 Hello everybody, thank you for joining us today. My name is Molly Gleason and I'm the Chair of AIC's Emerging Conservation Professionals Network or ECPN. We are so pleased to be holding our first forum today and we are delighted to have Debbie Hess-Norris joining us as our guest presenter. Debbie will be speaking today about self-advocacy and fundraising for independent research. Hi Debbie, welcome and thank you for joining us. I'm happy to do so. I will introduce Debbie more formally in just a few minutes but let me first introduce you to a few others on the line and then how this forum will work followed by a brief introduction to ECPN and then we'll hand it over to Debbie. So we also on the line have ECPN Vice Chair Eliza Spalding here and when I say here I mean on the call because she's in Philadelphia, I'm in Los Angeles and Debbie is in Delaware. Eliza will be handling the question and answer component of this forum and she will give you a little more information on this in a minute as well. Hi Eliza. Hi Molly, hi everyone. We also have Ryan Winfield, AIC membership coordinator, Eric Forchot, FAIC institutional advancement director and Stephanie Lucille, AIC board director of professional education and training on the line. And each of them may chime in at some point throughout this call and thank you all for joining us today. And finally, we are really happy that all of you out there have joined us today as well. As of this morning, we had over 90 registrants representing all time zones in the continental U.S. plus Hawaii as well as France, Mexico, Columbia, Israel and Greece. Welcome to you all and thank you so much for joining us today. We are using GoToWebinar for this forum and just to quickly review some of the features of this program for you, the view window is where you see our title slide right now. It should say, welcome to the UCPN forum. And this window that you're looking at can be resized by clicking and dragging the lower right corner. The control panel is where you as an attendee can take some control on your own screen. You may find that with inactivity, the control panel automatically minimizes and if you would like to keep it open during the entire presentation, go up to the top on your file options and click on view and there there is an auto hide the control panel option. If it's checked, unselect it and then it will not hide itself during the call. You'll be able to see it the entire time. The audio section tells you if you're joined to the audio by phone or by internet and so you all know all of you listening out there are muted. So we can't hear you but we're hoping that you can all hear us. So the way that you'll be communicating with us is through the question chat box that you should see in that control panel area on your screen. You'll also see that there is a raise hand option but we won't be using that today. This is our first time using the software and running a webinar so we're trying to keep this as simple as possible so that hopefully things will run smoothly. Also so you all know Debbie is currently in control of our presentation so she'll be advancing the next few slides for us. Thank you. I guess you already advanced the slide. Thank you Debbie. And so Eliza will take over at this point. My name is Eliza Spalding, ECPN vice chair and I will be helping to moderate the questions during the webinar. So first many thanks to everyone who submitted questions on the blog. To ask a question during the webinar please type it directly into the question box. Throughout the webinar I will try and find an appropriate moment to raise your question. If we're not able to address your question during the webinar we're hoping to continue the conversation on the blog so look out for a blog post from us. We're very lucky to have Debbie with us today speaking about this topic so I encourage you to ask a lot of questions. Thanks Eliza. And actually I think at this point too if anybody has a question, any of you listening if there has a question, technical or otherwise please we encourage you to go ahead and type it into the box. We're going to be paying attention to this throughout the call. So we'd love to hear from you. So and before we dive in I'd just like to say a few words about ECPN, a little plug. For those of you who don't know we are a network within AIC dedicated to supporting conservation professionals as they move through the first stages of their careers. We do this by organizing a variety of projects and programs including the mentoring program which pairs emerging conservators with mentors through an application process, a regional liaison program which helps us connect with emerging conservators across the United States and AIC annual meeting activities which in the last couple of years has included an informational meeting, a happy hour and a portfolio session featuring emerging conservators presenting their portfolios. We also participate in many other projects but one of our latest is this webinar forum. And as I said this is the first time we're doing this. We pursued this project to reach out beyond our monthly conference calls which are typically devoted to committee business and to engage with more of you while addressing topics of interest to emerging conservators. Next slide please. Here's a list of our committee members including our board and staff liaisons who have been so supported and critical in making this webinar happen today. We also have a growing group of liaisons representing many different AIC specialty groups and committees as well as regions across the U.S. For a complete list of these liaisons please visit our webpage which the link is listed here at the bottom of this slide. Next slide please. To learn more about ECPN and our ongoing projects we encourage you to join us for our monthly conference calls which are usually held on the third Monday of each month at 1 p.m. Eastern time. The number to join can be found by visiting our webpage on the AIC website or by contacting one of us and please also consider subscribing to our periodic e-blast which you can do by logging on to the AIC website, clicking on manage your profile and check off emerging conservation professionals network. Also you can follow us on our Facebook page and on the AIC blog, Conservators Converse. Visit this link that you see here for more information about all of this. So now let's get on with our forum. This webinar will last until 2 p.m. But before we start there are just a few questions that we'd like to ask all of you to get a sense of who is out there. Next slide please. Hi everyone, it's Eliza again. We will now briefly pause our presentation to take five short polls. Each poll will appear individually on the screen and we will give you 10 seconds to answer the question before closing the poll. I will then briefly summarize the poll results for everyone before moving on to the next poll. So launching the first poll for 10 seconds, it will let it go a few seconds longer because I see some of you are still answering. Okay, I'm going to close this poll and share the results with all of you. So of the almost 70 people we have on the call, these are the results. So we have 14% who are pre-programmed, 26% who are graduate students, 26% who are one to three years out of graduate school, 9% who are three to seven years out of graduate school, and then 26% again who are seven plus years out of graduate school. Now we'll move on to the second poll. Okay, launching the second poll, how do you define what you're currently doing professionally? And I'll close this poll and sharing the poll results with you again. 