With a move from the basement of Leakin Hall to a gleaming new space just outside Peabody’s dining hall, a unique initiative known as LAUNCHPad has gained greater visibility in its mission to engage students and alumni in career development.
The multifaceted LAUNCHPad program offers a hands-on approach to exploring career paths and gaining the skills needed to develop and launch artistic projects. LAUNCHPad also includes a unique educational component, which is integrated into the curriculum of both undergraduate and master’s-level programs at Peabody.
“The whole idea is to get students engaged and to hit the ground running, in terms of career preparedness,” says Zane Forshee (MM ’01, GPD ’03, DMA ’11, Guitar), LAUNCHPad director and guitar faculty artist. “Our goal is to help students build and stand up projects, so they can develop a larger portfolio — with the understanding that a larger portfolio will generate more opportunities.”
In addition to managing programs to help students build job skills, develop entrepreneurial ventures, and book gigs, LAUNCHPad coordinates three courses foundational to Peabody’s Breakthrough Curriculum: Exploring Arts Careers, Building a Brand and Portfolio, and Pitching Your Creative Idea (see p. 6). The mandatory courses are designed to help students better understand today’s business aspects of the performing arts, and also to learn how to actively market themselves and create a portfolio and online presence that will evolve with their career.
Another unique aspect of LAUNCHPad: All of the program’s staff members are working artists. “This is a very different approach to career services,” says Forshee. “We believe the best people to help artists are other artists.” These staffers can draw on their own contacts and experience in their practical efforts around getting projects out to the world, such as providing help with booking tours, making recordings, and finding collaborators.
LAUNCHPad also hosts a website (peabody.jhu.edu/launchpad) that is chock-full of information and resources, including help with building a website, creating a press kit, using online event calendars and audience management platforms, and much more. All of these resources and services are also available to Peabody alumni and can range from help with cover letters and resumes, to assistance in pursuing grant funding and planning tours and recording projects.
LAUNCHPad ties into a Hopkins-wide initiative overseen by Farouk Dey, vice provost for integrative learning and life design. The university-wide initiative seeks to better integrate career and life design into the academic experience of all Johns Hopkins students — beyond offering help creating a resume or accessing internships.
Dey, who was present at the ribbon-cutting for the new LAUNCHPad offices on November 18, described the program and Peabody’s Breakthrough Curriculum as a model for successfully integrating career services with student learning. He says, “I haven’t seen this anywhere else, that students go through one common curricular experience that helps not only make meaning out of what they are learning but also to prepare for the future.”
