THE UNFAIR ULTIMATUM: UNPAID LABOUR OR NO EXPERIENCE

GLAM Gets Mindful | Melissa Mertsis

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In a call for transparency early last year, a spreadsheet was started by Michelle Millar Fisher and colleagues at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, highlighting the salaries of museum and art workers from around the world. The importance of this conversation was inspired by Kimberly Rose Drew, who only realized she was being underpaid at The Met because of the openness of her colleagues to share information about their compensation. The spreadsheet has now reached over 3000 entries, sharing museum and art workers' salaries from all around the world. This initiative has helped in opening up an extremely important discussion — what is our labour worth?

Courtesy of Melissa Mertsis.

In the arts and culture sector, especially as students, we are all too familiar with the most unfortunate ultimatum — you either are willing to work for free, or you risk not gaining enough experience to eventually get a job. At the University of Toronto, internships are heavily emphasized by the Faculty and alumni as being integral to the success of Museum Studies students. The part that is not as openly advertised is that most internships are unpaid. Although some financial support is offered by the Faculty, students are essentially expected to commit full-time hours to an institution for zero compensation, with the internship being "for credit" considered sufficient payment. Since students are paying for their own tuition, we are essentially paying out of pocket to gain experience so we have even a slight chance of employment after graduation.

Courtesy of Melissa Mertsis.

ARTNews shared an article about how museum workers can "Just Say No" to unpaid interns, including refraining from reposting ads for unpaid internships or donating funds to needs-based internships. For students, "Just Saying No" is not an option. The museum sector is one that is heavily based on experience and networking, and for students, we don't really get this exposure until we get to this stage in our education. Passing up an opportunity to work for a reputable institution, for reputable folks, in a department that you really enjoy, just because it's unpaid would entirely be seen as a mistake.

At this point, some people may still be thinking that an internship is a privilege, and students should be grateful for the experience, whether or not it's paid. Trust us — we are — but we also have other entirely financial things to worry about. For example, the living wage in Toronto as of November 2019 was $22, with an average rent cost of $2103 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. This year, tuition for the Museum Studies program is $12,038.65 with a post-secondary TTC pass ringing in at $128.15 a month, and a single round-trip GO fare charging around $10-12 a trip from most places in the GTA to campus. A student at Western University described her internship as a choice between gaining experience or making rent, painting an entirely negative picture of interning and the working world.

Courtesy of Melissa Mertsis.

If you currently work in a gallery, museum, or other institution, there are a few steps you can take towards promoting fair labour. First, and arguably the easiest, is to pay your interns. If it's not in your institution's budget, take some time to explore grant opportunities like the Summer Experience Program; a small amount of paperwork for you means that your intern can afford rent this month. You can also use this checklist created by the Ontario Nonprofit Network to see how your institution fares in providing decent work, and hopefully recognize that doing the bare minimum is not sufficient anymore. Take some time to review this research report titled "Interrogating Institutional Practices in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion," and pay special attention to the concept that not paying your interns entirely excludes candidates that simply cannot afford to work for free. You can also read this community forum (created by Faculty of Information PhD students!) speaking about how contract positions and unstable work in the museum sector contributes to poor mental health and security.

Courtesy of Melissa Mertsis.

The unfair ultimatum — either work for free or gain absolutely no employable experience — is toxic to student mental health and well-being, and promotes accepting inappropriate compensation for your labour. If we start students in the workforce thinking that their efforts and contributions aren't worth any money, we can only expect unlivable wages and unfair working conditions to continue — and we, the students, think this is no longer acceptable.

SECOND YEAR KNOWLEDGE PART TWO

Museum (Studies) Mondays | Katlyn Wooder

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October has come and gone, it went by so fast. But that is because around week 6 is when school starts to get really busy.

Source.

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Exhibition Class

This month is where you to start planning your exhibit project in earnest.

The most important part of the assignment is to figure out your scope. It’s something I have trouble doing.

As a masters student, I want my exhibit to be amazing. To be frank, sometimes it's hard to know what parts of the project are the most important to prioritize. You need to concentrate on these details to ensure that you're not wasting time. No one, and I mean no one, wants to waste time when you're in graduate school. Eventually your friends and family will storm the gates, and demand attention.

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If you can narrow down your scope at the beginning, it will save time and effort, and help you succeed at 'The Pitch'.

The Pitch is where your group gives a three minute presentation on your exhibit project, and a panel of professionals will decide if you receive some of the $10 000 class budget. You are supposed to cover what you are doing (the big idea), how you are doing it (such as the design, the budget and schedule), and what you need to succeed.

It’s not the easiest thing to do, but it's good practice for later in life when you have to convince your superiors of your projects' worth.

Source

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Museum Planning and Management: Projects and Fundraising

There were two distinct parts of class this month. The first part was guest lectures, and the second part was the Charter Project.

Our class had the pleasure of having a guest lecturer Katherine Molineux, Principal Consultant, Lord Cultural Resources. She shared with us her experience of working as a project manager on multiple projects. She went over all the tools needed for success. Molineux really stressed the importance of communication. If you do not communicate, the people involved in the project waste time, and feel unimportant and demoralized. The second guest speaker was Maria Piacente, Vice President, Exhibitions, Events, and Project Management, Lord Cultural Resources, who covered what happens when things go wrong. These two experienced museum professionals shared their experience, knowledge, and problem-solving skills.