54% replied that you work at an institution, 24%, working in private practice, 6%, working as a contract conservator, and then 16% working in another capacity. So I'll close this. Starting the third poll, in what professional setting would you ideally like to work? It's so nice to see that there are people out there and responding. Absolutely. Okay, I'll close this poll and then sharing the results. 78% replied that you ideally would like to work at an institution, 16% privately, 2% as a contract conservator, and then 5% in another capacity. So I'll hide this and launch the fourth poll. Have you ever participated in writing a grant? And I'll close this and share the results. So 47% said that you have participated in writing a grant and 53% have not. And for our last poll question, have you thought about pursuing a Ph.D. to further your academic training and or career opportunities? And I'll close this. So 47% said that yes, you have considered pursuing a Ph.D. And 53% have had enough of school. Okay, and now we will, thanks so much to everyone. That's really great information to know and that'll really help us kind of shape the webinar today. And now we will return to the presentation. Great. Thank you, Eliza. So Debbie, if you'd like to go to the next slide, please. Little technical difficulties, one moment. Okay, okay. So just hang in there, everybody. We're about to get started. Hello. Hi, Debbie. Hey, this is Debbie. You guys, I just got cut off. Okay, it's fine. Tell me where we are. That's all right. Well, I, it's okay. No, I, we just had all the poll questions. And I was just about to ask you to move to the next slide. So you got right back on just in time. Okay. My, what pressure is up? Okay. And are we, okay. So, so now, yeah, if you could advance to the next slide and I was just about to introduce you and hand the program over to you. Okay, good. Thank you, everybody, for, you know, bearing with us because we're learning about this along with all of you. So let's get started. For those of you who don't know, Debbie is the chair of the art conservation department and professor of photograph conservation at the University of Delaware. Since 1985, she has offered more than 30 articles and book chapters on the care and treatment of photographic materials, emergency response, ethics and conservation education. She greatly enjoys fundraising and is secured nearly $13.5 million in external grants for the art conservation department at the University of Delaware. We have, there's so much to say about Debbie, we could go on and on, but I think everybody is just ready to hear from her. So welcome again, Debbie, and thank you for being here today. Now. Thank you, Molly. And thank you, Eliza. And you all, I'm sorry about, for some reason, my phone is cutting off. So let's hope that the AV guys are with us. And as we get through all this, I'm really excited to be speaking to all of you. I just only wish that we were all in one room and I can see you all. It's really great to look at the list and see so many friends and colleagues who have joined in on a topic that I think we all feel very passionately about. And I've put together slides that reflect a variety of topics associated with issues surrounding networking, advocacy, fundraising, building collaboration, et cetera. And so I'm going to run through those. And as we said, Eliza will pop in with questions. We'll watch the time. And again, just pray that my phone doesn't cut off. But I am very grateful to many who have contributed their thoughts as I began to sort of assemble this PowerPoint, starting, of course, with what's most important. And that is that we all obviously need to network. And how valuable it is and how privileged we are, actually, to have access to AIC, which is our only professional organization. Many disciplines have a myriad of professional organizations, and it's hard sometimes to get engaged. But in conservation, we can work carefully with AIC and certainly with ECPN to connect to each other. And that's so important. Of course, it's also critical that all of us get involved in allied groups and continue to contribute them to them, either regionally or nationally, or even internationally. We're going to talk later about global opportunities that I think we all feel very strongly about. But as a conservation professional, we have the capacity of the opportunity to contribute significantly to the College Art Association, to the American Library Association, to AASLH and others. And it's important to do that, to build our visibility and certainly the visibility of the profession. And so one recommendation certainly is to attend these meetings where you can. Obviously, they can get expensive, so look for regional opportunities and, of course, introduce yourself and get involved and share your interest in others' work as well, because it's important that we connect in that way. I also would urge all of you to be sure, long after you've graduated, to continue to send emails back to your faculty and colleagues, updating them on what you're doing, because they're hearing about opportunities and they'll suddenly think, oh, so-and-so may want to get involved in this project. Let me see if they're interested. So keeping people updated and engaged is really important. I know at the university, I'm often sending emails to the dean, to the provost, even to the president, not very long, because they can't get too long. Many people are reading these on smartphones now, so you've got to be careful about links. But keeping them updated so that they're aware of what's going on, in this case in the Department of our Conservation, but you need to do the same as an advocate for yourself. Certainly working in the