An Adaptable Protocol for Understanding Arts Assets on a College Campus
What have we got, and why does it matter?
Surfacing and making sense of all the arts assets on a campus requires planning and effort, but is vitally important. A clear understanding of an institution’s arts landscape can:
- demonstrate the unique experiences of students who engage with the arts, and how those experiences impact their lives and careers
- enable an assessment of the value of the arts, and how the arts may benefit those on and around campus, the institution itself, and society
- identify gaps and needs
- enable university leadership to make data-informed decisions about the arts
- establish benchmarks for longitudinal analysis
- contribute data towards research into the arts in U.S. higher education, with far-reaching impacts
A two-phase process
a2ru shares our project at the University of Michigan (U-M) as an adaptable model of how to set about this process of understanding the full dynamic picture of the arts on campus.
The U-M project had two phases, both done in close partnership with the U-M Arts Initiative. The Arts Initiative provided funding for both phases, and Arts Initiative staff was integral to the design, execution, and contextualization of the project.
In Phase 1, we collected existing quantitative arts data at U-M; in Phase 2, we turned to qualitative methods such as surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Pragmatically, a quantitative Phase 1 can be accomplished with datasets (e.g., enrollment, arts offerings) that are readily available at most institutions, whereas the qualitative research of a Phase 2 likely involves collecting new data. As a result, Phase 2 requires more effort, funding, and institutional buy-in.
Phase 1: Mapping
Starting with existing statistics and lists can provide an outline of what is on campus—arts spaces, people, activities, etc. The goal is to provide a fairly comprehensive map or inventory of arts assets. When we say “arts assets,” we mean all the ways the arts are present, including the following categories we uncovered at U-M:
- arts courses offered as a major or as an elective
- enrollment trends across majors
- student-led arts organizations and endeavors
- arts institutions like a university gallery or performing arts presenter
- informal and formal presentation spaces for the arts
- studios and other work spaces
- outputs like performances, publications, broadcasts, and exhibitions
- public art on campus
- faculty creative practice and research
- staff who work in arts-dedicated units as well as in maker-spaces and arts libraries
- leadership roles in the arts
- initiatives at the campus-wide and at the grassroots levels
These categories are a jumping-off point for research. There are many more ways that the arts show up on campus, and a2ru encourages those undertaking a project like this to think broadly, taking into account their institution’s unique culture and history.
Creating a map of arts assets using existing data involves data acquisition, cleaning, synthesis, visualization, and presentation.
Phase 2: Sense-making
Including the voices of individuals—collected through surveys, interviews, or focus groups—adds dimension to the Phase 1 map. The storytelling that emerges out of this process demonstrates why the arts matter and how people engage with them. Designing surveys and interview protocols is an opportunity to get answers to the specific questions that matter on a given campus. Even more, Phase 2 research can specifically link assets to outcomes, enabling institutional leaders to make informed decisions about the arts.
a2ru’s Phase 2 research at U-M included an arts participation survey administered to a broad cross-section of faculty and staff, interviews with arts administrators with extensive experience leading arts programs on campus, interviews with faculty and staff at U-M’s Dearborn and Flint campuses, interviews with arts research/creative practice deans and directors, and a focus group with arts leaders from the community surrounding U-M. A centerpiece of this qualitative research is the Arts Engagement Project, a longitudinal survey-based study of students at U-M. ArtsEngine, a unit at U-M, leads this large-scale study and contributed relevant findings to the Phase 2 U-M report. All of these surveys, interviews, and focus groups were chosen and designed in response to the most pressing research questions at U-M.
Sense-making for on-campus arts assets starts with determining research questions for this phase. It requires designing survey and/or interview protocols, administering surveys, scheduling and doing interviews, analyzing responses, synthesis, visualization, and presentation.
It is our hope that schools who undertake arts asset-mapping or sense-making on their campuses will share both their process and results with a2ru. We seek to refine a shareable, flexible schema for this work as well as build a clearer picture of the arts in higher education across the country.
(Use the PDF “Bookmarks” function for easier navigation through the full report.)