Fred Kirschnit in the New York Post rants about what’s wrong with America’s top conservatories, suggesting they focus on technical excellence over creative voice. Says he:
I’m not suggesting that the practical side of the classical music curriculum be ignored, but the conventional conservatory wisdom is so antithetical to artistic excellence as to be positively frightening. The message from administrators and those teachers who follow the party line is that, in order to be successful, the aspirant must stand out as more technically proficient than his peers, but should never be perceived as outside of the main stream. If Joshua Bell had gone to Juilliard instead of Indiana University, he would never have developed his signature portamento.
The article recalls Daniel Pink’s essay in the February 2004 Harvard Business Review, about how ”The MFA is the New MBA” (not available on-line). Said Pink:
…businesses are realizing that the only way to differentiate their goods and services in today’s overstocked, materially abundant marketplace is to make their offerings transcendent — physically beautiful and emotionally compelling. Think iMac computers, Design Within Reach, and Target aisles full of Isaac Mizrahi women’s wear and Michael Graves toilet brushes. Or just listen to auto industry legend Robert Lutz. When Lutz took over as chairman of General Motors North America, a journalist asked him how his approach would differ from his predecessor’s. Here’s what he said: ”It’s more right brain …. I see us as being in the art business. Art, entertainment, and mobile sculpture, which, coincidentally, also happens to provide transportation” General Motors — General Motors! — is in the art business. So, now, are we all.
Pink perceives the MFA as a bursting source of creative energy and talent (and the MBA as the opposite). Kirschnit suggests that focused, artistic training is anything but artistic. Both writer’s expose a common tension among MFA and MBA programs between teaching students for the jobs that used to exist, preparing them for jobs that will exist, and fostering creative and engaged individuals for a world that should exist.
I agree… conservatory programs, more and more, are turning out cookie-cutter robots who have intense technical training but no sense of place or purpose. It’s scary how many MFA-credentialed actors I’ve encountered who have never heard of Bertolt Brecht.
I think that’s a big part of the problem. These folks are being trained to be well-oiled vessels, not true creators.
So, you know, the question has to be asked since you didn’t offer your own view. As a guy running an MBA in arts management program, do you feel the MBA focus drains your program of the creativity an MFA might afford it?
Or are you essentially offering an MFA with more rigorous business classes than the typical MFA program might have?
Or since the transition recently occurred, is it too early to tell what evil influences the MBA program will have on the arts students. (Did I mention I have an MFA 😉 )
But kidding aside, on the other side of the coin, are there any signs that the inclusion of arts people in the MBA classes are impressing the value of creative thinking on the “mainstream” MBA students?
Obviously, I have no idea to what extent the students are interacting, but it is an interesting thought.
There was a Fast Company article I blogged on about a professor at Duke U that takes his students to Broadway to learn leadership skills. There is as much that business can learn from the arts as the arts can learn about good business practices.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/28/broadway.html
Joe,
So many juicy questions. I’ll try to publish a follow-up to this entry in the weeks to come, answering some of your questions on the MBA/MFA. As you can imagine, as director of an MBA, I think about this a lot.
As a recent (2005) graduate of a mainstream MBA course with a MA in Cultural History from the RCA (London) and an arts practice background, I feel privileged to have acquired the confidence of being a trailblazer in the arts.
My passion for the arts as a civilising influence and its accessibility to all has led me to realise that the survival of artists relies on their adoption of business and career skills.
Far too much importance is attached to creative and conceptual, not technical, excellence, which in many cases stands for the uncompromising and impenetrable taste dictates of the few who set this paradigm through their power over public funding.
In undergraduate school, very little actual technical ability is introduced to students. It isn’t until the master’s programs and advanced academics that the student is truly immersed in the utilitarian fundamentals of technique and application, as well as the business of art, including how to appeal to mass markets. If a student knows they are not likely to advance to an MFA program, it is unlikely they will receive much exposure to these specific aspects. I believe that undergraduate school is where free thinking is encouraged, much the same way one nurtures a child, then introduces responsibility as they mature.
I assume that by the time someone has progressed to a master’s program they have already explored the creative inspirations that draw them to the arts in the first place, and have some working knowledge of how to tap back into that. I think the bigger problem occurring in the last ten years especially, is that LESS is expected in an undergraduate level.
The master’s degree today is what the bachelor’s degree was fifteen to twenty years ago. The undergraduate years have become a solid waste of time and money, and only accomplish what our high schools used to.
This is just my opinion, based on my own observations during a span of the last 16 years in undergraduate academics in three institutions across the nation…for what that’s worth.
It feels limiting to equate “education” with “training” in either an artistic program or a business degree. “Training” suggests the transmittal of specific skills that have direct application in a particular setting — for example, learning the technique of playing the tuba or the becoming proficient in accounting. “Education” ideally encompasses a much broader pursuit, such as developing aesthetic judgment, learning to see work in historic context, being able to ask discerning questions, and finding connections across disciplines.
A good program balances training and education and understands the difference between the two. It also gives students access to opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise have, such as networking with alumni, connecting with professionals in the field, obtaining grant funding for their own projects, participating in research, and accessing space and technology for exploring new work.