Claudia Jacobs

When I was a college student in the 60s we thought ourselves intellectual, political and even somewhat evolved. A widely acknowledged putdown of college athletes oft heard was that their course load included Basket Weaving 101. That statement was not only insensitive to athletes; it also inadvertently reflected an additional put down of the arts. And that attitude remains and is reflected in how the arts are viewed today. "In the public schools, arts are all too often the first programs to be cut and the last to be reinstated," says James Grace, executive director of the Arts and Business Council of Greater Boston.

Today we need to update that thinking. If we are to actively enrich our communities, arts should not be a stepchild of science, technology, engineering or math (STEM). In New England alone, over 53,000 people are employed in the "creative economy" and that sector, if it were considered in the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), which it is not, would rank just below the data and information sector and just ahead of the truck transportation sector, according to 2009 statistics compiled by the New England Foundation for the Arts. The 18,026 New England arts organizations supply the economy with nearly $3.7 billion--so why does STEM, an acronym that excludes the arts, seem to be on the tip of everyone's tongue? Yes, there are major reasons why the U.S. needs to be focused on producing adults with skills in these areas, but why not include the arts and go from STEM to STEAM?

Philanthropies are more and more focused on impact, grantee accountability, metrics and getting results. Sound good? Not so fast. While these evaluation measures have importance, danger could be lurking. For the metric-merry this can have the potential of giving stepchild status to the arts as the less easily measured are most vulnerable to being cut from the roster. Some argue that the increased frenzy with metrics may indeed play a role in stifling innovation.

Ron Jones

In the late Eighteen Hundreds Harvard decided to add an “art appreciation” course to its offerings and thus began a recognition by higher education that knowing about and, later to come, engaging in the arts was a good thing for students in American colleges and universities. Centuries before, the University of Paris had established music as one of the major subjects of study but that effort, of course, was driven by the University’s interest in mathematics, not aesthetic sensibilities.

By the 1940’s and 1950’s American higher education was steeped in both required arts courses as well as the blossoming of full-fledged programs of study in the arts. By the end of the Twentieth Century music, theatre(er), visual arts, and dance were acknowledged members of the academy. In most places, respected; in some, only tolerated.

From this admittedly brief and over-generalized history it is clear that the arts were increasingly enjoying a place of acceptance, even respect, within the academy. Those good days seem to be passing as the nation tightens its fiscal belt and increasingly questions the value of higher education, gravitating now toward a valuing system that focuses on careers and income potential (e.g., check out this naïve post to Yahoo! Education, Don’t Let your Kids Study These Majors. Business practices are dictating the course of higher education and the arts are being forced into a box lined with expectations that tend to minimize the “real” values of the arts and ignoring the “real” contribution the arts have and continue to make to our system of higher education. Squeezed into submission, American colleges and universities are scrambling to parasitically survive by attaching themselves to STEM or giving lip service to career development or just giving up and eliminating arts programs.

There is generally a perception that the arts are a progressive, forward-thinking sector. The attention to racial equity by many arts and cultural institutions may contribute to this. However, in local, state, and federal arts agencies, we’re often bound to the policies and practices largely created and upheld by white people—and far from progressive. While working in the public sector for much of my arts administration career, I have been complicit in adhering to largely inequitable practices—especially when it comes to grant funding. And while my fellow public sector arts administrators and I get excited by moving the needle—even just a little—to make our policies and practices more equitable, we’re still not addressing the core structures that created these inequities in the first place. We focus our attention on moving the needle within these structures, but hasn’t history shown us that these structures don’t (and won’t) work to get us to a more equitable reality?

What does it mean to center equity in your investment strategy? And why is that important? Cultural equity is critical to the arts and culture sector’s long-term viability, as well as to the ability of the arts to contribute to healthy, vibrant, equitable communities for all. If the field is not investing in the artistic and cultural traditions of every aspect of their community, then we are not fulfilling our purpose. Each year the United States’ 4,500 local arts agencies collectively invest an estimated $2.8 billion in their local arts and culture ecosystems, including an estimated $600 million in direct investment in artists and arts and culture organizations through grants, contracts, and loans. This makes LAAs, collectively, the largest distributor of publicly-derived funds to arts and culture in the United States. It is therefore crucial that LAAs employ a strong lens of equity to consider the full scope of their investments—including both direct financial investments like grants, and indirect financial investments like staff salaries and rent.