'Jewel of a program' moves to SPEA

Melissa Spencer, a second-year graduate student at IU, has interned with the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, has been on the Board of Directors for the Buselli Wallarb Jazz Orchestra and plans to intern next semester at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in St. Paul, Minn. \nAll this was made possible for her through the Arts Administration program in its new home, the IU School of Public Affairs and Environmental Sciences.\n"SPEA has been great in taking us in," Spencer said. "I think the program will start to grow since we have moved there."\nSpencer has a background in music and strong interest in music business. She said she likes having the program in SPEA because it complements the interdisciplinary aspects of the Arts Administration program. \n"It lets me cater to areas where my strong interest lies, which right now is orchestra management," Spencer said.\nThis summer, IU's dynamic Arts Administration program -- a two-year graduate program -- relocated to the School of Environmental and Public Affairs. Having been housed previously in the Kelley School of Business and School of Music, its multi-disciplinary nature as well as its lack of a director this past year contributed to the move.\nArts Administration Director Charles Bonser said the program has a better chance to thrive in their new environment. \nIt is a small master's degree program that currently takes 10 second-year students, as well as 13 new graduate students. The program's participants sprinkle the campus, involving various people and institutions all over IU and training students in the direction and administration positions of prestigious arts institutions. The nature of these institutions includes theatre, visual art, art history, music managing, development fields, director of arts centers, as well as many others. \n"It's really a jewel of a little program," Bonser said.\nHeidi Gealt, an advisor with the program for the past decade, fully supports this program and its goals, saying the field of arts needs this kind of administration training. \n"IU has a strong representation of the arts considering the Auditorium, the Art Museum, the Mathers Museum, the African American arts program, among others," Gealt said. "IU is ideally suited and one of the best places for a program like this."\nGealt said the program is for students interested in the managing aspect of the arts as opposed to the practice and performance aspect.\nThe program consists of three semesters spent on campus by students. During this time they must complete three, five-week practicums in such places as the IU Art Museum, School of Music, Art Museum and African American Art Museum. The practicums allow students to explore what areas of the arts they are interested in. \nThe students' closing semester is spent off campus in a full-time internship position. These internships can take them to places such as the Abbey Theatre (Dublin, Ireland), Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia Orchestra and the St. Louis Symphony, among several others.