Bob Morrison and host of other movers and shakers in New Jersey arts, arts education, education, and politics unveiled the results of the New Jersey Arts Education Census Project today in a graceful and eloquent press conference televised from the New Jersey Network studios in Trenton, NJ.
In a brilliant stroke, the new New Jersey Arts Education Partnership a coalition of supportive leaders and organizations speaking with one voice for arts education made the recommendations from the Project its strategic plan. Is there a better way to make an impact from the data than to make it someone’s to-do list? The Partnership is currently hosting committees addressing each major area of the report: students, teachers, policies, resources, and community.
The most potent piece of the data is the mapping: an actual picture of each school district colored according to their Arts Education Index a number like a grade, based upon flexible, comprehensive criteria for high-quality and fully accessible arts education.
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Tagged with: AdvocacyArts-EducationPartnershipsPolicy
September 18th, 2007 at 01:48pm
John Abodeely
Well, the slow days of summer, as always, prove to be anything but slow. And probably like all of you I am continually snowed under by mountains of articles, magazines, newspapers, books, research studies and other reading material that seem to sit there threatening me with some dire consequence if I don’t get to them. Herewith, in no particular order of priority, a round-up of what I have been reading and clipping:
Cause-related Marketing Fatigue - As reported in Business Week (July 9/16, 2007) consumers seems to be losing interest in cause marketing campaigns that link products to social causes. Of course, the big “(Product) Red” campaign designed to raise money for African Aids victims got a lot of press for failing to hit its goals, and perhaps serving corporate marketing goals more effectively than fundraising goals. And the support of Avon and others have helped push breast cancer awareness and the pink ribbon into the public consciousness (and has also in some ways suppressed awareness of National Arts and Humanities Month, since both causes share October). According to the research firm Cone, in May 36% of consumers said they had bought a product during the prior 12 months after learning of the manufacturer’s commitment to a cause they believed in. This is down from 43% in 2004. Only 14% said they intentionally paid more for a product that supports a cause, down from 28%. And only 30% said they told a friend or family member about a product or company committed to a social issue, down from 43% three years ago. This may make it harder for arts groups to build these relationships in the future. On the other hand, the numbers are probably still high enough to make it worth a company’s while to engage in cause marketing relationships.
Breakthrough Creativity - The same issue of Business Week reviews a new book, “Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas.” The book attempts to provide new insights into how creative breakthroughs happen, and covers great leaps of genius and creativity in science, business and the arts. Without commenting on the merits of the book, which I have not yet read, it is another example of the growing recognition that creativity and innovation in science, business and the arts are linked, and that this holds great promise for efforts to persuade business and educators that the arts matter if we are to generate the next Francis Crick and James Watson (who discovered the structure of DNA) or Picasso. Todd Siler, an artist with a PhD from MIT who is now working with our Creativity Connection program, does creative training and brainstorming sessions for business using the visual arts, and addresses how creativity intersects science and art in his book Think Like a Genius , which was published back in 1999, so this is not entirely a new idea. However, “creativity” now appears to be hot, and that should be good for the arts.
Tapping Retiring Boomer Volunteers - Again from that same issue of Business Week, is an article (”Pro Bono Perfection“) about the gratification that early retiring boomers are finding through volunteer work. People that don’t volunteer indicate it is only because they have not found the right opportunity or don’t know where to begin. The article comments how many younger retired Boomers jump into too many superficial volunteer opportunities at once to stay busy, but find themselves unsatisfied. It also cites the mis-perception by many groups using these volunteers that they “just need to keep the old folks busy” and don’t really take advantage of their often high-level skills. Many of this new breed of volunteers eventually find themselves working in highly professional virtually staff-like capacities. The article is major ammunition for a program like Business Volunteers for the Arts, which matches business-people with arts groups as pro bono management consultants. While it focuses on working professionals, there is no reason why it can’t also target recent retirees, who have so much time, expertise, and energy.
