The Case for Arts Integration

Abstract

The Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (A2RU) fosters and champions the role of the arts and design in research universities. A2RU supports faculty, students, and academic leadership who seek to better integrate the arts and design into the interdisciplinary, collaborative fabric of their universities, and is committed to supporting the growing body of high-quality scholarly and creative production most attainable when disciplines are free to experiment within and across their boundaries. MAKING THE CASE FOR ARTS INTEGRATION Like all A2RU's programs, The Case for Arts Integration is grounded in research and developed through integration and synthesis. This resource supports the work of arts integration on-campus, and draws on insights gathered from over 600 interviews with academic leaders, institutional officers, faculty, staff, and students at over 60 research universities. The A2RU research team systematically reviews these insights for evidence of the positive impacts, successful patterns, best practices, recurring challenges, and salient stories of arts integration. Then, working in collaboration with individual faculty, staff, and leadership from across A2RU's partner universities, we translate these insights into practicable amplification tools like this book. 6 7 DIFFERENTIATION Recognizing the distinctions between fields, perspectives, practices, and possibilities. INTEGRATION Recognizing the meaningful applications and connections between fields, perspectives, practices, and possibilities-as well as their contingencies. WHAT IS ARTS INTEGRATION? Integration can mean different things to different people, and arts integration is no exception. Practitioners take both formal and informal approaches-from thinking in terms of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary archetypes to simply showing up and working together. Successful integration involves two complementary activities: WHAT DO WE MEAN BY "THE ARTS"? The mindsets and practices of creativity and making-strongly associated with the humanities and the fine, performing, and applied arts & design-rather than the discipline labels themselves.