04/12/2012

Universities Build Argument for More Arts

"Confronting the challenge of how to encourage and cultivate innovative thinking in higher education, administrators from some of the most prestigious U.S. research universities have published a report aiming to provoke a national discussion about the ways 'arts practice' can be a catalyst for creative thinking in all academic disciplines.

Art-Making and the Arts at Research Universities, a three-year plan, is the result of nearly a year of discussions and research with the goal of further integrating the arts into higher education curriculum and campus life.

'While creative processes across fields have a great deal in common, creative process in the arts tends to be more radically open-ended, more immediately immersive, and more hands-on and experiential,' said Theresa Reid, executive director of ArtsEngine, an University of Michigan consortium to promote interdisciplinary collaboration in the arts...

According to the report's executive summary: 'Integrating art-making and the arts enables the university to fulfill its responsibility to society by producing new generations of leaders who are adept in the use of all of their creative cognitive faculties, and by producing an incubator for original creative work in the arts that is not constrained by market economies. Only the university can fulfill this vital social role.'"

DBusiness.com 04/04/2012