Attenborough Arts Centre works hard to support students at the University of Leicester, whether it be by creating accessible social spaces to work within or offering first-hand work experience to students across departments. Today, we are proud to announce that one of our summer placement students from the Museum Studies MA, Paige Manning, has received a prestigious award called the Raymond Singleton Prize for her outstanding contributions she completed during her placement with us.
Named after the founder and first Director of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, the Raymond Singleton Prize is selected by a Board of Examiners for the student who has made the most outstanding contribution during their work placement as part of their Masters studies. From July to September, Paige Manning undertook a Marketing and Engagement placement with us to gain first-hand experience of working in the cultural sector. During her time two months Paige was able to complete diverse work such as PR and copywriting, creating creative outputs like Welcome Week flyers for students, and analysing the student body at the University of Leicester with the aid of current research into engagement practices to further our reach.
‘It was such an incredible experience to work within a centre that places accessibility and diversity at the heart of their work, to explore more avenues for greater engagement and understanding for underrepresented audiences’ ,says Paige, ‘I was supported so well by the whole team, my fellow placement students Maria and Alice, and my supervisor Adam Unwin. This award came as such a lovely surprise!’
During her time here, she impressed the whole team with her in-depth research into audience development that was presented expertly to great success. Her work has been taken forward by the team itself to further the reach of the centre within student avenues and beyond. ‘Paige created an audience plan to market the Centre to students, and this was all done as if they were controlling a whole project and campaign,’ says her supervisor, AAC Marketing Officer Adam Unwin, ‘and this prize is the least she deserves for her efforts.’
At the end of the placement Michaela Butter MBE, Director of Attenborough Arts, sent an email to the Museum Studies team about how impressed she was by Paige’s work and how much value she added to their work.
We want to congratulate Paige on her fantastic work during her placement, and we are so pleased to announce that her work here has led her to a position here right here! In mid-October Paige joined the team at Attenborough Arts Centre as our Junior Copywriter, and has been assisting the marketing team in creating incredible writing. We cannot wait to see Paige’s work flourish more at the centre and we are so glad she is part of our team.