community, speaking to rotary clubs and ladies' clubs, will make connections for those who are pursuing private practice, those who are interested in contracts, and those that are just wanting to broaden their horizon. This, by the way, I should say that I've chosen to sort of illustrate this talk with many photographs. No surprise, I'm sure. And also some images from some of the projects that we're involved in. And here are three wonderful colleagues from Syria, Jordan, and Iraq involved in our work in the Middle East, which is aimed at advancing photograph preservation there. I love this picture of all three of them. Spend time with people. Invite them for coffee. They may know about opportunities in the area that you're not aware of. It's all about networking. It's all about connecting. And most importantly, ensure that your mentors are updated on what you're doing. I can say as a mentor, there's nothing more exciting and more fulfilling than hearing from former students, and sort of sharing in their accomplishments, celebrating their accomplishments, and trying to help them, certainly, if anything is needed. Also, you may want to look at local universities and colleges, both community colleges and institutes of higher education, to see if there's opportunity for adjunct teaching. You may start as a guest speaker speaking in our history course, an art course, a chemistry course, or any related area, anthropology, archeology, about your work, and that may enable opportunities to actually develop an independent study with some of the students or even a course. Universities are very focused now on interdisciplinary study and looking at creative ways to combine the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences. And we, in art conservation, have the capacity to do that. So thinking creatively about how you know about how you may link to your university and be involved in some kind of adjunct teaching is certainly something that's important. Also getting involved in the FAIC Oral History Interview Project will enable you to meet individuals that you admire, but also they will want to help you in your career, and they can pick up the phone and connect you to individuals. So volunteering to do that is not only enormously rewarding because you're so engaged in the history of this field, but also will create opportunities for you. I think you're all and everyone, we're all aware of the fact that we need to continue to write in any way possible on blogs and websites. These articles need not always be academic as we reach out, as we broaden our scope. And think about publishing outside of conservation. There are so many forums. I have a link here, and this entire presentation will be available online, so you can go to the links. Honestly, I'm a little nervous about going to the links now because I don't want to lose the presentation, but they're all there. And this is a link for a particular publication of material culture. There's an awful lot going on internationally, really, in material culture studies. And yet, there aren't too many conservators who are speaking at these conferences. I know they would be most welcome. So think about how you can publish in this arena and how you can contribute as well. Of course, advocacy is vital and jumping at all opportunities, being open to challenges, being the first to say thank you, appreciating showing gratitude. Being proactive on the Hill, here I mean, this is something we all need to do. It's easy not to. It's easy to sort of put it aside. But when we receive alerts from Heritage Preservation or the American Institute for Conservation or others about connecting with our senators and our representatives, we need to do that because ultimately, that connection is important for the field, but also can be very rewarding for all of you. You have an opportunity to meet with your senator and meet with your representative to tell them how the work that you're doing is benefiting local historical societies, museums, and other cultural institutions. Those meetings would be welcome. You're obviously not going to meet with a senator, but you'll meet with their staff. That's interesting, and they want those stories, so take advantage of that. Work to be noticed, show initiative, be resourceful, positive, and upbeat, and nominate yourself for awards or nominate your colleagues. There are many awards in AIC. There are many awards in communities for community service. Don't be shy. Don't stop and think, I shouldn't do that, nominate myself. Do that. Or ask someone else to nominate yourself or nominate someone. I know that I'm always trying to think of who can be nominated for what award. That recognition is important. A little bit on job and job placement, looking for jobs. I love this quote. It comes from the Chronicle of Higher Education. By the way, that's another really great resource. The Chronicle of Higher Education often has columns for graduate students and also for faculty, and even if you're not a graduate student or a faculty member, there are advice columns that are very useful on building negotiation skills, on interviewing, on preparing a CV, preparing a resume, et cetera. This was an article on managing your career. I love the quote about an interviewing part, Broadway casting call, part intellectual dating game, part personality test, and a job interview as well. These were some of David's recommendations here. I won't read the slide to you, but just emphasize a few things. First, they're writing the recommenders well-informed. It is so critical. I'm sure everyone is well aware of this, but to give your recommenders ample time to write a strong letter and be sure that they have all the information they need in front of them, so they're writing a letter that's well-mixed and well-matched to the job that you are looking for, that they understand what that job is about so they can testify that, in fact, you're well-suited for that particular position. Be sure that when you're interviewing for these jobs there's an institution as well as possible so that you can demonstrate how you will add value and help that institution lead into the future. Of course, you need to be humble and recognize that you're going to be on a learning curve, but demonstrate that you understand that institution. Don't be generic. You've done your research. You know what their priorities are. You understand their vision. You understand their strategic thinking, and you want to be a part of that. You're interested. You're excited about the opportunities at hand. Taking initiative eight days a week, a lot of this is probably common sense, but just be sure that you visit established conservators in