While most college students struggle just to keep up with classes, every year a group of Columbia College Chicago undergraduate and graduate students work on their own college-run record label. The student-managed, not-for-profit Arts, Entertainment & Media Management Program (AEMMP) provides concrete skills to students who are interested in going into the music business.

“(AEMMP) teaches you hands-on experience,” says second-year graduate student Tonya Harrell, this year’s AEMMP president. “It’s very practical because it’s taking you outside of the classroom. Sometimes the books can do that, but when you’re in real life situations, that’s another thing.”

AEMMP students, who are working toward a music business concentration, take a three-hour class once a week. Many of them plan on going into artist management or to record labels after graduation, and AEMMP gives them a head start on their future careers.

While the course is a requirement for graduate students, the program’s faculty advisor, Kevin Erickson, says he doesn’t have much trouble with lackluster class members not giving their all.

“A lot of the students that are in the class really want to be in it, which makes a big difference,” he says.

“It takes a lot of pro-activeness,” Harrell adds. “It really comes down to the students because if the students aren’t performing, then the project doesn’t happen.”

While the class only formally meets once a week, the work doesn’t end there.

“We put a whole lot of time into the project, a lot of it outside of class,” Harrell says. “There were some days that felt like I was working on a job, nine-to-five.”

For college students, that sort of effort requires juggling multiple activities and responsibilities at once.

The same can be said for many of the other 20 program participants, who have outside jobs along with their Columbia coursework and AEMMP project involvement.

“Many of the grad students (in particular) have other jobs,” Erickson says.

At the start of Columbia College’s first semester, all AEMMP students fill out applications for various positions at the record label. There are marketing, promotions and publicity, and sales/manufacturing departments as well as executive positions.

“It is empowering students to take control of a project,” says Erickson, who also works at Universal Sound while teaching at Columbia. “I’m here to offer guidance about questions they have about the music business.”

In past years, the big AEMMP project was putting out a solo artist record. But this year not only did the record label put out a compilation CD of Chicago musicians, but it also raised money for War Child USA, a national charity that helps children in war-torn areas across the globe. AEMMP released the CD, “Safe in Sound,” on March 22, along with a release party, and held a benefit concert at Metro Chicago on May 2.

The last event for this year’s group will be a concert at Manifest, an urban arts festival in Grant Park on May 27, featuring Chicago group Saraphine. Harrell estimates that AEMMP’s efforts have already raised close to $4,000 for War Child USA.

AEMMP students did all the planning and preparation for the events, including media coverage, commercial support, securing bands and venues, and advertising.

“This is a big, big, big project for a lot of us, a lot of challenges,” Harrell says. “But on that note it just came together. Our plan was to be the milestone group with the goal of bypassing the expectations of what AEMMP could do.”

“We pretty much accomplished every goal of this project,” she says. “I had a label executive come up to me and say, ‘What you’ve done in these last few months is what regular record labels have much more time to do.'”