A total of 11.1% of all recent college graduates with undergraduate arts degrees are unemployed (Carnevale, Cheah, & Strohl, 2012, p. 7). Fifty-two percent of arts undergraduate alumni reported being dissatisfied with their institution’s ability to advise them about further career or education opportunities (SNAAP, 2012, p. 14). Eighty-one percent of all arts undergraduate alumni reported having a primary job outside of the arts for reasons of job security (SNAAP, 2012, p. 19). In 2011, more than 36,000 arts alumni responded to the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) survey from 66 institutions (8 arts high schools and 58 postsecondary institutions) in the United States and Canada. The average institutional response rate was over 20% (SNAAP, 2012, pp. 4-5). The results were released in the 2012 annual report, and served as indicators for arts graduates’ perceived value of their degree. While the data generally indicates positive educational outcomes, the study also indicates certain measures of dissatisfaction and distinct professional challenges - the most relevant appearing below: Arts alumni of undergraduate and graduate programs were somewhat or very dissatisfied with: career advising or information about further education options (50%), opportunities for degree-related internships or work (46%), opportunities to network with alumni and others (41%). (SNAAP, 2012, p. 14) 81% of all alumni surveyed, reported having a job outside of the arts for reasons of job security. (SNAAP, 2012, p. 19)Arts alumni still face significant financial obstacles to engaging in art professionally. Almost a third (30%) of former professional artists and those who wanted to be artists but did not do so pointed to debt, including student loan debt, as a reason to find other work. (Lindemann, et al., 2012, p. 22) Fifty-two percent of those who stopped working as a professional artist did so because of better pay in other fields. (Lindemann, et al., 2012, p. 22) While arts alumni generally give their schools high marks when it comes to imparting elements of artistic training such as creativity and critical thinking, when it comes to elements of professional training such as business and entrepreneurial abilities, there are large gaps between the skills these alumni say they have acquired at their degree-granting institutions and the skills they indicate are important for their working lives. (Lindemann, et al., 2012, p. 28)Certainly, there is hard evidence that arts students desire the contextual business/career/technology education they need in order to create, obtain and sustain their careers. (Lindemann, et al., 2012, pg. 27-30)We lose this nation’s arts and intellectual arts capital when talented and competent students relinquish their dreams of arts employment. This occurs—in part—because of a recalcitrant arts training infrastructure that has yet to acknowledge the human consequences of an idealized view of art. For every trained artist who cannot afford their child’s day care, we are not exposed to their unique view of the world. For every violinist, violist, and cellist who cannot make a car payment and is forced to seek employment outside music, we cannot experience the transcendence of Beethoven’s last string quartets. For every playwright who cannot find an affordable venue to premiere his or her latest work, a reflection of our humanity is lost among the piles of private art. As enlightened educators, we have a responsibility, in my opinion, to find new relevance in our students’ talent and exuberance about their role in society. (Beckman, 2011, p. 30)
Beckman, G. D. (2011). "Disciplining Arts Entrepreneurship Education: A Call to Action." In Beckman, G. D. Disciplining the Arts: Teaching Entrepreneurship in Context. Kindle. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Education.Lindemann, D. J., et al. (2012). Painting With Broader Strokes: Reassessing the value of an arts education. Special Report No.1. Indiana University, Vanderbuilt University. Bloomington: Strategic National Arts Alumni Project A reverse question also arises: to what extent are (or should) arts practices be imported into a business context? While this latter is Pave Program A Landscape of Arts Entrepreneurship 28 not yet a prevalent practice, there are some recent examples of the study of “beauty” being integrated into business courses (e.g., at UW-Madison) and the study of organizations. “Creativity” is, of course, frequently considered in business school contexts, but “creativity” is not the distinct purview of the arts disciplines; it exists across all disciplines. Because “arts entrepreneurship” brings together arts disciplines with