order to get a good job, they will need experience (D'Amico, 2006). An internship can provide knowledge and references to them for better graduation. A successful internship is benefit for students, school, and employers.

Theoretical Framework

Academic curriculum. The academic curriculum is a reflection of wider cultural trends, which transfer into another formation of commercialization of education (McNeil, 2009). Undoubtedly, it gives priority to the economic benefits, regarding knowledge as commodity in order to exchange the following item: individuals can get the high-paid job after graduation; schools as institutions offers knowledge to bring grants, institutional grading, inventions, tuitions

and provide for-profits corporations; research yields end results for expanded money on behalf of health and economic aggressiveness and security that would be paid by the government. In the academic curriculum, this trend acts as knowledge for consumption. Students and parents frequently see that the school curriculum as there to meet their auxiliary needs and not used for improving the life of the local or the society as a whole or even the interest to understand the world.

Given that this trend in academic curriculum represents a kind of instrumentalism— “knowledge for use” (McNeil, 2009, p. 71). When it comes to my proposed internship program, for example, the way academic curriculum knowledge points apply to it is that students can well prepare and absorb substantial knowledge in the internship before entering the job market so that they are able to acquire high-paid position. Also, this internship increases enrollment that students can accumulate more experience in this major compared with the original mode as well as cooperation with arts organizations.

Humanistic curriculum. Humanists conclude that the work of the curriculum is to offer each learner with essentially profitable experiences that provide personal deliverance and development (McNeil, 2009). The aims of humanistic education promote personal growth, comprehensive qualities, uprightness, and independence. They also believe that healthier attitudes toward oneself, peers, and learning are among their anticipations. The model of self-actualization is at the center of the humanistic curriculum. A person who shows this quality is not only calmly cognitive but also developed in artistic and moral ways; that is a person who does good works and has good character. The humanists perceive actualization growth as a fundamental need. Exposed, intensified and instructed by this curriculum is the self of each learners.

How to apply such knowledge into my internship program? Well, this particular internship is designed for the development and freedom of individuals and based on their interests. Due to the various categories divided from arts organizations, students are welcome to choose different kinds of internships based on various fields of interests. Clarifying the specific goals of future job and formulating the schedule for chasing it would be the main benefit for the main stakeholders in this program, which is another kind of expression of humanistic curriculum of spirit.

Programs Related

Arts Administration Internship Program at Shaoguan University. Nowadays, many schools provide internships for students while they are in school year. From my interviewee—Professor Li Shuhong, who is an Associate Professor of Arts Administration and Coordinator of Internships in the School of Music at Shaoguan University, China, I learned that Shaoguan University provide internships for students majoring in Arts Administration. Considering my proposed program will take place in GTCFLA, China, it will greatly beneficial to the development of my proposed internship program if I learn their experiences.

At Shaoguan University, students majoring in Arts Administration will have to complete ten credits of internships in the last semester and there is no other course they need to take during that semester (S. Li, personal communication, November 6, 2015). For each credit hour of internship taken, students must complete 48 clock hours of work. Before taking an internship program, students should complete required arts administration coursework in the previous semesters. It is very important that students have a good understanding of arts administration major before they get into practical work. After internship experiences, students need to submit an internship reflection paper that demonstrates their learning experiences to her to evaluate the quality of their internship.

For the process of internship experiences, Professor Li Shuhong told me that in the first place her duty is to update and main the informational items for students (S. Li, personal communication, November 6, 2015). Because she has always had associations with local arts organizations and set up a good relationship via cooperation, the arts organizations provide internships for students from the university. In order to notify student about internship programs, she posts the internship descriptions via email to students and also puts up posters on the bulletin boards. When students discovered there is a job that suit them, they need to contact Professor Li for more details about the recruitment, paperwork and recommendation so that they can start the internship.

During the internship, Professor Li continuously takes care of the students at each workplace, monitors progress in developing their experiences, offers feedback, and makes sure they are on track to produce a successful internship (S. Li, personal communication, November 6, 2015). If problems occur, Professor Li needs to resolve the issue in time and offer a timely report about the situation to the school and parents. After graduating from the internship, Professor Li sums up the internship to the school and assesses the students’ achievement with employers depending on students’ performance and reflection paper.