all disciplines, and you may ask your faculty members to provide a letter or email of introduction prior to making an appointment. We all would be thrilled and very happy to do that. We can open doors, and we're willing to do it. You need to walk through them. You need to land the job in the position, but don't hesitate to use anyone to create opportunities for you. In doing so, bring a resume and a small portfolio. Many have told me, and again, these are recommendations that I've gathered from speaking with many. But many have said that they've learned the hard way not to come with a large three- or four-inch thick portfolio, but rather bring something that's small, that's more focused, that really speaks to not only your great skills in conservation and documentation treatment, your knowledge and preventive care, but also your ability to work in a team, your hand skills, your creative problem-solving. Demonstrate all of that. And certainly state your interest in part-time or contractual work, and sometimes don't be intimidated by feeling that you might be underqualified. Apply for that job. You never know. People are looking for people with certain qualities, and they're willing to overlook the five or three-year requirement. In some cases, certainly not in all, but don't use that as a reason not to apply. You should, of course, always, always try. And if it's a private practice position, make sure that those who you're applying with understand that you're comfortable with all aspects of private practice, from working at the bench, to dealing with clients, to doing preventive projects, to cleaning the dishes, to sweeping the floor, to documenting the objects, that you're willing to work at all levels. And if you are turned down for a job, and unfortunately, that will happen from time to time, find out why. Get as much information as you can. In many situations, you know, it's something that's somewhat out of your control, but there may be opportunities to improve your applications in the future, so be aware of that. Just as a quick aside, I wanted to be sure you might wonder, you know, a little bit about some of these images, some of these come from the Degare-type portal, which is this wonderful collaborative project between the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the George Eastman House, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, looking at a large collection of south-worth and halls, Degare-type plates. This is one of the many resources in photograph conservation and in our field that's available online. If you're not aware of this portal, take a look at it if you have a chance. It has a fabulous lexicon, as you can see here, of different deterioration problems associated with Degare-types. And I show you that's just because I was just talking about it last week in Dublin, and it's just a fantastic resource. So be active in the professional organization, engaging with ECPN, serving on AIC, especially group committees. Many of these committees are looking for students and emerging conservators. Your voice is key in our work, you are the future, and we want you to be involved. But recognize that eventually you need to pursue professional associate status, and that would be three years after graduation. In that case, don't hesitate to ask us for letters of recommendation. And if you find that you're in a situation where for some reason you can't secure those letters, work with ECPN, I'm happy to help if I can be helpful in that regard. FAIC and the AIC have many opportunities available to all of us, and for students, of course, George Stout funding to attend professional meetings. Two things to recognize here that I'm often reminding our own students about. One is George Stout money is not simply for AIC participation. It can be to participate in other international or regional meetings as well. And two, the rules have changed recently. If you go to this link, you'll find that in fact you can apply for George Stout funding up to two years after graduation. So those through one year following graduation, you have the opportunity to apply for those funds. There are all kinds of guidelines on the AIC website about writing a strong proposal. So be sure to look at that and recognize that in selecting those who are successful in George Stout funding, they're often looking for individuals who are participating and contributing in some way to the meeting at hand. It may be a poster, it may be a presentation, it may be serving on a panel, but it also could be simply helping the Health and Safety Committee with their display meeting in the exhibition hall. So there's lots of ways that you can be involved and in doing so strengthen your application for these many awards that are available to you. Of course, always check out heritagepreservation.org as well because there's lots going on with Heritage Preservation and many of their resources are free and can be useful to you in your work in conservation and your work in advocacy. I have here, I'm not going to go into these in an enormous amount of detail because of time that many contributed a list of private practice tips and so you can take a look at this when you look at this online. The importance, of course, of a vital and engaging, compelling website that's well designed that may include a resource page. There's some fabulous websites out there where individuals have posted some of the research that they've done and it sort of draws you to that site and makes it a resource beyond the work that that conservator is doing. On the slide as well are tips for where you might find recycled materials and how you can be better prepared through taking business classes and those kinds of things. Again, because of time I'm not going to go into this part in an enormous amount of detail. We might want to do an entire webinar on private practice and private practice tips because so many of you have really solid information in this regard. Debbie? Is somebody else? I think they lost her audio. Hold on one second. Can everybody else hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. Everybody just hang in there for a second. Maybe this would be a good time to ask if anyone has any questions at the moment. We can start gathering those while Debbie is trying to get back on. That would be great. Eliza, are you... Yes, we've already received some great questions and we're recording them and we're hoping to get to them at some point during the call and if not we will certainly follow up with them on the blog afterwards. Just a question someone asked to everyone. Someone asked if we will be recording this webinar and the answers are reporting it and we're