ERIC ED539633: A Diverse Palette: What Arts Graduates Say about Their Education and Careers. Annual Report 2012

2012·2 MB·English

by  ERIC

A Diverse Palette: What Arts Graduates
Say About Their Education and Careers
Annual Report 2012
National Advisory Board Ann R. Markusen
Director, Arts Economy Initiative
Kenneth C. Fischer, Chair Humphrey School of Public Affairs
President, University Musical Society University of Minnesota
University of Michigan Minneapolis, Minnesota
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Carlos Martinez
Antonia Contro Principal, Gensler
Executive Director, Marwen Chicago, Illinois
Chicago, Illinois
M. Lee Pelton
Sarah Bainter Cunningham President, Emerson College
Executive Director of Research, School of the Arts Boston, Massachusetts
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia Stephanie Perrin
Former Head, Walnut Hill School
Douglas Dempster Orleans, Massachusetts
Dean of Fine Arts, The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas Susan Petry
Chair, Department of Dance
Aaron Dworkin Ohio State University
Founder and President, The Sphinx Organization Columbus, Ohio
Ypsilanti, Michigan
Gwyn Richards
Chris Ford Dean, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music
Director, Baltimore School for the Arts Bloomington, Indiana
Baltimore, Maryland
Robert Sirota
Barbara Hauptman President, Manhattan School of Music
Visiting Assistant Professor, Arts Administration, New York, New York
Purchase College
Former Executive Director, Society of Stage
Funders
Directors and Choreographers
Purchase, New York Lead funding provided by:
Surdna Foundation
Samuel Hoi
President, Otis College of Art and Design Additional support from:
Los Angeles, California Houston Endowment
Barr Foundation
Colleen Jennings-Roggensack National Endowment for the Arts
Executive Director for ASU Gammage Cleveland Foundation
Assistant Vice President for Cultural Affairs Educational Foundation of America
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona
Steven Lavine
Mission
President, California Institute of the Arts
Valencia, California The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP)
investigates the educational experiences and career
Abel Lopez paths of arts graduates nationally. SNAAP provides the
Associate Producing Director, GALA Hispanic Theatre findings to educators, policy makers, and philanthropic
Washington, D.C. organizations to improve arts training, inform cultural
policy, and support artists.
Suggested citation
Strategic National Arts Alumni Project. (2012). A diverse palette: What arts graduates say about their education and careers—annual
report 2012. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research
A Diverse Palette: What Arts Graduates
Say About Their Education and Careers
Annual Report 2012
Table of Contents
SNAAP Fast Facts 4
Foreword 6
Director’s Message 9
Findings 13
Looking Forward 28
References and Notes 29
Participating Institutions 31
SnaapShot 34
SNAAP Fast Facts
The Arts SNAAP was developed with start-up funding by the
SNAAP defines “the arts,” “art,” and “artist” to include Surdna Foundation as well as additional support from
a broad range of creative activity including performance, the Houston Endowment, Barr Foundation, Cleveland
design, architecture, creative writing, music composition, Foundation, Educational Foundation of America, and the
choreography, film, illustration, and fine art. National Endowment for the Arts.
Survey Participating Institutions
SNAAP is an annual survey administered online to the SNAAP surveys arts graduates from a wide variety of
arts alumni of participating institutions. Completion time institutions including arts high schools, comprehensive
for the survey is generally 20 to 30 minutes. Alumni colleges and universities, liberal arts colleges, and special-
responded to the 2011 survey (results described in this focus arts institutions. Since 2008, more than 239 different
report) between late September and mid-November 2011. institutions have participated in SNAAP. See Table 1 for
details on institutions participating in SNAAP 2011.
Partners
Respondents and Response Rates
SNAAP is based at the Indiana University Center for
Postsecondary Research and conducted in cooperation In 2011, more than 36,000 arts alumni responded to the
with the Vanderbilt University Center for Art, Enterprise, SNAAP survey from 66 institutions (8 arts high schools
and Public Policy. Designed to be self-supporting, and 58 postsecondary institutions) in the United States
Table 1: SNAAP 2011 Institutional Characteristics
CHARACTERISTICS % OF INSTITUTIONS
Region
Northeast 12%
South 25%
Midwest 35%
West 28%
Sector
Private nonprofit 35%
Public 65%
Classificationa
High Schools 14%
Schools of Art, Music, and Design 11%
Baccalaureate Colleges 7%
Masters Colleges and Universities 18%
Doctoral Universities 51%
a
Classification is based on Carnegie Classifications for all postsecondary institutions. Baccalaureate
Colleges includes institutions classified as both Bac/A&S and Bac/Diverse. Master’s Colleges and
Universities includes Master’s/L, Master’s/M, and Master’s/S. Doctorate-granting Universities includes
RU/VH, RU/H, and DRU.
