April 2024 Alumni Spotlight
MPA alumna and Program Officer at the at the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Rachael Jenison discusses her interest in cultural policy, her research while in the Marxe MPA program, and more in this month’s spotlight.
How did you become interested in cultural policy?
I began my working life as an arts practitioner, working as an actor and co-running a small theatre company, so I always had an interest in the arts. But I got to a place where I was dissatisfied with the lack of structure and stability that comes with freelancing, and I decided to go back to school. When I started at Baruch, I was in the Arts Administration program at Weissman. I knew that I wanted to work in the arts, but I wasn’t sure what type of administration I wanted to practice. A turning point came when I took Cultural Policy with Heather Hitchens and learned a basic definition of policy as the process through which decision makers address problems. In learning more about the history of cultural policy in the United States and considering problems that are faced by the arts and cultural sector, from chronic underfunding and inequitable funding to issues that face artists such as lack of consistent or affordable health insurance and housing, something clicked, and I wanted to learn more and keep thinking critically about those issues. I was also interested in how the problems facing the cultural sector dovetailed with those facing the larger non-profit sector and how those problems were being addressed and considered, so I ended up transferring to Marxe.
What sort of research and evaluation did you do while at Marxe and how did Marxe faculty help?
First of all, being in the MPA program was an opportunity to learn how to research and how research and evaluation aid in policy analysis from identifying a problem, to using data to better understand it, to recommending solutions for how to address it. While at Marxe, I became interested in arts education policy. There has historically been inequity in the U.S. in how arts education resources are distributed and in access to arts education, so it was a robust problem to consider and one where, while strides have been made toward closing the equity gap, there is still work to be done. Many of the courses at Marxe provided an opportunity for deliberation on this problem and a foundation for researching it: Research and Analysis I and II, including using statistics in analysis, Communication in Public Settings, but where I really got to put everything together was in the Capstone project. Professor Smith and his guidance through the process were invaluable. He walked us through choosing a research question, appropriate methodologies, literature reviews, and provided feedback along the way as we were writing. For myself and I think for many of us wrapping up our time at Marxe, this was the first time or the first time in a long time that we had ventured into this type of long form research and so having a strong structure for how to approach the project and receiving regular feedback made the process less daunting.
Tell us about your career transition over the last couple of years.
While I was at Marxe, I was fortunate enough to have a full-time job, even if I didn’t find it entirely satisfying. This gave me some breathing room as I was applying for jobs coming out of the MPA program. I knew at the time that I wanted policy analysis to be a component of my next step, but when I looked at job postings, I noticed that many required experience working with data and statistical analysis software. Though I had gotten some of this experience at Marxe, my course load was such that I didn’t have the time to delve deeply into data analysis. Simultaneously, I had been tracking a Program Officer position at the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs as my skill set seemed to fit neatly into the parameters of the grants administrator role. So, when I saw an AmeriCorps position at DCLA posted that focused on research and evaluation, I thought it might be a good opportunity to get the experience that I was looking for working with data and potentially get my foot in the door for a full-time position. Taking the opportunity to serve as an AmeriCorps member was a risk. It paid a stipend not a salary, and as a career transitioner, I was older than many of my fellow members. There was also a fair amount of ambiguity involved – it was a short-term position, and I didn’t know what the outcome of my time there was going to be. However, it was worth the risk: I was able to gain experience working with data and to supplement that with an online course on data analysis, was able to deepen my knowledge of the cultural sector and to add value and be of service by putting what I was learning back into the agency, which culminated in my spearheading an internal study.
What has your position as Program Officer at the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs been like thus far? Are there any particular challenges you’ve overcome?
I’m a few months into my new full-time role as Program Officer and it’s been great. The biggest challenge has been balancing the workload that comes with administering grants with continued research and evaluation responsibilities. I wouldn’t say that challenge is overcome but in process. An exciting challenge has been working collaboratively with other members of the team to evaluate the agency’s recent equity-based reforms to the grant-making process and to use that evaluation to iterate in ways that are responsive to the field and in line with the agency’s published reform goals.
