Travel and learn

In 2008, Cindy Wilkinson, then general manager of an art school at a Sydney based university, spent four weeks visiting Glasgow School of Art, Edinburgh University’s School of Arts, Culture and Environment and London Art College to expand her ideas about entrepreneurship in art school operations.

“It was an inspiring experience,” says Cindy. “Art colleges the world over are notoriously under-funded, so the more innovative they can be, the better. Most of what I learnt was applicable to my Australian institution and it paid off for both me and my employer. I derived great satisfaction and successfully implemented some of the initiatives that I had researched in the UK. The staff at all the UK universities were incredibly welcoming and very willing to share their knowledge and experience – and their time. They were also interested in what we were doing here, it was a great dialogue.

“Putting together an application is easy provided you have the support of your manager. The host institutions were very welcoming. When I returned, I talked one of my colleagues into applying for a similar scholarship to look at the latest ideas for photographic studios using cutting edge technology.”

Here are Cindy’s tips:

• Talk to lots of people about your application.
• Do your homework before hand: for instance I went to Glasgow because they are housed in a very famous building designed by alumnus Charles Rennie Mackintosh and I wanted to see how they used it in their marketing to position themselves as a creative hot house and to look at their well known and profitable GSA Shop. London Art College is a pioneer in distance learning - they have been doing it for so long they were originally called the Correspondence Art College and offer a wide variety of courses everything from art history to graphic design,.
• Don’t just ask your manager for approval. Discuss the application with them in detail and ask for input and help. In my case, the Dean wrote to his colleagues in the UK who were glad to provide me with an invitation.
• When you are there, make the most of it. Talk to as many people as you possibly can and talk to both the people who make the decisions and those who are involved in implementing the kinds of opportunities you are assessing.
• Document your findings as you go along, capture as much detail as you can in your report and anticipate the questions you may be asked. This will make it easier to share the information with the relevant people when you get back home.