For my proposed program, I realized that the internship program at Shaoguan University is structured from beginning to the end and the process Professor Li go through in placing and arranging internships, provides a blueprint about my proposed internship program. There are two aspects of the internship program at Shaoguan University were greatly successful: first, helping students gain actual experience to be able to explore their careers and develop skills that employers require. In this point, it is a valuable contribution to students and school as well as the society. Secondly, with China’s burgeoning economy development, people develop higher needs for the diversity of arts administration. Internship Program can make Arts Administration Program develop into a ripe professional discipline (S. Li, personal communication, November 6, 2015).

My proposed program is different from Shaoguan University in that students majoring in Arts Administration at GTCFLA will begin internship after complete two semesters of required arts administration coursework, it does not necessary to only take internships in the last semester. An internship may occur at one or multiple venues during one or more semesters. The sooner the students get involved in work environment, the more experiences the students gain. Moreover, students can learn different knowledge form different internship placements.

Arts Administration Internship Program at Boston University. Before the students majoring in Arts Administration Program get the degree, they are required to have some direct work experience in arts organization. A minimum of six of the ten required courses must be completed before the student undertakes the actual fieldwork, although the planning phase may begin earlier. The program maintains a formal relationship with a core group of potential host organizations that have been selected for their willingness to work with interns, although it is possible to intern with other organizations as well. Each student is expected to complete a total of 150 hours of work with the host agency, generally within a single semester.

Learning a related program form different cultural background would be beneficial for my proposed internship program. I have found that the placements of the Arts Administration Internship Program at Boston University are very broad and wide which including various arts organizations, such as Addison Gallery of American Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), Harvard University Art Museums, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, etc. Internships take place in various arts filed would provide more opportunities to better meet the students’ specific interests, abilities and aptitudes. This is a very important point for my proposed internship program which I should consider more about how to provide more internship placements to the students.

Description of Program

Internships are a bridge between the theory of the classroom and the real world of practice (Carl, Philipp & Jill, 2014). Internships can help classroom concepts become clear and more practically meaningful to the students, make students easily transfer classroom knowledge into workplace.

Description of Setting

The setting for my proposed program is Guangdong Teachers College of Foreign Language and Arts (GTCFLA) in Guangdong, China. Located in the traditional Wushan university area in Guangzhou, GTCFLA comprises of Wushan Campus and Yanling Campus. GTCFLA offers 38 diploma programs including Arts Administration Program. However, there is no internships for this program. This lack of actual internships experience situation directly lead the students have no chance to use knowledge from classes in the real work environment.

Description of Participants

Participants of the internship program, main stakeholders, aged approximately from 18 to 22 will be majoring in Arts Administration at GTCFLA. The sample of participants in this program is about sixty people that there are thirty students in one class and two classes in total. Although this internship is a must for all participants in this program, it has the standard that students need to complete two semesters of required arts administration coursework as the premise. It is very important that students have an overall understanding of arts administration before they get into practical work. Moreover, raise the awareness to the students about the importance of an internship. An internship is a period of training to continuing students to allow them learn doing practical delivery at workplace because they can rarely learn it from the class (S. Li, personal communication, November 6, 2015).

Description of Procedures

The administrators of Arts Administration Program at GTCFLA. First, the thing I need to do is to communicate with the administrators in order to gain the admission of this internship.

The skills in getting permission by providing the reasons why these students need this internship because they lack of working experience so that they cannot find a job after graduation. Besides, talk to them about the way an internship can benefit the students, the development of the program, try to convince the administrator to realize the importance of an internship so that the Internship Program can be further developed.

The coordinator. After acquiring the permission, finding out a coordinator who possesses sufficient expertise in developing an internship program to help building a bridge between the internship program and students will be the second step. Then coordinator should find out which arts organization can provide internship to students and based on the students’ interested field to assign their internship placement, which concludes Guangzhou Opera House, 53 Art Museum, YouYou Contemporary Art Centre, Shenzhen Grand Theater and Guangdong Times Museum. The coordinator should set up a good relationship with more local arts organizations which can provide various arts administration internships for students.

Basic information. The vital standards of joining internship cannot be forgotten that students need to complete two semesters of required arts administration coursework as the premise. Then, Students should submit the registration letter to one of selected organization through the coordinator. Each student is expected to complete a total of 160 hours of work with the arts organization. The credit of the internship is about 9.

Observation. When students arrived at the specific organization position, instead of placing themselves into the jobs, the initial task is to follow regular pattern of work. Only in this way can they gain overall view of whole operation. It may take about one week. There are three on-site supervisors in each organization, assisting and guiding them the basic knowledge and requests in it. Then students need to write one-page paper about reflection of the one-week observation to the supervisors. Therefore, based on the reflection of the observation, on-site supervisors can determine the content of the internship.