4 SNAAP Annual Report 2012
SNAAP respondents confirm that arts schooling is a good economic investment
as well as a ladder to meaningful work.
Ann Markusen, Director, Arts Economy Initiative, University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs
and Canada. (See page 31 for a listing of institutions Cost
participating in SNAAP 2011.) The average institutional As a self-sustaining research project, institutional
response rate was over 20%. Table 2 provides selected participation fees underwrite the cost of survey
respondent characteristics for those alumni that participated administration, data analysis, and school reports. Annual
in SNAAP 2011. participation fees range from $1,300 to $7,800 depending on
the size of the arts alumni population.
Calendar
Participating institutions registered to participate in Participation Agreement
SNAAP during the summer of 2011. Alumni received Institutions participating in SNAAP agree that
invitations to participate in fall of 2011, and the survey SNAAP can use the data developed through the survey
officially closed in November. administration in the aggregate for national reporting
purposes. Results pertaining to a particular institution
Audiences and identifying as such will not be made public
SNAAP provides valuable, actionable data to educators, except by mutual agreement between SNAAP and the
institutional and public policy makers, researchers, and participating institution.
philanthropic organizations, as well as arts graduates and
current/future arts students and their families.
Table 2: SNAAP 2011 Selected Respondent Characteristics
CHARACTERISTICS % OF RESPONDENTS
Gender
Male 38%
Female 62%
Transgender <1%
Graduation Cohort
1980 and before 20%
1981–1990 18%
1991–1995 11%
1996–2000 13%
2001–2005 17%
2006–2010 21%
First Generation Studenta
Yes 32%
No 68%
a
First generation students are those who do not have a parent or guardian that completed
a 4-year degree or higher.
SNAAP Annual Report 2012 5
Foreword
Introducing the Strategic National Arts Alumni notable private and public collections. Antonia co-hosted
Project’s first annual report is a genuine delight for the 2010 SNAAP national advisory board meeting along
me. Since learning about SNAAP several years ago with Carlos Martinez, principal and firm-wide design
and joining its national advisory board, the project has director at Gensler, one of the world’s largest architectural
never been far from my mind. I am composing this firms. An industry leader, Carlos also teaches part time at
foreword after attending the SNAAP board’s stimulating the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and serves on
2012 spring meeting—hosted by Douglas Dempster and several arts boards in Chicago.
his colleagues at the highly regarded College of Fine
Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Doug brings The time and effort it took for Doug, Sammy, Antonia,
to the board the rich experience of a dean at a large and Carlos and their staffs to host the board’s annual
public, comprehensive college with professional training on-site meetings testifies to their interest in, enthusiasm
programs and liberal arts concentrations in theatre and for, and commitment to SNAAP and to improving arts
dance, music, and art and art history. With an academic education. Their informed, insightful views mixed with
background in philosophy, Doug spent many years at the those of the other board members provide SNAAP with
University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music as advice and counsel from a diverse set of practicing artists,
both a faculty member and administrator. Doug is one of educators, and administrators from a variety of public and
18 members of the SNAAP board (see page 2 for a full private institutions.
list), each of whom brings a unique perspective and deep
understanding of the challenges facing arts education, Our board meetings are orchestrated to encourage a
cultural policy, and what artists need to flourish in these dynamic give-and-take among the distinguished members,
uncertain times. resulting in discussions that transform routine business
items into engaging, highly participatory colloquia. The
Last year, Sammy Hoi, the president of Otis College of Art
and Design, hosted the board in Los Angeles. During his
12-year tenure as Otis president, Sammy has shepherded
new academic initiatives involving innovative partnerships
and community engagement, such as integrated learning,
which puts art and design learning in real-world, public,
interdisciplinary contexts. Before pursuing his dream of
studying art at Parsons School of Design, where he later
directed the Paris campus, Sammy studied psychology and
French and received a law degree.
Imagine what it is like to spend time with Doug, Sammy,
and another board member, Antonia Contro, the executive
director of Marwen, a nonprofit arts organization that
provides out-of-school visual art, college planning, and
career development programs to Chicago’s underserved
youth in grades 6–12. As well as being an educator of
talented precollege youth, Antonia is a practicing artist
who exhibits locally and nationally and whose work is in
6 SNAAP Annual Report 2012
SNAAP provides rich, detailed, confidential reports annually to all
participating institutions.