The Project Charter was an interesting project. We separated into about ten groups and were assigned situations. My team was given a fictional ROM project where we had to plan a permanent exhibit about bugs. Other groups needed to plan a new lobby at the AGO, or a membership drive at the Science Centre.

We all drafted Charters, where we figured out the goals, outcomes, schedule, risks… of the different projects, and then in class presented the work we’ve done. One of the things I learned was that people responded very well to colour and charts. A pie graph with the budget made some swoon, but not as much as the extensive RACI chart. They help to establish authority, and give the air of competence to your project.

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We’ve had our final class on Project Management tools; six weeks is an intensive period to soak it all up, but there are Certificate programs out there if you're interested in this part of the museum world.

The second half of this course will concentrate on economics. Yay.

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A piece of advice from a Second Year: there’s a lot of team work in the second year. Figure out who you work well with, and who you don’t. It will help save headaches later on. Don't feel bad if people spontaneously start to cry, people are just very stressed.

All the best,

Katlyn Wooder

Write to you in a month.

SECOND YEAR KNOWLEDGE PART 1

Museum Mondays | Katlyn Wooder

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Source.

Hello and greetings.

While this column is called Museum Mondays it will neither be about Museums or Mondays... although it will be posted on Mondays... what a happy coincidence ;). Now it will be known as Museum (Studies) Mondays.

This column will be a monthly explanation of what the University of Toronto is teaching us the Museum Studies’ Students.

This year this I'm going to conduct a Musings’ experiment. My premise is that part of Musings audience is current or future students who would find it helpful to be given an outline of what to expect in the second year mandatory classes. The two mandatory second year classes for Fall 2018 are MSL4000 Exhibitions Project and MSL2350 Museum Planning and Fundraising and Human Resources.

Of course, that excludes those interested in the thesis option rather than the exhibitions option. I don’t have a lot of useful personal information on that stream, except if you want to do a thesis these are the things you should do to prepare for the first week of school: look at what topic you would like to explore, and then find someone you want to learn from at the University of Toronto, and contact them to see if they would be willing to be your supervisor (don’t be too scared, most of the professors are human, and quite supportive if you come prepared).

If you are not a student, don’t exit the page. This is a great way of learning what our faculty found so vitally important that they argued and worked, and submitted and reviewed, and worked some more to get the courses up and running. They felt strongly that museum professionals needed to know these lessons.

If this article is successful people will be as happy and prepared for a successful experience, if not…

Source. 

I hope a first-year student next year will share their experience in the mandatory first-year courses.

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Exhibition class, taught by Prof. Matthew Brower, to manage and execute a successful museum project. Before the course even started, he did some heavy-lifting and found 20+ institutions with the desire to partner with UofT students to work on an exhibition project.

Those sponsors then propose the exhibit projects in class on week two. The presentations share the BIG idea: what the exhibit topic is about, who you are working with, what your resources are, or if you have resources.

Source.

Some students create their own projects. These enterprising souls started their own project by using their work, connections, mentors, internships, took opportunity by the (censored) and ran. One student is reorganizing a Gallery’s Map collection and updating their catalogue system.

There are students who choose their project because it’s fully funded. Some people will choose the project based on the museum’s topic. The historic heritage crowd would rather chew off their arm than work with art... for the most part. There is a myriad of different priorities to manage, and it will help you to have a list of priorities you think are important, or knowledge of what skills you want to have after this.

There really isn’t a wrong choice. There are just different things you are going to learn.

By the end of this course, you are going to have a basic understanding of how to complete a museum project. The course is designed to teach you the different steps week-by-week. Last week, we learnt about budgeting and the different knowledge that is needed to create a budget. The major tip I learnt is never underestimate the amount of money you need; we are creating a professional exhibit and the budget should match.

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Museum Planning and Management: Projects and Fundraising, commonly called the Project Management course by the students.

This year the course is taught by Judith Koke. “The objective of this course is to offer students applied knowledge of core concepts for planning and managing projects in museums, as well as of revenues, grant making and fundraising in the museum environment” (excerpt from the course syllabus). This course is the backbone of the Master program. It will give you knowledge on how to manage the business aspects of your career in the cultural heritage sector.

Some of the practical tools I have learnt of the last month include:
1) RACI Chart
2) GANTT Chart
3) Project Charter

This course will ground you. It will make a template for your professional career.

One of the projects it will force you to complete is a journal. You will document the readings (which will force you to do the readings), you will write the course notes, and you will document your thoughts. The professor understands the only way to get an overworked graduate student to spend the time necessary to read around a hundred pages a week, and to reflect on them, is too make it part of the grade.

But it will be worth it. Other courses will teach you the theory. This course will give you the practical tools to complete a project.

Such as a Project Charter. The charter is the backbone of your project. It should be the document that you look to, to mire your thinking in. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed when you’re working on a project. To think everything is important. All the knowledge, all those resources, all your opinions will be important. The charter should be the thing that helps you cut. It will help you question if that thing you just need to include is important or necessary.

This course gives you the foundations to be successful.

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A piece of advice from a second year: Whenever you are given a project think: How many hours am I dedicating to the project? How important is this project? Should I be ultra-controlling or go with the flow? Is stress  acne worth it?

All the best,

Katlyn Wooder

Write to you in a month