a2ru Collaborates with CU Denver and Penn State on Creativity & Belonging Census

Aug 18, 2022

At a2ru, we are keenly interested in how the arts show up not only in the higher education sector but also in industry. After all, most of our students will be working in that sector at one point in their careers. We are eager to not only quantify the skills and knowledge that practice and research in the arts can provide for students, but also to figure out how our graduates can thrive in the workplace. There is a new survey that will get us the research to inform our industry strategy, measuring the value of creative competencies, and complete a census on creativity and belonging.

The 2022 Workforce Census: Creativity & Belonging in America is a collaborative effort between the Imaginator Academy at the University of Colorado Denver, Penn State, the a2ru network. and a cohort of national partner organizations to assess the future of creativity in America’s workforce. Watch the brief video below to learn more about the survey.

This Workforce Census is poised to address advocacy points we have seen in the a2ru network: How do training in creative competencies prepare students for an ever-changing workplace? How can the creative skills a2ru-aligned institutions foster for their students transform industry? This ambitious creativity, inclusion and human experience assessment has great potential to accelerate our casemaking for training in the arts, creative competencies and collaboration. Your participation is critical to finding new opportunities for advancing the next generation of arts education and its advocacy. We cannot wait to discover the potential of this research project and urge you to take the survey and share the link so many others can participate as well.

Please complete the survey by September 13, 2022. Participation takes only 10 minutes. 

The 3 primary benefits of high participation are:

1.    Building bridges between the arts, science and business.

2.    Finding opportunities for more creative job opportunities and increased investment in the arts.

3.    Helping the a2ru network advocate for arts integration in teaching, research, and practice.

This October we will host a webinar to outline the foundational research that led to these new survey questions–and we will be ready to release preliminary results and codify the overlapping areas in the a2ru network between entrepreneurship, research, leadership, and equity.

For more information on this project please visit the Imaginator Academy website.