I received an email today from the Dean of the College of Performing and Visual Arts at Southern Utah University, Bill Byrnes. He headed up the Theatre Management program at Florida State my last year there. (Though I was five hours away doing an internship that whole year. He has been good about keeping in touch with FSU grads even after he left and has even enlisted our help providing real life information for his students’ projects. I actually lent a hand editing and commenting on the last edition of his Arts Management text.
Anyhow, his end of the year letter letting us know how things were going inspired me to check out the training program at his school. The thing that really caught my eye was the Guide for the Prospective MFA Graduate Student.
The guide answers a lot of the usual questions about assistantships, financial aid and admission deadlines. It discusses why one might want to attend graduate school, what sort of jobs arts administration encompasses and the difference between a M.A. and a M.F.A.
What I really liked was that they were very clear about what types of things they would be looking for on a resume that should accompany the application and they included an appendix that specifically outlined what should appear on the resume.
When I was an undergraduate, I had never held a job for which I had to submit a resume. I can appreciate that even with resources in books and on the internet, trying to put a resume together can be daunting. Many of those resources suggest formats that either aren’t appropriate or superfluous for jobs in the arts.
Likewise, they provide guidelines for the topics letters of recommendation should touch upon. Most importantly, they emphatically enjoin applicants not to procrastinate about asking people to write the letters, (with an implication that they may have to bug the recommenders a few times).
I applaud the program for providing some direction to make it a little easier on the applicants (and the review committee). The process is going to be tough enough for the prospects as it is and there will be plenty of other opportunities to screw things up during the process. As the title of the entry says, by providing this guide the training program at SUU is helping the applicant help them admit him/her.
