RAMP
Real-World Artist Mentorship Program
The UH Real-World Artist Mentorship Program (RAMP) offers career prosperity training, presented by Houston-based UH alumni artist-entrepreneurs or educators. Each year, we select and cellebrate a new cohort of menotrs, who have successfully transitioned from college into financially secure, fulfilling careers. These successful artist alumni offer career advice presentations and consultations to current UH students.
Additionally, a select group of UH undergraduate musicians, theater makers, dancers, and visual artists participate in intensive, one-to-one mentorship and collaboration with these professional mentors. The selected undergraduate mentees receive scholarships, participate in a weekly seminar, and complete a final community performance or education project.
Mentors
Edgar Guajardo
Jackson Guillén
All About RAMP!
About the Program
The UH Real-World Artist Mentorship Program (RAMP) offers career prosperity training, presented by Houston-based UH alumni artist-entrepreneurs or educators, who have successfully transitioned from college into financially secure, fulfilling careers.
We are looking for UH undergraduate musicians, theater makers, dancers, and visual artists participate in intensive, one-to-one mentorship and collaboration with these professional artist/entrepreneur mentors.
For questions about eligibility or the status of your application, please email caa@central.uh.edu.
Eligibility
Eligibility:
- Applicants must be an undergraduate College of Arts major, entering their sophomore, junior, or senior years.
- Applicants must be planning to be enrolled at UH for the the full '24-25 school year, not graduating before May 2025.
- Applicants must be full-time students, in good academic standing.
Program Benefits and Expectations
Program Benefits and Expectations:
- Selected undergraduate mentees will receive a $2,000 scholarship, awarded in the summer 2024.
- Selected mentees must participate in eight weekly, 90-minute zoom seminars over the summer, with other selected mentee students and the director of UH Community Arts, Evan Leslie.
- Selected students are expected to organize regular, weekly interactions with their mentors, through out the summer. When possible, mentees are expected to observe their mentor at their work, assist and collaborate with their mentor.
- Selected students are expected to maintain a journal, answering weekly prompts and summarizing their weekly takeaways with their mentor. Journal entries will be discussed and occasionally evaluated during weekly seminars with the mentee cohort.
- During the 2024-2025 school year, mentees will produce and facilitate a public interview with their mentor as part of our Artist Round Table Series.
- In preparation for this on-campus presentation, students and mentors will focus on career prosperity topics, such as budgeting/finance, healthcare and wellness, professional publicity, and networking. These presentations will be recorded and added to a career resource repository on the UH Music and the UH Art and Architecture Library websites.
- Final community performance or education project: Mentees and mentors will continue to interact one-to-one in the fall, in preparation for a final project of the mentee. The projects may be presented collaboratively with their mentor and may be incorporated into one of the mentor’s professional projects, or presented at UH, at a public library, school, or other community venue.
- Option to enroll in a three-hour independent study course. Check with your advisor to find out if an independent study course would help you fulfill a degree requirement.
Schedule Summary
- Late April through early June: mentees are selected and begin one-to-one meetings/correspondence/collaboration with their mentors
- June 1: Mentors receive their RAMP Journal Prompts
- Weekly Zoom meetings begin Monday, June 10, 6:00 - 7:30PM, and continue through Monday, August 5 (zoom meetings are tentatively scheduled on Monday evenings, but exact day and time may change, in order to accommodate student schedules).
- By August 5, student mentees must present their plans for their final community performance or education project.
- Fall 2024: three of six student mentees present public interviews with their mentors, scheduled strategically to reach the maximum number of UH students.
- Spring 2025: three of six student mentees present public interviews with their mentors, scheduled strategically to reach the maximum number of UH students.
- Final projects must be presented before the end of the 2024-2025 school term.
2024 Mentors
Visual Art
- Brian Ellison: multidisciplinary/performance artist, educator, and non-profit leader
- Alexis Pye: painter and concert producer
- Brittany Bass: dancer, educator, and arts administrator
- Edgar Guajardo: lighting designer and arts entrepreneur
- Cecilia Duarte: mezzo-soprano, recording artist, arts entrepreneur, and therapist in training
- Jackson Guillén: violinist/violist, educator, conductor, and community arts expert
Would you like to be considered as a future RAMP mentor?
Please email caa@uh.edu with your resume to express interest.
