Title: Arts Culture
Submitted by: Gary Beckman
Institution: The University of Texas at
Austin
Course Title: "Entrepreneurship in the
Arts"
Division Offered: College of Fine Arts -
Fall 2006
Demographic: Undergraduates [Fine Arts,
Liberal Arts & Business] & Graduates [Fine Arts]
Date: 2/1/07
Type of Activity: Research
Learning Objectives:
1) To learn about non-profit arts culture.
2) To demonstrate that there are organizations and concepts
that when combined, create the differing pillars of arts
culture.
3) To explore the entrepreneurial opportunities for arts
students within the context of arts culture.
Student Evaluation Method: Activity within
the classroom community, research paper.
Description: Each student is designated as
the classroom "expert" in a certain aspect of the arts
cultural landscape. (eg. Arts Policy, Economic Impact, Arts
Models, Creative Economy, Arts Management, etc.). This
designation lasts for the entire semester. Each student is
required to research and become accountable to the rest of
the class for this information. Further, in support of each
student's semester capstone project for the class (a
feasibility study), they can call upon the classroom expert
and solicit information.
Example: Amy is completing her feasibility
study and needs to find an economic impact study of
indigenous art in western North Carolina and cannot find a
recent report. She emails Roger who is the classroom expert
for this area and makes the request. Roger sends Amy the
report and copies the instructor on the email.
Instructor Comments: I'm a big fan of
student's learning the culture of any proposed venture
before suggesting that they launch. With the present state
of arts training, it's difficult for students to have a
sense of the cultural landscape and nonprofit culture much
less their future entrepreneurial profession. This
technique is aimed at solving this problem.
In this exercise, students have the opportunity to immerse
themselves in a distinct aspect of arts culture for an
entire semester. Likewise, their peers can get information
outside of class and actually start communicating outside
of the classroom about their careers and dreams. Having
students copy me on the emails that flow back and forth is
a great way to monitor their answers and hopefully, provide
additional topics during class. For those students who feel
more comfortable outside of the regular meeting time, this
helps them engage the topic in a less threatening manner.
What I like most about this technique is that it teaches
community building and trust between the students and the
instructor. A number of students have told me that this was
a great way to build self-confidence as well. How many
times is a student given a responsibility in class, much
less an intellectual responsibility that has the potential
for both positive and negative consequences for their new
found colleague?
One word about the example. Students are allowed to ask
their classroom experts questions only if they've
experienced difficulty in gathering the information
themselves. Most of the time, the information students need
to create well designed feasibility plans is located in
unfamiliar corners of the library. This, of course, isn't
their fault. How many arts policy papers did we read as
undergraduates? Not many I'd guess- unless you where on the
arts management track!