making it available to everyone at the moment. Okay. I just sent a message that we lost her audio. I don't know if she realizes this. Yes. So I will... Can you guys hear me now? This is Debbie. Yes. Hi Debbie. Hi. Listen. Let's keep going before my phone. This is a brand new phone but for some reason it's like every 21 minutes it's cutting out. But how about now? I think you can hear me, right? Yes. Okay, good. Eliza, I know there's... It seems like there's some questions. How about if I get through the next section and then if you want to jump in we just have to be attentive to the time. Sure, that sounds great. So here again for both of you who are still listening in are just some more private practice tips and what I had said I think this might have been lost when I lost audio contact is that perhaps we want to think about a whole webinar that's focused on private practice tips because so many of you have so much good experience and I just tried to summarize it here in these series of slides but working with others working with antique dealers promoting their business so they can do the same with you. In the end this is about collaboration and it's about it's about working together and it's also about working globally and I would urge all of you to think about the opportunities that are available there because there are many and I just attended actually yesterday an interesting meeting on campus about the Fulbright program. That meeting of course was focused on student opportunities for Fulbright but there are all kinds of scholarly opportunities as well and the reality is in conservation it may in fact be possible to apply in either category typically the Fulbright program says that those who are applying as a student do not have a terminal degree in their field but some of you may be interested in pursuing a PhD and therefore I think given the field of our conservation you may be able to apply through Fulbright as a student. You don't have to be a student to apply through the student program you just can't have completed a terminal degree or you can apply in the other category. I talked to the officer and they said in fact that may be true. This is something to think about and the Fulbright program of course creates fantastic opportunities if you can get a host site for advancing your experiences around the world. Also look at opportunities in the World Bank or the U.S. State Department and of course it is important for all of you to join IIC ICOMCC on Facebook as a student member offered to be a U.S. correspondent they are always looking for individuals who will help in one way or another and if you can't afford to do talk to someone and see if there is some way to get involved globally writing ICOMCC working group columns as you see here being involved in ECROM ECROM in Rome has a really nice newsletter that comes out regularly listing different workshops and opportunities around the world. Subscribe to that look at their fellows program which is quite nice it does not come with funding currently so it may be impossible for some of you but it is something to think about. Look at all the various listservs and LinkedIn opportunities but most importantly if you can volunteer because these experiences will transform your life and if you volunteer it will create opportunities. I realize it may be completely impossible for some of you at this point but if you have any interest in working globally please email me and I'd be happy to try and set that up and work with you to see if we can find some funding or to see what might be possible through the state department or through Fulbright always always document your accomplishments you all are doing so much and do what you can to document it and keep track of all your different ideas what you hope to do, what you have done so you have that information available to you and you may want to update a website if you are in private practice which will include all of that information. Expanding your horizon of course is key to all of us and to our professional development as we look to find new workshops, new seminars, advancing our knowledge in museum studies grant writing, project management always thinking beyond building our treatment skills is important and if you have an opportunity to review grant proposals do so so you can learn how to write a good grant certainly but also be networked and be more aware of what's going on around the world so oftentimes organizations are looking for individuals to review grants but in the interim you may be able to hook up with a faculty member or a mentor and begin working on that now. The Council for Graduate Schools is a large organization that has a lot of very good information on this website that is applicable to all of you who are graduate students but also to many of you who are recent graduates as well funding information for graduate students awards and other things. You may consider a doctoral degree certainly if you are interested in teaching in higher education PhDs are becoming all the more important even though the Masters is considered the terminal degree in art conservation and this depends on different schools but the nice thing of course about PhDs is that you can typically secure stipend and tuition funding research grants. It allows you of course to forge new collaborations you can think about doctoral studies and preservation or in allied fields and connecting to these universities will strengthen your access to new technologies and to instrumentation scientific and otherwise which is important too. The doctorate degree of course can build prominence improve your writing and research skills all kinds of professional development options that are available to you in doctoral studies fostering research within the field opportunities for co-authoring articles with colleagues graduate students from other departments and most importantly particularly those who are in private practice if you have the capacity to think about pursuing a doctoral degree it's possible to do it simultaneously once you've completed the required coursework and so you can begin to improve your knowledge and advance your research and also create greater connections for you in private practice. This by the way is a salted paper print by Helen Adamson I showed you the negative before and just another great resource online is this wonderful publication by Maria Fernanda Valverde on photographic negatives. Sharing your skills and engaging locally is also important I think the slides here are pretty clear and pretty obvious. If you can volunteer to become a CAP assessor please do so in the meantime because there is a five year requirement