During the internships. Students should follow work schedule provided by the on-site supervisors, working hard and applying their knowledge learned in classrooms to their internship. Besides, students should submit the reflection at the regular interval to supervisors as the part of grading. During the internship, the supervisors should continuously take care of the students at each workplace, monitors progress by coordinators and supervisors in developing their experience, offers critical feedbacks, and make sure they are on track to produce a successful internship (Rhoads & Weber, 2011). Not only do students gain internship knowledge but also the internship experience. Then, the letter from supervisors acknowledging the work that students did during the internship should be transmitted to coordinators. Finally, they should submit the overall paper to coordinators to evaluate them whether they really learn the knowledge or not in this internship, which include summary of the internship, a discussion of most valuable learning experience, best practices or theories from content used during the internship, any surprise students encountered and how students dealt with them, comparative analysis of the current internship and previous internships.

Evaluation. While during the internship, it is supervisors’ responsibility to evaluate the reflection papers as students’ ordinary achievement (60%) and daily performance (10%). The overall summary paper will account for 30% in the overall final grading to form the final overall score in students’ internship by the coordinators who will input the final score into the system of scoring in school.

Review. The school will hold a summarization convention for all students. The students need to demonstrate their internship experience by presentation. It is a chance for student better review their progress. The students may begin to realize what they want and do not want from work, discover this out in advanced in their job search process rather than non-interns. The students may realize what is their specific interest field and go further toward their interest arts work environments.

Conclusion

Summary

The proposed internship program provides opportunities for students majoring in Arts Administration Program at GTCFLA. GTCFLA has an Arts Administration Program, but there is a lack of actual internships for students to have the chance to use knowledge from classes in the real work environment. In this situation, what they gain from the program relates entirely to theory rather than practice. Considering Arts Administration Programs really need is not only theories but also real practice in the real world, an internship is required for the students if they want to get a good job after graduation.

The internship will begin after students complete two semesters of required arts administration coursework. They can choose their interest arts field to do the internship by submit the registration letter to the coordinator. During the internship, the supervisors should continuously take care of the students at each workplace, monitors progress by coordinators and supervisors in developing their experience, offers critical feedbacks, and make sure they are on track to produce a successful internship. After internship, students should submit the overall paper to coordinators to evaluate them. At last, a summarization convention will be hold by school which provide a valuable opportunity to student better review their progress in the internship.

Limitation

Nevertheless, there are limitations of my proposed internship program. First, students of the program are new of this work area. The organization may not give some meaningful works to students. Causing the students can not gain a wealth of experience from internship. Second, due to the limited internships placement, students may not be assigned to the position what they interested.

Suggestions for Future Programs

If the above limitations occur, the students should actively demonstrate their abilities to the organization during the internship period. Students should prove themselves they are able to do work so that they can gain more meaningful work experience. For the limited internships placement, the coordinator should build relationship with more arts organizations which can provide internships for students. Besides, the students can go to look for an internship by themselves rather than waiting school’s arrangement.

References

Carl, P. M. J., Philipp, A. S., & Jill, M. (2014). Building successful internships: Lessons from the research for interns, schools, and employers. Career Development International, 19(1), 123 142. doi: 10.1108/CDI-03-2013-0025

Coco, M. (2000). Internships: A try before you buy arrangement. SAM Advanced Management Journal, 65, 41-43. Retrieved from http://bi.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/essentials/article/GALE%7CA62205446?u=tall85 61

Cuyler, A. C., & Hodges, A. R. (2015). From the student side of the ivory tower: An empirical study of student expectations of internships in arts and cultural management. International Journal of Arts Management, 17(3), 68-79. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/205827359?accountid=4840

D'Amico, G., S. (2006). How to develop an internship program. Printing News, 156(25), 6. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/235892509?accountid=4840

Dewey, P. (2005). Systemic capacity building in cultural administration. International Journal of Arts Management, 8(1), 8-20. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/205808802?accountid=4840

Dewey, P., & Rich, J. D. (2003). Developing arts management skills in transitional democracies. International Journal of Arts Management, 5(2), 15-28. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/205810575?accountid=4840

McNeil, J. D. (2009). Contemporary curriculum in thought and action (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Press.

Rhoads, K., Radu, I., & Weber, K. (2011). The teacher internship experiences of prospective high school mathematics teachers. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 9(4), 999-1022. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/881453125?accountid=4840