An End to Waiting Tables?

Via a listing on the Chronicle of Higher Education website today, I became aware of The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP). The survey which is entering a trial phase with plans for national reach starting in 2010 will extensively query alumni of arts high schools, college/university programs and conservatories about the training they received and its applicability in their careers.

According to a press release on the SNAAP website,

“Arts alumni who graduated 5, 10, 15 and 20 years earlier will provide information about their formal arts training. They will report the nature of their current arts involvement, reflect on the relevance of arts training to their work and further education, and describe turning points, obstacles, and key relationships and opportunities that influenced their lives and careers.

The results of the annual online survey and data analysis system will help schools strengthen their programs of study by tracking what young artists need to advance in their fields.”

The press release also acknowledges that upon graduation, artists don’t often perform the exact work they for which they trained. The release charitably suggests that “they may work at the boundaries between disciplines.” I suspect the survey will find in many cases people end up doing work barely tangentially related to their training in the arts. Long time readers will recall that I covered an attempt by Tom Loughlin, a professor at SUNY-Fredonia to track the success graduates of his program were having getting work in any entertainment related pursuit. While his method wasn’t entirely scientific, I suspect the results won’t be diametrically opposed to what SNAAP finds.

I am prepared to be encouraged by unsuspected rays of hope that the SNAAP survey uncovers. They note that the approach of the creative economy will generate a demand for people with arts training so if the results do lead training programs to reevaluate their approaches and make their students more employable, it could certainly be worth the costs. The FAQ on the SNAAP website notes other benefits to policy and decision making related to the arts. (Including parents and students considering it as a career path.)

Something I found interesting in the FAQ was the response people had to early versions of the survey.

“The initial testing of the SNAAP questionnaire indicated that arts alumni were frustrated because the survey assumed a linear career, and suggested that all events and experiences were equally important.

An interactive graphic interface, the SNAAP lifemap will allow survey respondents to tell their stories and to indicate the relative importance of events and experiences to their careers, whether they work in or outside of the arts. “

The introduction of the lifemap feature as part of the survey is an intriguing approach since it will be generated as people answer. Personally when I fill out surveys it is frequently difficult to decide between the extreme categories. I am faced by the question about whether I strongly (dis)agree or emphatically (dis)agree. I think if I saw a graphical representation of how my answers were being interpreted, in this case the relative importance of chapters in my life, I could answer more accurately. (i.e. Oh no, that’s not right, job B had a much greater impact than job A, let me go back and revise). This isn’t an approach that can be used with all surveys since it obviously influences responses, but in some cases it can be helpful. In fact, it could actually assist in self reflection if a person came to the realization that Job A actually influenced them more than they realized and they can’t honestly massage the numbers to make Job B appear more prominent.

About Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice.

I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/)

My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA.

Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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2 thoughts on “An End to Waiting Tables?”

  1. Thank you for bringing this to my attention — very interesting. I suspect that the study will uncover a lot of valuable data that could lead to some interesting conversations. At the same time, I wonder whether the orientation toward whether a graduate is “working in their field” is too narrowly focused. It might be appropriate for those programs at define themselves in terms of job training — say, conservatories. But most theatre majors in the US are in programs with a much broader focus, and for them, I question whether :working in the field” is a genuine measure of success. Would history departments around the country feel compelled to re-evaluate their curriculum if it turned out that their students weren’t working as historians out of college? Education provides a lens that broadens one’s view of the world, and enriches one’s sense of life. If a graduate is working as an artist, education makes their art deeper and richer; if they are working in something else, education makes their life deeper and richer. I find myself resisting the career orientation that seems to be flooding our universities.

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  2. Scott-

    I think the fact that people anticipate a creative economy and that training probably needs to be adjusted accordingly essentially acknowledges that graduates won’t necessarily be working for organizations that define themselves as arts or entertainment entities. Or perhaps the definitions of what constitutes these entities will be evolving.

    It could very well come to pass that the training programs will be preparing people for careers in accounting firms. I admit I don’t quite know how that sort of opportunity will emerge.

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