a2ru Releases Annual Report for 2020-2021
Jun 7, 2022
a2ru’s newest annual report, covering both 2020 and 2021 calendar years, is now available.
As a2ru Executive Director Maryrose Flanigan writes in the report, “A dramatically changed landscape forms the backdrop for our report this year…In late February 2020 we—along with everyone else—marched in a new, unanticipated direction.”
The report details a2ru’s virtual offerings during and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including two online national conferences in 2020 and 2021, a webinar series sharing online teaching strategies within and across arts disciplines, and a mini-symposium on arts and public health. In 2020, we also launched our “Steps Towards Change” programming track at our national conferences, in response to the national reckonings around race-based violence and systemic racism in America’s institutions.
Flanigan notes, “If 2020 was a challenging transition year, 2021 was full of exciting new beginnings.” In Summer 2021, a2ru launched both its new, expanded membership model as well as the redesign of a2ru.org.
This has also been a fruitful time for a2ru’s research and publication activities: we completed a joint study on artists on STEMM research teams with the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR), which will be released this summer on a2ru.org, and published a set of three books on the impacts of the arts within universities, which are avaible on our website now. a2ru’s online journal Ground Works also launched an exciting partnership with Leonardo/ISAST to document the processes of the artists in their CripTech Incubator program.
Learn more about these and other initiatives by downloading the 2020-2021 Annual Report.