New Chicago program provides professional arts experience

Beginning in the summer of 2014, Duke will have a stake in the Midwest’s premier arts metropolis. A new program in Chicago will allow students to take the plunge into the intersection between the arts and entrepreneurship.

For the duration of the six-week program, students will stay at the residence halls of Roosevelt University in downtown Chicago, taking part in an internship in the city as well as two courses taught by Duke faculty.

One course, called the stARTup Project, is a hands-on experience. Members of the program will work in small groups to produce an arts-based event from scratch. The event can involve anything from dance to music to visual art—whatever the students decide. “[Students will] figure out what it is, how to execute it, identify risky questions and test them, pitch the project ideas…They’ll have production meetings and a startup budget. They’ll have to decide what to do with it, and come up with marketing strategies. At the end of the term, they’ll present their work,” said Jody McAuliffe, Duke’s Chair of Theater Studies and Duke in Chicago’s faculty director.

The other course, The Economics of Art, will involve a variety of guest speakers, some of whom are Duke alumni, associated with theater, arts, advertising, writing, communications, production, design and comedy. “The students will be getting a lot of ideas from the guests who come to talk to them. [They will be] learning what skills they can combine with artistic abilities, or love of the arts if they aren’t artists themselves, if they just haven’t yet figured out how to make a career out of it,” said McAuliffe.

Through Duke in Chicago, students will learn “not only from the artists themselves, but from the business people who fund, produce and market the arts,” according to Amanda Kelso, the Executive Director of the Global Education Office for Undergraduates, in an email. “Our other arts programs in New York and London are incredible in their own ways, but Chicago’s appeal will be its entrepreneurial approach to arts management and its emphasis on learning by doing,” wrote Kelso.

Creators of the program hope to attract applicants across the wide spectrum of Duke’s academic disciplines. “We’re extremely flexible in terms of whatever majors students have,” said McAuliffe. Regardless of chosen major, entrepreneurial skills and experience in collaboration are relevant to Duke's emphasis on a liberal arts education for its students.

“Anybody with any passion or interest in any of the arts, whether they do it themselves or love it, would benefit highly,” said McAuliffe.

For more information, visit http://global.duke.edu. The application for the summer program is due Feb. 1.