before you can actually become a CAP assessor you should try and shadow others and this has been raised as a challenge for some of our colleagues who are finding that they don't have the opportunity to shadow other CAP assessors and so it may be important for us to have a conversation with Heritage Preservation to see what we can do to create opportunities to develop new CAP assessors so that they can be involved in surveys and assessments. These images by the way are taken from a Titanic album that was assembled by Father Brown who is a great Irish photographer who actually rode on the Titanic and disembarked in Cork, Ireland before its fatal sinking and I had the great privilege last week to look at this album you can see a page of it here it's really quite moving and these are the last images taken of the Titanic and of course the iconic after its sinking in 1912. Showing your skills, engaging locally visiting collections at LAC conservators is always important arranging public programs and clinics for friends, for donor groups for the boards of directors contributing where you can to newsletters and blogs, creating PR and offering again to help with grant proposals and I hope we'll have time we do have to be careful about the time we don't want to not have any questions at all but I do have some slides on fundraising and grant writing as well I don't know if maybe we would be smart to cover some of those in a later webinar but I want to be sure that you all are well aware of the fact that ECPN has worked very hard to create a list and I will go to that at least that link on their blog and let's hope you guys that this doesn't disconnect us I think we're okay they've created this long list of opportunities for professional development where you can go as an individual to raise money or to secure money for your research projects to attend conferences and to advance your research and so you may want to take a look at this it includes some of those sources that you probably are well familiar with but other sources that you might not have thought about and so oh goodness so anyway I urge you to do that as well as we sort of think about that let me just say that you will find that many museums have residencies for example Winniter Museum has funds that they receive from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research scholars and they are often looking for conservators who will apply for these and they can be two weeks, two months, three months, six months but what happens often is conservators are not applying for those curators, research scholars students who are pursuing their dissertations are but conservators are welcome so look at every single library museum and archive that has this funding many of them do they're looking at ways to promote their collection that may intersect well with research that you're interested in doing and some of those sites are listed on the ECPN blog post the research residencies I mentioned some of these will say that they're limited to those who are seeking a dissertation or to postdocs but call them and check because people aren't thinking about conservation, they aren't thinking that the masters is is a terminal degree and there are many situations that I know of where something has said that it's limited to a postdoc or someone pursuing a dissertation and in fact conservators with masters degrees have been welcome also in terms of funding because it's difficult to secure money when you are an individual but if you can link up with a not-for-profit we have often linked up with some of our former alums who are interested in doing research but can't apply for a grant from this foundation or that foundation because they are for-profit and not-for-profit but maybe you can find someone who will sponsor you and be a partner and therefore in our case the University of Delaware applied for the grant for so and so to do the work and then we could provide funding to that individual so that's something else to think about don't be limited by something that says if it's just for 501c3s or not-for-profits AIC professional membership is often helpful and a key to success in this regard and be sure also in terms of funding look at your undergraduate institutions some of them have legacy grants for alums that are excited about your accomplishments they may provide funding for you to travel to do research with the understanding that as part of that trip you'll be an ambassador for their school and meeting with prospective students or faculty and again that has a lot to do with the unique attributes and interdisciplinary nature of art conservation that some of these opportunities are available to you as is true certainly with community groups who may be willing and interested in sponsoring your research so this may be Eliza do you want to jump in with any questions I still have quite a few slides I don't know we should just run through some of these tips on fundraising what you would like to do to proceed I want to hear more of your presentation and we'll save a couple minutes at the end and then follow up on the blog so I kept adding slides I was working on this in Ireland and England there's just so much to say we really need hours to talk about this topic which is really interesting and important I think some basic tips on grants and fundraising and sustainability be sure you understand who's evaluating those grants who the audience is what they're thinking about what their criteria is in the selection always always read instructions create excitement in your work and be sure that your proposals are not boilerplate but they are very specific it's important to understand those agencies and foundations that you're applying to so look at their interval reports and look at understand how your application is going to be reviewed and if you can make contact with a program office or program officer do so because they can be your advocate they can provide advice not all foundations will be able to work with you in that way but some will and take advantage of that be sure that you have a very well organized narrative avoid jargon at all times ask your mother and father and your proposal ask friends to look it over you want to be sure that it engages people it excites people they understand what you're doing and why it's important and pay very careful attention to format as well don't cram everything into a narrative in an effort to share all your knowledge and all your excitement it has to be readable people are going to review it so be very careful about those issues think about of course what is focused on who what why and how much be sure you have a strong summary a strong abstract