TIME AND STAFF

Although both institutions found that undertaking the project was in all of its aspects well worth the effort and resources they expended, both institutions commented on the necessity of allotting an appropriate and realistic amount of time to complete the project. Piecing together the three components necessitated by the grant-the public program, the intern project, and the new exhibit-translated into, as Executive Director Conley stated, a "time consuming and serious endeavor." Because of this and of the fact that, as Arrow Rock Education Director Parsons stated, "the detail work was tremendous," both institutions recommend expanding the time allocated for the completion of the project components.

In the case of Arrow Rock's model project, the staff proposed a variety of ways one might carry out this expansion. First, as Executive Director Borgman stated, the "next time [the staff] work with student interns [they] will try to work over two semesters or do only two segments in one semester, such as research and writing." Doing this would increase the chances that work could be completed and skills could be taught without undo burden or haste on the part of the staff and interns. Secondly, the Friends of Arrow Rock staff realized that they had "bitten off an awful lot" in trying to implement "a lot of new things in a very short period of time." So, by limiting a similar project in its scope-attempting fewer new tasks in a comparable time or attempting as many new tasks over a longer period of time-the Friends staff could eliminate or reduce some constraints they had experienced over the grant period.

The Black World History Museum, similar to the Friends of Arrow Rock, found that "trying to accomplish so much during the summer presented a serious challenge." As a result, Executive Director Conley suggested "start[ing] the project sooner." In this way, the museum could establish the core of interns and professionals before the start of summer, and thus make maximum use of the time relegated for the project. In addition, Ms. Conley stated in her final report that in the future she would like to "be sure to have additional staff or interns to assist with the project." Because the internship takes place during the summer, "one of the two most busy periods of [the museum's] operation," staff members often had difficulty balancing the time they needed to spend on the museum's operation and visitor services and the time training and supervising the interns required. As was briefly mentioned in the intern section of the report, hiring an additional staff member whose primary responsibility would be the supervision of the interns would "assure even greater outcomes" of a similar project.

Similarly, despite having an overall positive experience with various professionals and volunteers, Friends of Arrow Rock staff also found that a large amount of time was, by necessity, devoted to supervising both the interns and volunteers. As Kathy Borgman stated, "[we] couldn't just give someone something to do and walk away from it, like [we] could with another [staff member]." So, like for the Black World History Museum, limited staffing posed serious challenges for the Friends of Arrow Rock. However, Friends staff have considered ways in which they could tailor future projects to available resources and to what current staff is capable of doing. In the future, for example, the Friends of Arrow Rock could EITHER work with interns OR expand the volunteer pool instead of trying to coordinate both. Focusing on one group or the other would ease the burden on the staff, maximize the staff's use of time, and help the project to be more manageable to administer.