By Stephen R. Wolcott

It looks like a big, salmon monolith. It’s got a huge, gilded, hood-ornament-of-a fountain surrounded by life-size statues from television’s Golden Age. Aside from a few paparazzi-filled affairs, the place seems pretty lifeless, an image not helped by some empty storefront windows. What goes on at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, anyway? Is its sole purpose to simply dole out dubious awards to itself once a year?

What follows is a small glimpse into a few intriguing areas of that enigmatic structure. But first let me qualify myself. I’m currently a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (A.T.A.S.) who also happens to be a skeptic. I joined simply because I qualified (thanks to three television credits and three member sponsors). I also wanted to see movies in a really cool theatre close to my house, where I knew the audiences would be somewhat controlled. But I am leery of any organization with enough money to erect an icon of “Lucy” sitting giddily in its front yard.

After a few months of screenings, I started to investigate what other niceties the place had to offer. First, I discovered the Academy was one of the only organizations of its kind to offer highly professional workshops to its members (and not in some guy’s living room, either). The directors’ group, for instance, meets at the Burbank Studio Ranch. I joined the writers’ group, where I eventually pumped out a feature and a few sit-com samples in a very nurturing environment.

After a while, I started getting fliers in the mail for free lectures and one-day seminars. This year, A.T.A.S. made the headlines by hosting the “Superhighway Summit,” a symposium on the future of telecommunications that featured such movers and shakers as Michael Eisner and Barry Diller, plus a key-note address by Vice-President Al Gore.

Then one day I was asked to vote on some student videos for the annual College Student Awards. The committee I hooked up with spent one afternoon viewing documentaries from around the country from little, unheard-of colleges in the Midwest to more famous establishments like U.S.C. and N.Y.U.

The woman in charge, Price Hicks, was dead serious about picking only the best, and the rules were so rigid that many potential winners were quickly disqualified. As the day progressed, I found out that Hicks serves as director of the Educational Programs and Services Department —- a branch of the Academy dedicated to doing something for the greater good of education.

“We tend to focus on three main areas,” Hicks told me. “The college awards, faculty seminars, and the student internship program.”

Faculty seminars require Hicks to travel across the United States to about ten campuses a year, discussing with teachers the ever-changing rules of Hollywood. This enables them to pass on the most current and useful industry information to their pupils.

The Academy’s student internship program has been selected as one of the top ten internship programs in the United States by the 1995 edition of The Princeton Review. Ms. Hicks, who has headed the program for the past ten years, offered a quick back-ground sketch.

“This is the 27th year of the Academy’s internship program, which began as a modest local program and was conducted for six weeks in the summer without a stipend,” she said. “Academy members serve as judges, sifting through endless pages of application materials to select the finalists. I’m always amazed at the care, the concern, and meticulous attention the judges bring to the process.”

This year the judges looked at 654 entries from 223 schools and 41 states. From these, 167 judges helped to select 28 students to serve 24 areas of the television industry (from writing to editing, animation to music). And the Academy pays each winner a $1,600 stipend and a $300 travel allowance if they live outside of Los Angeles. The students are required to sign a contract and promise to work a full, 40-hour week during the internship period.

Hicks is quick to point out that the program has undergone a lot of changes over the years, in order to improve its effectiveness. John Nachreiner, the first intern to sit on the Academy’s Board of Governors, came through the apprenticeship in its early stages.

“In 1972, you only got to watch what was going on. And I didn’t get paid. There were problems with the Union, in my case, and I couldn’t join. But they seem to have overcome some of those hurdles.”

Muriel, one of the Educational Program Service administrators, states that many of the successful interns come from unlikely training grounds, such as Missouri, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

“People have erroneous ideas that everyone in television comes from U.S.C., N.Y.U., or U.C.L.A.,” she says. “It’s not true.”

In July, I attended a gala reception at the Fox Television Studios to honor this year’s winners in the internship program. Many of the hosts (from such series as Picket Fences and Mad About You) had nothing but genuine praise for their interns. Past winners were also in attendance, and when they started to rattle off their accomplishments, I was stunned. A number of these former apprentices have gone on to write, direct, and produce television shows and films in a relatively short period of time. A short list includes Martin Bruestle, co-producer of Northern Exposure, Toni Perling, story editor for Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, and Brannon Braga, who started in the offices of Star Trek: the Next Generation. He subsequently wrote several Trek episodes and recently finished penning the next Star Trek motion picture.

Rick Ouellete is one of several interns who have decided to return the favor and become sponsors themselves. As Senior Producer of on-air promotions at NBC, he knows how tough it is to get that foot in the door and how the Academy’s program can be enormously helpful.

“To get a job today, it’s almost a prerequisite to have some sort of real-world experience, and the only way to get it is to have an internship,” he says. “In other parts of the country, there’s an aura around Los Angeles. And when you come here, and finally punch through that and are inside and a real participant in everything that’s going on, it’s a pretty amazing experience.”

Indeed.