with states your capacities your capabilities what this is going to cost why it's important why they should fund it why is this problem significant not just to the work that you're doing not just to this community but perhaps to the state to the nation to the world when you think about who is interested why you're the best person to carry out this research what will be learned, why is it important when will the work be completed it's doable, it can be done in that time period and how will you accomplish it now the grants that you're writing are going to vary from one to another some of you are simply writing proposals to do research others might be assisting an institution in trying to raise money for their preservation projects that you'll be involved in so obviously these are just some things to think about demonstrating your knowledge and suitability for research is important why should you be the one to do this be sure that you're constantly thinking long term about the results and emphasizing the impact why should that institution that organization invest in this project be certain that your budget is justified and reasonable and this is where things seem to unravel in many cases check the math, don't inflate your numbers but don't underestimate them demonstrate that you've researched this that you really thought carefully about how their funds will be expended and that the budget I think we lost Debbie's audio again Debbie I'm not sure if you can hear us but we can hear you I think she probably can see that okay in the meantime well hopefully Debbie gets back on the line we really appreciate all of you writing questions throughout the call and we are definitely going to be as Eliza said before posting this and responding to questions on the blog and we're keeping a record of all the questions that are being asked Molly can you hear me okay I'm back can you hear me let me just run through we're almost done final fundraising thoughts to be consistent to state your objectives clearly focus on your credibility why should you receive that funding demonstrate your knowledge and your passion which is clear follow the outline right clearly be specific your budget is transparent and review and review and allow plenty of time to prepare that proposal so you have ample time to review there are many resources we'll post these on the blog that have been suggested to me and to others that focus on some of the subjects that we've talked about networking advocacy fundraising presentation skills communication skills and you can find those on the blog so perhaps by some miracle we'll have time for maybe one question share your vision be vigilant share your enthusiasm be proactive volunteer for committees and service of all kinds cultivate your mentors again they are anxious to work with you anxious to help you anxious to celebrate your accomplishments that you need to keep them updated and always think beyond conservation in ways that you can present advance our field so my final thoughts don't let it be together we can and you will work it out be positive and pleasant give back always show initiative send postcards here I mean just stay in contact with people life is so much about connections about collaborations about partnership send emails send a postcard stay on people's radar help to create new opportunities that none of us may have ever imagined foster collaboration be on time of course people value that have your voices heard share your knowledge we want to hear from you your input is essential do not whine do not complain but certainly hustle where you can I end the PowerPoint we have a little bit of time for Q&A but not so much for which I apologize but with a fantastic image of Paul McCartney taken by Harry Benson who I had the privilege of meeting a number of years ago and a wonderful quote which is the last song recorded by the Beatles the end and one that I think really begins to speak to all this and in the end the love you make is equal to and in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make you know it's all about people it's all about connections it's about building those collaborations it's about working globally it's about being a strong advocate passion your enthusiasm your knowledge and your skills this PowerPoint just has some ideas of which there are many many more that all of you can contribute I'm sure and if we were in a large room first of all we wouldn't have to deal with my phone cutting off but more importantly we would see each other and we could all share our own experiences which are vast and rich and you know something that certainly we can do on the blog it's not in person so Eliza there is just a little bit of time I realized but if there are any questions that you want to share with me we could do so and I will put up just a slide here that shows some of the many people who contributed to thoughts that have been assembled in this PowerPoint Thank you so much Debbie that was so fantastic full of lots of good information and I think one person wrote a question in on the blog that kind of covers what we've been discussing today which is how do you think job requirements have changed for recent graduates over the past few years is it more important now than previously to be more adaptable to be able to fundraise essentially really to wear many hats and I think I've already I think that wearing a many hats is certainly important I do think it sort of depends on where you are in your career we wouldn't expect a recent graduate to have significant experience with fundraising but here's something that's interesting that's what I always tell my graduate students and this would be true graduate students across the campus when I speak with them in all disciplines when you apply for a Georgetown grant you're applying for a grant and if you receive it put it on your resume those grants begin to accumulate and they demonstrate your ability to be an advocate to pursue this funding so you may not have written an NEH grant or an IMLS grant but you can demonstrate that you have a commitment to finding these resources and you in fact have been very successful finding resources for yourself and that can demonstrate those abilities in general I think that you know yeah certainly in terms of jobs we're looking for individuals who can demonstrate a range of experiences in conservation from documentation to prevent a conservation knowledge treatment skills and assessment skills critical thinking but maybe more than ever we're also looking for team building and collaboration and partnerships and advocacy work and public engagement and outreach could be an entire other subject for a webinar all the