Kenneth C. Fischer, President, UMS, University of Michigan
board has entertained a variety of issues over the years and yet are user friendly is well deserved. SNAAP
as the project has evolved from a concept on paper, combines the IU CPR resources with those of the Curb
through several years of field-testing, to this past year’s Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt
first national survey administration. Over this time, we University. The Curb Center’s mission is to identify and
have advised SNAAP staff about the survey content, strengthen the public interest related to creative enterprise
encouraged arts training institutions to participate in and expressive life. SNAAP benefits significantly from
the project, served as ambassadors for the initiative by the collaboration of these two centers under the leadership
presenting at national and regional conferences, and of IU’s George Kuh and Vanderbilt’s Steven Tepper.
contributed to articles and op-ed pieces sharing the survey
findings with the general public. The meeting in Austin SNAAP provides rich, detailed, confidential reports
gave us a first look at the provocative results of the 2011 annually to all participating institutions. Institutional
survey—results featured in this report. leaders are telling us how their schools and the arts
training field at large are benefiting from their own survey
SNAAP has come a long way since the board’s first
data as well as from the survey’s national findings. Here
meeting in New York in 2009, hosted by Ellen Rudolph
are some examples of what they have told us:
and her colleagues at the Surdna Foundation. Then
director of the foundation’s Arts (now Thriving Cultures) SNAAP enables arts education institutions to assess the
Program, Ellen has long desired to better understand effectiveness of their programs based on widely gathered
what matters in arts education and what happens to arts statistical information from their graduates. In turn, it
graduates. Her commitment to discovering what data helps them to better prepare their students for the careers
can tell us about how artists develop in this country and they enter—in the arts or not. —Mary Schmidt Campbell,
how their educational and subsequent work experiences Dean, New York University Tisch School of the Arts
can inform and improve what happens in arts training
institutions was key to Surdna becoming SNAAP’s
lead funder. Although now retired from Surdna, Ellen
and representatives from our other funders, including
Debbie McNulty from the Houston Endowment, remain
actively engaged with SNAAP. My board colleagues and
I join everyone at SNAAP and its funders in celebrating
Ellen Rudolph for her long commitment to improving
the education that artists receive at both secondary and
postsecondary institutions and for her leadership in
attracting the resources to develop and launch SNAAP.
As a performing arts presenter on a university campus
who did graduate work in the study of higher education, I
feel we are especially fortunate to have SNAAP housed at
the Center for Postsecondary Research (CPR) at Indiana
University (IU) Bloomington. The CPR’s well-known and
highly respected annual surveys of student engagement
have a track record of providing institutions with results
that are valid, reliable, and useful. The center’s reputation
for producing reports that are rich with detailed analysis
SNAAP Annual Report 2012 7
Foreword (continued)
My college, which has been tracking alumni outcomes for We hope this report provides useful answers and suggests
some years, uses SNAAP so that we can better understand new questions. All of us associated with SNAAP were
our work in the context of nationally comparative data. — delighted to learn that the results of the 2010 survey,
Samuel Hoi, President, Otis College of Art and Design which was completed by 13,000 respondents, challenged
the conventional wisdom that most arts graduates
From SNAAP, we get an honest reflection from our are driving taxis, waiting tables, or working at coffee
graduates about their educational experiences and shops and are totally frustrated by their situations. In
their subsequent careers. The reports we receive give us fact, the 2011 survey results confirm that most SNAAP
direction as we move forward to offer the very best in arts respondents are reasonably satisfied, consider their
education to future students. —Scott Allen, Principal, overall arts school experience to be good or excellent,
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Houston and would attend the same institution again. About
three quarters (74%) of those who intended to be artists
I wholeheartedly endorse this initiative, and urge my reported that they have worked as professional artists at
colleagues in other music schools to take advantage of some point in their careers.
this unique and important resource. —Robert Sirota,
President, Manhattan School of Music I am excited to be a part of this important initiative that
promises to have a positive impact on the way some of
Our SNAAP results are helping to address many questions our nation’s most creative young people are educated.
that our stakeholders have been asking us for many years. As a result of SNAAP, arts training institutions at every
—Chris Ford, Director, Baltimore School for the Arts level are learning what works and what doesn’t work for
their students as they strengthen their relationship with
Alumni respondents to the survey remarked that “this alumni; compare themselves with similar institutions;
was a fabulous and comprehensive survey”; said “the enhance their admissions, public relations, and
questionnaire was concise, clear, and asked the right development efforts; and ultimately assess and reform
questions”; and thanked us for “this wonderful tool.” their curriculum. SNAAP is also making it possible for
parents and prospective students to make better informed
decisions and for policy makers and funders to address the
opportunities and hindrances that arts alumni identify.
Being a part of SNAAP’s pioneering effort and working
with its dedicated and talented national advisory board
and staff has been a great privilege and personal pleasure.
Our goal is to increase the number and diversity of
participating institutions and alumni and to continually
improve the survey process and the utility of the results so
that they are even more meaningful to all stakeholders.
