Career Services and the College Art Association

As mentioned in my previous post I spent the majority of last week attending the College Art Association's annual conference. While the presentations and sessions covered a variety of topics I spent a great deal of time attending events held by Career Services. Although the photography related presentations where interesting and insightful, I decided to write about my experience in these workshops and mentoring sessions. I hope you enjoy my take on the CAA conference and next week I promise I'll be back to posting as normal.

A large part of the annual College Art Association (CAA) conference focuses on the quest for full time employment. Artists and art historians attend the conference, and the related Career Services events, with the anticipation of securing a coveted interview or a follow up meeting. At the 2013 conference I spent a great deal of time attending Career Services events. I enrolled in workshops, perused the interview hall, and engaged in a career development mentoring session. As someone who is actively applying for various positions I was excited to speak with professionals, and to gain some insight into this competitive market. During the CAA conference, when not running between paper presentations and poster sessions, I was attending Professional Development Workshops. These workshops, because of their “specialized” nature had an additional fee, which at the time seemed worth the money.

Registration Tables

The first workshop on my list was lead by David M. Sokol, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois. The course, “Job Hunt 101: Essential Steps in Securing a Job in the Arts,” seemed promising enough. The first thirty minutes of the two-hour workshop were devoted to explaining professorial rank and going over depressing statistics concerning the number of job openings in the field. Sokol then gave a few pointers on the application process and reminded us to do our research before an interview. We then transitioned into a question and answer format for the remaining hour and a half. And that was it. Fifty dollars for a course that was a glorified question and answer session. To Sokol’s credit some of the information he presented was helpful. He delved into a nice discussion on interview tips, and also presented us with standards and guidelines for writing a CV (this information is also free on the CAA’s website). As the workshop wrapped up I could not help thinking that the presentation was outdated, and at times irrelevant. Disappointment set in even further when Sokol simply discussed academic jobs and did not explore museums or alternative career paths. The instructor clearly had many years of experience, but failed to explore tools for navigating the online job search, and the role social media has in networking. While some new information was gained, for the most part I felt this workshop was a waste of time and money. 

Luckily, the rest of the conference proved to be fruitful and I was able to spend Thursday moving between sessions. It was refreshing to listen to new scholarship, to observe academic discourse, and to witness innovative sessions such as "CAA THATCamp: What Happened and What's Next," and "Rock the Pedagogical Boat: Open Mic." On Friday morning I attended my second Professional Development Workshop, “The Syllabus: Mapping Out Your Semester.” After Wednesday’s experience, my expectations were needless to say low. The session however, was an informative two hours. The workshop, lead by Steven Bleicher from Coastal Carolina University covered lesson plans, course objectives, assignments, grading, and general classroom policies. Bleicher presented interesting ideas and shared his past teaching experiences. The course prompted me to think about my pedagogical style and to develop goals for my future students to achieve. The instructor also emailed his presentation to all those that attended so we that could revisit the session at our leisure.

Steven Bleicher's workshop, "The Syllabus"

Though the information presented in “The Syllabus” was useful, I was troubled that the course, much like the rest of the Career Services was focused on artists and those with MFA degrees. Where was the focus on art historians? Bleicher’s presentation, which included a section on developing good critiques and safety procedures in the studio was helpful to artists, but was lost on me. I do not blame the instructor, but rather the CAA and Career Services for not providing accurate descriptions of their workshops. During the week of conference, I was shocked by the lack of useable and relevant resources for emerging art historians and museum professionals. I was also surprised that the CAA didn’t have an equal number of workshops targeted to educators focusing on the history of art. After all, the majority of the papers presented at traditional conference sessions are written by professors of art history, critics, curators or other museum professionals. And as was pointed out in Victoria Scott's paper, "The Art History Guild," shouldn’t the CAA be promoting art history, the humanities, and providing resources for those who want to keep the field relevant, alive and vibrant?

While it is clear from several sessions at the conference, the CAA has plenty of new challenges to face. However, I wish to end this post on a positive note and to share a highlight from my Career Services experience. On Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of participating in a mentoring session with James Farmer from Virginia Commonwealth University. Our thirty minute workshop was a welcomed opportunity to meet a professional working in the field. Farmer’s candidness allowed for a comfortable yet honest discussion, and we were able to cover a variety of topics. He briefly examined my CV and asked spoke to me about future plans. He offered advice on how to get published and specifics to look for in doctoral programs. Although this session was short, it was extremely valuable and lent an optimistic tone to the day. It was refreshing to receive real and useable advice from a respected source.

Attendees between sessions

I do not regret participating in the Career Services aspect of the CAA conference but will not register for their courses in the future. In addition to the workshops and the mentoring sessions that I attended, Career Services also offered Roundtable Discussions, Brown Bag Lunches and Mock Interviews. However, due to previous commitments and my desire to also attend a variety of sessions I was not able to take advantage of these opportunities. I am curious to hear what other emerging professionals thought of the offerings and am interested in see what changes (if any) are made for the 2014 conference.