ABOUT CIVIC ARTS

Civic Arts is a local non-profit organization, housed just north of campus, that assists municipal and community development organizations integrate arts and culture strategies into the work they do.  We envision a world where arts and culture are fully embedded in the way we build our towns and cities, and where all are invited – with their full selves – to the table of civic decision making.  To do this, we bring together local art communities to work alongside civic organizations in order to co-create responses to complex local issues.

ABOUT THE POSITIONS

The following student internship is an opportunity for an undergraduate or graduate level student to assist with project level tasks during the summer of 2020.  The internship will be done under the supervision of Lynn Osgood, Executive Director.  The internships are 10 hrs/wk with a total stipend of $1000 each.  It is assumed that all internship work will be done remotely for the summer of 2020, although that may change as the COVID response situation evolves.

Cultural Asset GIS Intern:

The GIS Intern will help with in-house cultural master plan projects that are helping communities across the country identify and map local arts and cultural assets. Work in this internship will directly engage in high level municipal policy planning projects as well as help the organization established in-house capacity for using QGIS (an open source spatial data software package).  Familiarity with QGIS is not expected upon starting, but a base knowledge of ESRI or other spatial data software is required.

• Orient self to QGIS open-source GIS platform and create small in-house training for the platform. (approximately 2 hours per week).
• Assist with research and management of spatial data for two cultural planning projects (approximately 5 hours per week).
• Assist with the creation of spatial data for a local arts-based community engagement project (approximately 3 hours per week).

Creative Placemaking Continuing Education Intern:

The Continuing Education Internship will focus on helping the organization to identify and implement best practices in digital content creation and delivery, and well as develop materials for our current creative placemaking online course sequence.  Cities are currently looking to find new and innovative ways to incorporate arts and cultural strategies into the day-to-day work they do (creative placemaking).  Helping city staff learn about effective case studies and best practices is a critical component of our organizations’ mission.  By helping to identify and implement best practice solutions for digital education, the internship position will help to advance creative placemaking practices nation-wide.

• Help in the identification of digital education best practices for forms such as webinars, podcasts, and online professional development courses (approximately 4 hours per week).
• Assist in the adaption of current Civic Arts materials, case studies, and research to a robust system of digital offering (approximately 4 hours per week).
• Help to devise appropriate outreach and social media strategies for the content that is developed (approximately 2 hours per week).

Arts Policy Research:

One of the key ways that arts and cultural strategies can contribute to cities during the COVID-pandemic is by helping local communities build their capacity for resiliency.  By identifying key issues, telling impactful stories, and opening community’s collective capacity for “meaning-making”, the arts have a great deal to contribute during times of collective trauma.  The Policy Intern position will help identify and write summaries of key case studies that show the how cities and neighborhoods are using arts strategies to increase their own resiliency.  These cases studies will be used within larger policy planning processes and help stimulate ideas and discussions on how different localities can create their own arts-based strategies.

• Help in the identification of pertinent case study examples (approximately 3 hours per week).
• Create a collection of articles, images and resources for each case study (approximately 3 hours per week).
• Create case study narratives that can clearly and succinctly tell the story of how arts-based strategies were used to help achieve community goals. (approximately 4 hours per week).

Contact Information

Application Instructions: To apply, candidates should email a resume and a one-page cover letter to: Lynn Osgood, Executive Director (lynn.osgood@civicarts.org) and type SUMMER 2020 INTERN in the subject line and identify which internship you’re interested in.