I’m back from an intense discussion experience at the American Assembly, focusing on how higher education and the performing arts can create more synergy and support of each other’s mission and goals. According to one author in the event’s prep packet:
The great, unheralded art patron of the 20th century is the American university.
Looking back over the last 50 to 100 years, that has most certainly been the case:
- college- and university-based performing arts halls were the early backbone of touring performances (often the only venues in their communities) since the 1950s, spreading access to astounding artists between the affluent coasts;
- higher education is a primary employer of working artists, composers, technical support specialists, and others that have kept the performing arts thriving through the salaries, health benefits, arts spaces, and other support provided by higher ed.;
- colleges and universities are also among the last remaining major commissioners of new creative work, increasingly through consortia and partnerships with each other.
While some of our collective discussions celebrated the vital history of this connection, the bulk was spent exploring where the promise and potential isn’t yet realized, and why the relationship is still so awkward in many cases. The creative activities of arts faculty don’t always match the academic requirements of tenure. The potential synergy between art forms, departments, and resident performing arts professionals is often blocked or discouraged by complex policy and ‘silo’ structures. And the training of a new generation of professional artists and performers seems disconnected from the challenges and opportunities they will face in the world.
Conversations like this one are a great beginning (a final report will likely be out by mid-year). But they bring to mind the three basic questions worthy of any nonprofit cultural or heritage organization:
- What is our stated purpose (what we want to do and be in the world)?
- What is the evidence of our actions and choices (how do we select people, reward people, and engage with people as we move along our way)?
- Is there consistency or disconnection between the answers we discover to these two questions above?
The ‘we’ in these questions can be a number of clusters — from a single college or university, to a music conservatory, to the whole connected ecosystem of the live performing arts (K-12 education, undergraduate, graduate, and professional).
It’s astounding to ask these seemingly simple questions of any nonprofit arts organization (or of ourselves). If we can be open and honest in their answers, we may more quickly discover why we’re always so frustrated with our results.