Kenneth C. Fischer
Chair, SNAAP National Advisory Board
President, University Musical Society
University of Michigan
8 SNAAP Annual Report 2012
Director’s Message
Educators, researchers, and policy makers have long need to live a personally satisfying and economically
been interested in what happens to students after self-sufficient life. This understanding is especially
they graduate. For this reason as well as others, important given the emergence of the contingent
some high schools and most colleges and universities try economy characterized by temporary, part time, and
to stay in contact with their alumni. While the quality subcontracted employment prospects. To contend with
of K–12 and postsecondary education in general has such circumstances, people need to be cognitively flexible
long been debated, in recent years the value of arts and inventive and to use design thinking and nonroutine,
education has been particularly questioned. Yet reliable entrepreneurial approaches to deal with unscripted,
data on some highly desired outcomes of postsecondary complex problems. As Steven Tepper and I (2011)
education, perhaps especially arts education—such as explained, formal training in the arts, when done well,
the capacity to continue to learn on one’s own or to think may be ideal preparation for cultivating these abilities.
deeply about and craft creative solutions to complex
problems—may not be evident until many years after Asserting or believing that arts training institutions
college. This report from the Strategic National Arts help their graduates attain these outcomes is one thing.
Alumni Project (SNAAP) provides some answers as well Empirically demonstrating that this is the case is quite
as context for a better understanding of student learning another. By and large, anecdotal information assigns
outcomes in arts education. arts graduates to one of two archetypes. One of these
represents the relatively small number of highly visible,
Many years ago, Nevitt Sanford (1967), a psychologist successful artists who by all accounts make a comfortable
with a passion for understanding college student living by doing their art. The other archetype represents
development, observed that it was unfortunate that college the underemployed or unemployed arts graduate who, for
seniors were about to leave the institution—unfortunate example, drives a taxi or works in the food industry or
because it was not until this point that most traditional- some other minimum wage job or combination of jobs.
age undergraduates were cognitively and intellectually
advanced enough to synthesize, integrate, and reconstruct To put the questions plainly, what do we know—really—
what they learned from their studies and other experiences about how well arts training today matches what arts
and to use these abilities and knowledge to successfully graduates need to know and be able to do to survive and
deal with challenging issues and novel situations. This thrive in the 21st century? How might we systematically
capacity for deep, integrative learning and reflection
is essential for continuous learning. Jean Shin, an
accomplished sculptor, alluded to this capacity for deep,
integrative learning when reflecting on her arts training
and post-college experience. “Art school,” she said,
“taught me how to do art. It was only later than I learned
how to be an artist.”
In today’s accountability-sensitive environment, it is
essential to demonstrate that arts education has the desired
impact on artistic technique, creativity, sensibilities, and
dispositions. Some practical business and marketing skills
are also required. But it is also necessary to understand
how well these outcomes match what arts graduates
SNAAP Annual Report 2012 9
Director’s Message (continued)
gather such information to help interested parties determine
whether arts training is relevant and rewarding? Where can To investigate the educational experiences
arts leaders and educators as well as cultural policy makers and career paths of arts graduates
turn for reliable, actionable information to guide efforts nationally and share the findings with
to improve the quality of arts educational programs and educators, policy makers, and philanthropic
services to students and graduates? organizations to improve arts training,
inform cultural policy, and support artists.
The Right Project at the Right Time
The results presented in this report are from SNAAP’s
An annual online survey, data management, and
first national survey administration, in fall 2011, which
institutional improvement system designed to enhance the
followed three carefully conducted field tests. The data
impact of arts-school education, SNAAP is a cooperative
have important implications for arts training institutions
effort that brings together arts training programs and
and for the arts community at large. For example:
institutions; researchers at the Indiana University Center
for Postsecondary Research and the Vanderbilt University
• Schools can use information from their graduates to
Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy; and
modify curricular, co-curricular, and support offerings
philanthropic organizations. I will say more later about
such as alumni and career services.
this extraordinary partnership.
• The findings can be used to establish baseline and
For the past four years, SNAAP has been collecting
comparative information for individual institutions
information from graduates of secondary and
to track the quality of preparation of different alumni
postsecondary arts training programs. To date, more
cohorts over time. Such results are of interest to
than 56,000 graduates from 239 different high schools,
governing boards, arts leaders, and the faculty and
colleges, and universities have participated. To our
staff of arts training schools and programs as they
knowledge, this represents the single largest database on
the educational backgrounds and careers of graduates of
arts-intensive training programs.
The Web-based SNAAP questionnaire is administered
by an independent third party—the Indiana University
Center for Survey Research—a highly acclaimed
professional survey organization whose involvement
assures that industry standard data collection techniques
are used. Institutions pay a participation fee to cover
project costs. A distinguished national advisory board
helps guide the work and set policy (see page 2). I am
delighted that the chair of the SNAAP board, Kenneth
Fischer, president of the University of Michigan Musical
Arts Society, enthusiastically agreed to pen this report’s
foreword. His leadership and passion for the arts is
shared by all other SNAAP board members as they
continually challenge and support the SNAAP staff to
stay true to the project’s mission:
10 SNAAP Annual Report 2012