So, what are these benefits, you might ask? Studies have shown that there are intellectual tasks at which artists excel, beyond the creation of works of art. For instance, in a problem-solving situation, artists have an advantage in several areas. They have a keen ability to identify the problem, to intuitively get to the heart of the matter, to revise and adapt their thinking, and to accept diverse perspectives. They have a superb ability to find numerous solutions to a problem rather than fixating on the idea that there’s a single correct answer. They can also communicate complex ideas in engaging and compelling ways—to present information in a way that captures the audience’s attention, giving a tangible shape to an intangible concept. Skills like these are not only valuable in an artist’s studio—they can apply across the range of human endeavor from the corporate board room to the scientist’s lab.
In 2010, IBM published a now-famous survey of CEOs[2], who reported that creativity was of greater value in the business world than rigor, management discipline, integrity, or vision. Other studies have shown that immersion in art-making is beneficial to students’ creative, analytic, and adaptive capabilities. They have also shown that involvement in the arts increases the chances of academic success for at-risk, low-income, or ESL students. Innovative programs have pioneered cross-disciplinary coursework, bringing together art and design, engineering, and other diverse fields of study, engaging students in solving problems by accessing multiple ways of thinking.
Okay, you might be saying, I understand that creativity is good. It’s the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of the world who can engender brilliant, creative ideas and find ways to make them work. But what does that have to do with the arts? Why should we bother teaching art in the university? I mean, can’t we just teach creativity, instead?
Well, there are (at least) two reasons that art should continue to have a place in the university. First, it has become increasingly clear that education in the arts can foster innovation through collaboration between artists and those in other university departments. Secondly, just as the university can provide a safe haven for pure research, unconstrained by the demands of the corporate sector, it can also provide a nurturing climate where artists can push boundaries of expression and experiment with ideas and forms apart from the mandate to please a prospective buyer. In both research and artistic expression, the university is the primary breeding ground for the advancement of knowledge.
I can’t take credit for these thoughts (although I fully support them): all of these ideas were published recently in the University of Michigan’s ArtsEngine: Art-Making and the Arts in Research Universities Strategic Task Forces March 2012 Interim Report. But, I have held these beliefs myself for quite some time without having previously been aware that the University of Michigan was undertaking this landmark work. For instance, not too long ago I was involved in a discussion with some faculty members in the Texas Tech University College of Business, who asked me if I felt that the MFA was—as some had said—the new MBA. While this does touch on that IBM study placing a premium on creativity, I had to say, No. I have an MFA, and I have been a business executive, so I feel that I can address this issue from both sides. My business experience did indeed require creativity and innovation, and these abilities were enhanced by my arts education, but study for an MFA is very much focused on just one thing: making art. Fully 75% of my MFA coursework was spent in the studio, with a mere pittance in the classroom where, not surprisingly, we only talked about art. If I hadn’t personally possessed a background in business administration prior to participating in that program, it wouldn’t have done me any good as a business professional at all. But, knowing that issue from both sides, I proposed to those business professors that conducting a course in creativity for their MBA students could indeed be an excellent thing.
I’m intrigued by the idea of art faculty members co-teaching and collaborating with professors from science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The fusion of art and science can produce amazing, astounding, even breathtaking results. But…I can also see a problem that thus far no one has voiced. Those STEM professors all have a doctoral degree, which means they’ve all conducted original research and written a dissertation about it. And, because they work in fields that undergo relentless change, they have to continuously keep themselves up to date with innovations in their fields. Those art professors, on the other hand, have an MFA, which they feel is a “terminal degree” on par with a doctorate. Having earned both degrees, I have to disagree. My MFA, as I said, was completely practice-based. I did produce a body of artwork of which I’m justifiably proud, but all that was required in terms of a scholarly document to accompany that artwork was a brief artists’ statement (overachiever that I am, I wrote an 80-page research paper anyway). In contrast, for my doctoral degree, I wrote a qualitative research-based dissertation that included case studies, historical analysis, aesthetic philosophy, and sociology-epistemology as well as a great deal of original thinking. It was nearly 400 pages long—a far cry from the 2-page enigmatic artists’ statements produced by my fellow MFA peers. This is not to say that it doesn’t take a great deal of intensive, original, creative thinking to produce an MFA project. It does. My peers produced some amazing artwork involving materials engineering, paint chemistry, and biological research, among other things,…but all of this was done on a far more intuitive level than research conducted by those in engineering, chemistry, or biology. My friend who made heavy metal and glass sculptures appear to float in the air likely could not articulate the physics behind his accomplishments. He just knew how to make it work. My friend who produced abstracted paintings fusing nature and the human body searched for visual models to use as reference for her compositions, but did not conduct any systematic study of anatomy or botany. The work of art was all that mattered, not being able to articulate the thinking or research underlying its creation.
James Elkins, in his 2009 book Artists with PhDs, expresses his doubts as to whether artists are capable of the rigorous study and research inherent in doctoral study, stating that most art students he’s worked with during his long teaching career tend not to be the most accomplished scholars. I have to say that my observations have been much the same: of the numerous art professors, art students, and working artists whom I know personally, the vast majority do not engage in scholarly research and writing about their field. Indeed, because the demand in the art department is to continue working as a practicing artist, instead of the mandate to research and publish common to other university departments, art professors tend to remain stuck in the theory and philosophy that was in vogue at the time they attended graduate school themselves. There is no professional expectation to engage in continuing education at the same level as their STEM peers.
Opening the doors of the art department to students from the university at large will most certainly benefit those students—increasing their capacity for creativity and innovation. But this door must swing both ways. It is also time to bring the art department up to the standards of research and scholarship found across the rest of the university landscape. Art historians might argue that this has always been the case in their little corner of the world, but I’m not talking about them. What I mean is the corps of faculty members who teach the work of the studio—the painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers, metalworkers, glassworkers, ceramicists, digital media artists, and all of my fellow art-makers. We must be capable of holding high-level intellectual discussions with faculty members from the STEM departments, to conduct research, to write, and to think analytically as well as heuristically or intuitively. If we want to share the benefits that we know so well are intrinsic to the making of art, we should also open ourselves up to the possibility that it’s time to emerge from the cloister of the studio and participate in the greater work of the university, using the same language, the same intellectual tools, and holding ourselves to the same standards of continuing education and scholarly publication.
It also means that students majoring in the arts should be required to take more science, math, writing, and other courses and perhaps spend a bit less time in the studio. Making art is great. I love making art. But if I were asked to co-teach a creativity course with someone from the chemistry department, my coursework in chemistry long behind me, I might have a problem. Shouldn’t a painting student know enough about chemistry to understand the optical qualities of paint? Shouldn’t a sculpture student learn about physics and engineering, at least enough to understand the properties of physical matter? And shouldn’t every art major have to take enough English and Rhetoric courses to be able to write a coherent artist’s statement that isn’t enigmatic or incomprehensible? We need to raise the academic bar for art students just as urgently as we need to invite students from the rest of the university to experience in the benefits of art.
I know, I’m suggesting nothing less than a revolution—an overthrow of the status-quo and the decades-long domination of the notion that the MFA is a doctoral equivalent, of giving art students a pass on math and science and English in favor of increased time in the studio, of emphasizing artistic production over scholarly accomplishment. Heretics and rabble-rousers like me have been burned at the stake for less.
[1] “To Boost Post-College Prospects, Cut Humanities Departments,” by Peter Cohan, published in Forbes Magazine on May 29th, 2012
[2] http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/ceo/ceostudy2010/index.html