Students Combine Arts, Academics and Real-World Experience Via New Fellowships

Like many rising seniors, Kate Wheeler ’25 was excited to apply her liberal arts education to a summer internship — even if she couldn’t yet see how her majors might intersect in a professional setting.

“I’m an economics and theatre double major,” she said. “I love theater, but couldn't really picture myself going the starving artist route, so I just assumed I would have to do something more traditional, maybe accounting.”

A funded internship, however, revealed another option — one that combined Wheeler’s academic interests.

New this year, a fully funded summer internship program made possible by the Nancy Savage Skinner ’79 Fund for Experiential and Integrative Learning in the Creative, Performing, and Liberal Arts exposes students to the world of arts administration. The summer 2024 pilot program partnered Worcester and Boston arts organizations and offered four students — Savage Skinner Fellows — the chance to intern for their marketing, literary and operations departments.

The program helped Wheeler see a professional path forward: “I never considered really being able to do something both arts and administrative related.”

Savage Skinner Fellows receive a stipend award of $3,500 (plus potential housing costs). The funding subsidizes labor costs for the four chosen organizations (the Worcester Cultural Coalition (WCC)/city of Worcester Cultural Division and Holy Cross' Prior Performing Arts Center and Boston Lyric Opera and Huntington Theatre Company in Boston), allowing them to take on an additional paid team member and build a partnership with Holy Cross.

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As a Savage Skinner Fellow, Kate Wheeler '25 worked with the Worcester Cultural Coalition, supporting many of its events held throughout summer 2024.

The chance to work with professional Massachusetts cultural organizations is “such an exciting opportunity,” said Kyle Frisina, The Prior’s interim director and coordinator for the four fellows.

"Discovering arts administration as a rising college senior changed my life,” she said. “That summer, I interned in the literary office of New York’s Second Stage Theater; years later, I returned to the company as its director of play development. Many Holy Cross students love the arts but may not know they can marry their passion with careers in marketing, development, finance or artistic planning. This program allows them to gain experience and make connections that will open doors down the line."

To Wheeler’s supervisor at the WCC, Wheeler’s work has been a gift.

“As a small team, we require support from interns to offer a dynamic summer portfolio of events, programs and public art,” said Yaffa Fain, assistant cultural development officer for the city of Worcester. Wheeler, she praised, was “vital in hitting the ground running and doing all sorts of creative work and different research projects. Over the course of her summer fellowship, each day has looked different.”

Efforts included research into public art, coordination with food and craft vendors at the organization’s downtown Out to Lunch series, and setting up for Movies on the Common, which this summer showed “Barbie” and “Free Guy.” The latter, starring Ryan Reynolds, was filmed in Worcester.

Said Fain, “having students in our office brings a unique voice; they know what a college demographic is excited about.”

And the fellowship provides more than just fresh perspectives.

“It’s essential to know funding is available so we may plan long term for our staffing and project needs,” Fain said. “Often, we’ve relied on seasonal funding, which is unsustainable. This institutional commitment and partnership helps us plan more community engagement and widescale offerings.”

Building community

Outside of their daily work, the fellows also meet and hear about each other’s experiences.

“Building community is a key aspect of the program," Frisina said. “Fellows meet weekly to reflect on their learning, discuss professional norms and troubleshoot workplace dynamics. We also bring in speakers from institutions beyond the host organizations to offer an even broader sense of possibilities within the field.”

“It’s nice to supplement my learning” with the cohort meetings, Wheeler said. “I would not be able to get that just doing my specific tasks.”

Fellows are also invited to work on independent research projects for the program, supported by Melissa Boyle ’00, associate professor of economics, who teaches the course Economics of the Arts.

For her project, Savage Skinner Fellow Rachel Golden ’25, a literary intern at The Huntington Theatre, has been researching third places, a sociological concept for locations beyond homes and workspaces that are reserved for community engagement.

In The Huntington’s new building, under construction next door to the existing theater, “the second floor will be a collaborative space for artists with a cafe and Wi-Fi,” she said.  “Generally, theatergoers are older, affluent people, so how do we spin that so this new place is somewhere young people or anyone of any socioeconomic background can come and take up space and use it creatively? Can theaters actually be a third place?”

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“I enjoy reading and writing, so this is kind of perfect,” Golden said of her work reading scripts and discussing their potential for development or a production with the theater’s artistic staff.

It’s a thought that impressed her supervisor, Charles Haugland, director of new work for the theater: “When Rachel arrived, I was very clear that she should not only look at this opportunity to build skills in dramaturgy, but to fully immerse herself in the institution and find what she’s most curious about."

Studying this shift affords Golden, Haugland noted, the chance to develop a research project that is simultaneously “meaningful to her personal and professional development and a reflection of her time at the Hunt. We’ve never had that open, truly public space, so this will be a pretty radical shift in how we are able to welcome people.”

Beyond her research, Golden’s main work as a literary intern involves reading scripts and discussing their potential for development or a production with the theater’s artistic staff. As an English major, she finds it refreshing that she can put her studies to practical use with an esteemed cultural organization.

“I enjoy reading and writing, so this is kind of perfect,” she said. “I usually work all summer in a country club, and finally one summer I can put my education to use — and feeling OK about it without freaking out about money is really nice.”

The Savage Skinner Fund provides such financial stability, but just as importantly it opens doors to future professional ventures. Most immediately, two Savage Skinner Fellows have been invited to continue working with their host organizations in part-time roles this fall.

“My internship was just a really cool opportunity,” Golden said, “one that otherwise I didn’t know I could have explored at all.”