Is Second Life Still Alive? - Articles about Second Life continue to populate the business, technology and arts press, describing a bustling, growing “virtual world” with its own economy, businesses, art (and naughtiness). At the same time, a recent Wired magazine article described a Second Life that appears to be vastly underpopulated, with most “users” creating an avatar, looking around and then leaving, never to return. In The Art Newspaperon July 4th, however, an article was posted that described how Second Life is becoming a viable place for artists to interact and actually sell their work. The Andy Warhol Foundation has funded exhibits in Second Life, and the MacArthur Foundation has just announced a new grant program designed to explore the world of this new digital society. The Art Newspaper has assembled video tours of exhibitions and performances on Second Life here. It reports that there are now hundreds of galleries in Second Life selling work, both real and virtual. Dealers collect a 30% commission, just like in the real world, and one gallery reports that about 200 avatars a day visit the gallery. Another artist reports making abut $10,000 in recent months from Second Life generated sales. So maybe Second Life is not so dead after all, and we should all be exploring how to have a presence in this community? I am sure this is not the end of the story.
The Art of Diagnosis - The Carnegie Museum of Art, Andy Warhol Museum and the University of Pittsburgh Medical School recently launched Art and Medicine, a new four-week course for medical students designed to hone visual thinking and observation skills through the study of art in the museum’s galleries. A similar program has existed for some time at the Metropolitan Museum working with one or more of the major NYC medical schools. These sorts of innovative programs help highlight the critical role the arts can play in the lives of non-artists, in ways that can make them better at their jobs. While this is not the same “instrumental vs intrinsic” value argument, it points out how artificial that supposed dichotomy is. A strong arts education may or may not (as recent research suggests) help a student get higher math scores that will get them into medical school, but it WILL help that young person develop visual acuity and observation skills that will make them a better doctor. I think this one example highlights how the applied skills developed through the arts have an even impact that we are only just beginning to quantify and communicate.
Okay, my stack is still a few feet tall, but this is already way too long for a Blog entry, so I will spare you further reports. More to come in the coming weeks. Of course, by the time I get around to this again, the pile will have mysteriously replenished itself!
Tagged with: BusinessFundraisingLeadershipPartnershipsResearchVolunteerism
August 17th, 2007 at 09:53am
Gary Steuer
by Judith Tannenbaum
Preserving the important qualities of the Teaching Artist profession, while still moving ahead with its professionalization.
Passing on the vision and practice of art-making is as old as culture itself: creation stories told during long winter evenings, women and young girls weaving baskets, men welcoming boys to their dances. One generation has always taught the next.
This history moves forward into the 21st century. Artists; arts program administrators; school, hospital, senior center, and prison administrators and staff; and professors in a variety of college departments are increasingly asking that the valuable work done for decades by teaching artists be recognized as a professional field.
One repeated conversation is a fundamental one that questions the ways in which professionalization of the field strengthens or harms this work that we love. In the midst of these conversations, I often think of architect Chris Alexander. When brought to the site of a new project, Alexander is said to have asked community members not only what they wanted that they didn’t have, but also what they presently had that they valued and did not want to lose.
That’s the question I’d like now to ponder: What do we-teaching artists, students, program administrators, site partners, community activists”cherish about the work of art in other places, as Bill Cleveland calls it, as it has been practiced over the decades? What do we want not to lose as teaching artistry becomes a more formal field?
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Tagged with: Arts-EducationPartnershipsPolicy
August 7th, 2007 at 01:58pm
John Abodeely
I recently had the pleasure, with an Americans for the Arts colleague, of participating in a “stakeholders convening” for The Conference Board on the issue of workforce readiness. Their recent study, “Are They Really Ready to Work,” found that businesses rate their incoming workforce (college educated, 2-year college educated, and high school educated) as poorly prepared with the skills needed in the workplace today. In contrast to the national obsession of the past few years on “basic skills” (see No Child Left Behind) - particularly math and science - the corporate folks surveyed (mostly HR execs) rated “applied skills” as particularly critical, and relatively poor in their incoming new workers. These include creativity and innovation, communications skills and teamwork. Sound familiar? We arts and arts education advocates often press our case based on the role the arts can play in building these skills, and in fact many of the HR leaders interviewed for this research cited the arts in talking abut the importance of creativity. But one thing made clear by this stakeholders meeting (the actual content of which I can’t report on because confidentiality was promised in order to foster an open dialogue) was that we don’t seem to have enough data to support this linkage.
