Arts Administration

Mission

The Arts Administration Program develops graduates who advocate for the arts while balancing administrative systems with the creative process in an effort to ensure the artistic integrity and economic sustainability of arts and culture organizations.

Goals

The Arts Administration Program faculty and staff will:

• Provide a personalized, interdisciplinary education
• Develop well-rounded professionals employable in any arts discipline
• Offer a nonprofit management curriculum and experiential learning opportunities
• Advocate for the arts

Learning Outcomes

The Arts Administration Program graduates will:

• Become empowered advocates for the arts
• Apply scholarly theory directly into professional practice
• Develop adaptability and critical thinking skills necessary to work in the arts
• Cultivate both practical and creative approaches to problem solving.
• Communicate in an effective and persuasive way

Values

Experiential Learning: Learning through doing develops foundational skills through the reflection and revision process. This drives collective and individual analysis to enrich the educational experience, enhance rigor, and prepare students for multiple career paths beyond graduation.

Collaboration: Through fostering a collaborative environment in the classroom and artistic space, we build essential professional and interpersonal skills, working together toward educational and artistic goals. By appreciating individual uniqueness, we build experiences where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Advocacy: Students come to us with ideas, dreams, and a vision for a better future. We help them find their voice and use it to engage in their communities. We work to advocate for ourselves, our art, and each other. This engagement is essential for our collective future.

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Justice Initiative

It is our belief that diversity and inclusion is essential to the success of an educational environment. The perspectives, ideas, values, and experiences of diverse student populations are a strength and benefit to this program. It is out intent as a program to be respectful of diversity: gender identity, sexuality, disability, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, and culture.

The letter below was first published in June 2020.
Revisited and Renewed August 2021

As faculty of the Arts Administration program, we have been trying to figure out the best way to convey our feelings regarding recent events. Individually, we have both tried to examine our own biases, and work to stand as allies. We have spent the last few weeks reading, watching, and most importantly, listening.

We say, without equivocation, that black lives matter.

We’ve also been talking a lot about these issues in higher education, and how that affects the Arts Administration Program. We are deeply committed to creating a safe, supportive, positive, and an engaging culture of discussion and learning.

We do, however, acknowledge our own racial and cultural biases, and recognize that the Arts Administration Program needs to address these systemic issues and pledge to make changes related to the program and to us as faculty.

As such, we commit to the following:

• CURRICULUM: We will undertake a thorough examination of our current courses to ensure that we are including examples and information from BIPOC and organizations of color.
• RECRUITMENT: We will make a concerted effort to expand the scope of our recruiting and admissions practices to ensure that we are seeking cultural, geographic, and artistic diversity.
• TRAINING: As faculty and staff, we will participate regularly in anti-bias and anti-racist training through the university, and will give our students the same opportunities for such training.
• LEADERSHIP: As faculty and staff, we commit to constant personal education on issues related to anti-racism and bias, setting the tone for such exploration for the whole program.

As Arts Administrators, we are in the business of critically examining imperfect systems, and collaboratively making those systems better. This will be an imperfect and evolving process, but we are deeply committed to the work.

Land Acknowledgment

SUU wishes to acknowledge and honor the Indigenous communities of this region as original possessors, stewards, and inhabitants of this Too’veep (land), and recognize that the University is situated on the traditional homelands of the Nung’wu (Southern Paiute People).

SUU Land Acknowledgment