The Arts Focus Research Seminar meets for three hours weekly. Each student is expected to keep a daily journal regarding events in her/his workplace as well as the workplace environment itself. The purpose is to provide a basis in mind and discussion for an ongoing process of evaluation. This evaluation has at its center a multi-faceted examination of the relationship between each host institution, its avowed mission and what it actually does: how it sees itself, and how it is seen by others.
The seminar context allows for several significant outcomes: an evolving self-awareness about the nature of the Internship experience, the sharing of such evaluative processes between Interns (and therefore across different institutional landscapes), and the ?socialization? of the members of the Arts Focus Seminar itself, stimulating a higher level of collaborative potential and fostering group initiatives.
The Seminar goal is to produce a collection of complementary essays that are as distinctive as possible while highlighting shared themes, helping to insure that participants continue to consider and to implement in their lives the experiences they have had in Washington: How do the Arts function in American institutions and society? What can be done to improve this always reformulating interface?
See samples of student work from the Winter 2011 and Spring 2012 Arts Focus quarters.