Do we really know that the arts foster creativity, innovation and imagination, in ways that make people more creative, innovative employees? (Not just in creative industries, but creative scientists, or financiers or factory supervisors.) It may seem obvious to us - one of those “duh!” questions - but can we prove it? What about the other applied skills - teamwork, collaboration, cultural sensitivity, communications, etc. Again, seems obvious that the arts build these skills, but what research do we have that backs it up, particularly in a workforce context?
Americans for the Arts is now looking at how we might partner with the Conference Board and others to do some research that might build a clearer definition of creativity and innovation in a business context, and more clearly show how the arts can foster the so-called applied skills. The relationship between the arts and workforce development was also one of the themes of our MetLife Foundation National Arts Forum Series this year. And our Creativity Connection program fosters the use of arts-based learning with the current workforce - but this is different than making a case that arts education better prepares workers for 21st Century business challenges.
I would love to know if any of our ArtsBlog readers know of any good existing research in this area; if so, please share it with us. This could even include case studies - for example, a business that finds that new hires that have studied a musical instrument and played in a school orchestra or band excel in some measurable way in the workplace over those without such a background. The more data and tangible examples we can gather, the more powerful a case we can make for the arts and arts education as critical to business competitiveness. Making this case better could be the key to reversing the slippage in corporate arts support we have seen over the past ten years.
Tagged with: AdvocacyArts-EducationBusinessPartnershipsResearch
July 16th, 2007 at 09:32am
Gary Steuer
I have been serving on the Communications and Marketing Advisory Task Force for Independent Sector, which met today and I thought would be a good opportunity to share some thoughts on our Blog about their efforts to change public perceptions of the sector. First off, the Task Force is really a response to the recent serious of major news stories that present a negative picture of nonprofits - from the Aramony/United Way scandal of a few years ago to the most recent stories about the Smithsonian and Larry Small. Independent Sector has been doing some really interesting work on researching attitudes toward nonprofit groups. We in the arts need to be following and taking advantage of this new research and the findings. What they found is that approximately 82% of American adults volunteer, donate or advocate with a philanthropic organization. This group is what they consider the “engaged public.” Among this group, those who think nonprofits are “on the wrong track” has steadily declined over the past year, from 32% to 24%. Most interestingly, the percentage who are “not sure” is consistently extremely high - now at 41%. The folks at Harris Interactive, who do the research, feel this is an extremely high “no opinion” response, and basically means millions of Americans are easily swayed by whatever negative story happens to be in the news. The other interesting finding: There are five qualities that the public rates as highly important in a nonprofit that are also rated as relatively poorly delivered - Selfless, Efficient, Accountable, Effective, Results-Oriented. The public already gets that we are committed, caring and passionate about what we do, so we don’t have to work as hard change any hearts and minds on that front, though we certainly should take opportunities to reinforce our existing strengths in those areas. Independent Sector recommends that all nonprofits adapt their communications to especially emphasize these qualities. Here are some other important aspects of the “message framework” they are developing:
- the phrase “nonprofit community” seems to resonate best when describing the larger sector (not words like charities, philanthropies - or sector)
- find ways to illustrate the key values listed above
- use plan language - nothing lofty, avoid jargon
- don’t denigrate business or government - emphasize that all three sectors are needed
- Offer collaboration and solutions to problems, not complaints
- emphasize people, not organizations
- tell our stories, and move from describing what you do to what impact it has on people
While this research does not separate out the arts, as IS begins to roll out this messaging campaign (which is targeting not just the general public, but Congress as well), arts groups would do well to think about how their messaging can reinforce this effort. These findings also reinforce what we learned in our National Arts Policy Roundtable about how the arts are perceived - that we need to be telling our stories better, and emphasizing the impact we have on the people we serve. Among all segments of the nonprofit community we especially have a tendency, I would posit, to use lofty and potentially alienating language in describing our work. Independent Sector’s annual conference, where a lot of this messaging work will be shared, takes place October 21-23 in Los Angeles. I’ll be there, and it would be nice to have some more arts folks participating. [Also, see the article about Arts & Economic Prosperity III on their Web site!]
Tagged with: AdvocacyBusinessPartnershipsPolicyResearch
June 14th, 2007 at 10:57am
Gary Steuer
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