The Virginia Book Arts (VBA) UVA Employee Apprenticeship is a yearlong professional development opportunity with the VBA (a non-profit receiving sponsorship from Virginia Humanities and Richmond’s public arts non-profit Studio Two Three).
The apprenticeship includes access to VBA’s workshops and other learning opportunities, as well as the options pursuing training or supervision, mentored time for practicing skills development, and advising on advanced applications to UVA roles (i.e. how to make this apprenticeship benefit UVA’s community through an employee’s particular job duties) as VBA is staffed to support these.
This skills-focused opportunity allows library and similar academic staff professionals to focus on learning and practicing the skills necessary to be able to independently practice, teach, facilitate UVA and/or public events and trainings, and otherwise apply historical, traditional, contemporary, and experimental book arts, communication technology, writing, and printing related craft and technology to their UVA roles. UVA employees work with VBA to identify a plan that fits their professional development needs; they’re then matched to one of three apprenticeship levels matching how advanced their supervising mentors and training need to be for the educational experience to benefit them further. This plan may emphasize skills related to teaching, public service, data and information work, and understanding of the history and technology underlying today’s library and academic staff work.
Learning activities take place over the course of one year following registration, as fits an employee’s work schedule needs. VBA instructors will provide supervision and confirmation of satisfactory learning at the completion of the professional development work.