opportunities to do so virtually and in person and documenting what you've done because I think people are sometimes surprised about what they have actually accomplished but it may not be captured well in a resume so yes the broader categories are certainly something that individuals are looking for but I think many people have that kind of experience they just may not have documented it well thanks Debbie that's great and Molly do we have time for one more question I was yes let's go ahead one more another question Debbie how do you communicate the complexities of conservation treatment and the depth of knowledge required of conservators to individuals with little exposure little or no exposure to what we do well gosh that's a good question but I think we find that we do it sort of all the time by just talking about the basics the basics of conservation preservation it's hard to answer that without knowing the context of that question I do a lot of teaching around the world I just returned from teaching a workshop for 41 participants from collections throughout Ireland it was about the preservation of photographic materials but most of those participants were archivist curators, librarians non individuals from the military and they really had very little knowledge at that point about conservation preservation starting with the basics of figuring out where they are but making sure that you communicate sort of fundamentals of conservation in terms of ethics and philosophy which is always key in some of that decision making that is critical to our profession is important the interdisciplinary nature of it but you need to be able to do that because that information is needed and you just have to sort of figure out where someone is and start the basics and build from there and you can build pretty quickly and you can advance someone's knowledge but start with those building blocks and it can be done Debbie, just to jump in I feel like at the most recent AIC annual meeting in Albuquerque a lot of the presentations several that I heard anyway really address that issue of communication to the public and advocate for your institution and so a lot of those papers were summarized on the blog if you weren't at the annual meeting and what we could do and I'll post a few links to some of those papers that were particularly addressing that topic if people want some more information or ideas we could do that. That was a terrific meeting and there is a lot of information online and I think those individuals who spoke would also be happy to speak with individuals who are interested in learning more about what they did and how they did so it sort of does depend of course whether you're advocating for conservation and speaking to allied professionals or to the public at large and the public at large would be a whole other set of conversations I feel in photograph conservation so fortunate really because the public relates immediately to photography and so you have a link and you have a direct connection and you can engage them quickly and immediately and that is so important because if the public doesn't believe in what we do is at risk and we all and I think conservation is doing such a wonderful job in this regard really engaging the public. Everyone on this call I'm sure who is listening is involved in some level of public engagement, public outreach is rewarding and important and it builds connections because you never know who's in that audience who has the opportunity to help you and for that reason welcome those opportunities to speak to the public always say yes I don't have time here to tell you the many stories of some of the people I've encountered in public audiences and what's resulted from that but it's usually really great things so Molly I think that's a great point and that meeting was quite terrific and another resource that I will point everybody out to well I'm not really it's 11 my time so I guess it's been it's 2 okay sorry and just to add to what you said I will also make a plug for AICs developing public relations and outreach toolkit which is being developed on the AIC Wiki and this is a collaborative project that is looking for input from all conservation professionals so I would encourage everybody to look also their personal information on speaking to the public and PR and outreach. There's some really great resources and they're already and we're looking for more suggestions so that's another link that we can provide in our follow up blog post I think also I know on the demographic which I'm sorry I lost some of the polls but I know there are numbers who are online who are pre-program candidates and in that case again ECPN has just been such a terrific resource please connect with them they will be enormously helpful to you and this is just one of many webinars and so I suspect Eliza, Molly and others will definitely welcome your thoughts on the kinds of topics that would be useful to you this is sort of a big survey it covers a lot of ground we can drill down certainly on some of these we can do hours on fundraising and grant writing but also how to prepare for graduate study it's another possibility so please let everyone know what you would like to hear about Thank you Debbie and I'm so sorry to draw this conversation to a close but it has to end because I'm sure people have to get on for their days but we I know we can't hear everybody out there I'm sure everybody would be there would be a round of applause if we could but we really appreciate your time putting this together and speaking with us today and we really appreciate everybody else who is out there listening in and your questions and we hope this is the first in a series and an ongoing series of these webinars and we'd love to hear from you about topics so please be in touch with us and just to remind everybody we'll be summarizing this call and posting any additional unanswered questions on the blog as soon as we figure out the best way to share this recorded session we hope to post it to the AIC website and we will let everybody know once we do that and and also a final thanks to Eliza, Stephanie Lucia, Eric for show Brian Winfield, Ruth Seiler and to all of our ACPN officers and to AIC for making this forum possible today so thank you so much and we'll look forward to hearing from you on the blog and otherwise in the future and thanks again so much Debbie Oh, it was my pleasure it was a lot of fun, I enjoyed it I just only wish again that I could see you all but thank you all for signing up and let us know if you have any questions Okay, thank you, bye Goodbye I'll leave you with this fantastic image Thanks, it is fantastic Bye Bye