Quantifying the Arts in this Moment: A Community Conversation

Please join us for the second in our series of community conversations, following up on June 30’s Mapping Creative Futures: A Community Conversation. From that discussion, we pulled out several topics that participants marked for further exploration. September 16th’s discussion will explore the productive tension between the need for “return on investment” or quantifying the value of the arts (in economic terms, audience numbers, etc.) versus the pitfalls of minimizing the influence of the arts through reliance on these reductive measures alone. We will address the current impacts of this tension in higher education, such as the effects on financial aid eligibility, faculty lines, and degree programs, when measured by salary potentials of arts graduates; for example, a recent estimate shows that almost 1 in 5 music masters programs may lose eligibility for federal student loans as a result of emerging federal legislation. We will also discuss issues such as making artist methodology visible as research, and the tension between creative practice as a standalone practice versus applied research; the “metrics” of arts’ faculty outputs; and the impact of generative AI on the economics of arts and our graduates. We will address concrete measures a2ru members have taken in these areas and generate additional action items.

This conversation will be moderated by a2ru executive committee members, Jason Freeman, Associate Vice Provost for the Arts at Georgia Tech, and Sonia Hirt, Dean and Hughes Professor in Landscape Architecture and Planning at the University of Georgia. Event is free but must register to get link. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScWFJ387TwPRabXBMmenWyF2qGZSGvWTz3-5KzwMcv_xWMipw/viewform