Context and History
Insights
The arts have always been important to U-M, both as professional training ground and as opportunity for all students.
Decentralization at U-M has been a challenge as well as an asset to the growth of the arts.
The Arts Initiative, established in 2019, builds on numerous previous organized efforts to support the arts at U-M.
Connecting the Arts Across Campus
TheArts at the University of Michigan is a rich ecosystem, with inflection points in its history building towards today’s more connected and comprehensive story.
One of those major inflection points is the $20M presidential Arts Initiative, launched in 2019. The campus-wide investment had predecessors in the early 1990’s with the provost-backed Arts at Michigan initiative, the Public Goods Council in the early 2000’s, a subsequent Arts Consortium meeting from 2016- 2019, and many other councils and convenings. Notably, the North Campus deans organized their arts integration activities around the Arts on Earth collaboration in 2007–which was renamed ArtsEngine in 2009.
The history of the institution is punctuated by the founding of schools, colleges, museums, galleries, and performing arts units over the course of more than 150 years, illustrated in the timeline below. Difficult to illustrate but no less important is the story of all the students, faculty, and staff who animate this history. The arts asset mapping team has endeavored to tell that story with faculty and staff interviews, artistic research reports, and the Arts Engagement Project, which measures and chronicles the experiences of students and their connections to the arts. The arts at U-M has storied strengths, but there is a historical push and pull between centralization and fragmentation.
The current Arts Initiative elevates and coordinates the arts assets across a very large and decentralized university. This focused collaboration at the highest level of the university is new, reflecting a trend at other research-intensive institutions across the country such as Stanford Arts, UVA Arts (University of Virginia), Harvard Arts, and the University of Maryland’s Arts for All, among many others.
Timeline
| University's art collections available to the public | 1856 | |||
| 1876 | First architecture courses offered | |||
| First University Musical Society (UMS) concert | 1879 | |||
|
The first UMS concert was Handel's Messiah |
||||
| 1880 | First UMS music courses offered | |||
|
Rehearsal: Student Orchestra and UMS Choral Union, year unknown | ||||
| Department of Fine Arts established | 1910 | |||
|
The Department of Fine Arts held classes in Alumni Hall until 1949. |
||||
| 1913 | Hill Auditorium opens | |||
|
The building was completed in 1913 and is named after Regent Arthur Hill, 1916 | ||||
| Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre opens (along with the Michigan League) | 1929 | School of Music formally becomes part of the university | ||
|
The Theater was designed by Allen Pond & Pond Architects with Martin & Lloyd | ||||
| Architecture established as a separate college | 1931 | |||
|
Architecture Building, 1930/1940 (ca.) |
||||
| 1946 | University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) established, with collections dating to 1856 | |||
| Art and Architecture departments separated but housed within the College of Architecture and Art | 1954 | |||
| 1964 | School of Music opens on North Campus (Earl Moore Building) | |||
|
School of Music Building on North Campus, 1970 (ca.) | ||||
| Residential College established | 1967 | |||
|
The U-M Residential College Planning Committee (shown here in 1967) included arts courses as part of its liberal arts curriculum |
||||
| 1971 | Power Center for the Performing Arts opens | |||
|
View of seating area and stage with scaffolding, Power Center for the Performing Arts, Jan 1971 | ||||
| The new Art & Architecture Building opens on North Campus | 1974 | Dance joins the School of Music | ||
| Drama/Theatre joins the School of Music and Dance to form SMTD | 1984 | |||
| 1990 | Prison Creative Arts Project founded | |||
|
A piece titled 'Peter: Denied Him Thrice' by Otto Bryan from the 1st Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners, 1996 | ||||
| Arts@Michigan established within the Office of New Student Programs | 1996 | |||
| 2000 | Center for World Performance Studies established | |||
| Arts on Earth initiative promotes arts integration across campus | 2007 | Walgreen Drama Center opens | ||
|
Arts on Earth presentation of "Arts & War", Mar 2007 |
President Mary Sue Coleman at the Gala opening of the Walgreen Drama Center and Arthur Miller Theatre, Mar 2007 | |||
| UMMA building expansion | 2009 | ArtsEngine is the new name for Arts on Earth effort with addition of LivingArts and UARTS | ||
|
View looking from street, designed by Allied Works Architecture, Aug 2004 | ||||
| Art & Environment Gallery created in what is now SEAS | 2012 | Alliance of Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) established | ||
|
a2ru's first logo before it was changed in 2022 | ||||
| EXCEL program created in SMTD | 2015 | |||
|
EXCEL presentation at the New York Philharmonic, Oct 2015 |
||||
| 2019 | Arts Initiative start-up phase launched | |||
|
U-M president Mark Schlissel launches new Arts Initiative, Oct 2019 | ||||
| Arts & Resistance Theme Semester | 2023 | |||
|
Drag as Resistance, Fall 2023 |
||||
The Origins of Arts Units, Consolidating on North Campus
Making the arts a priority was evident from U-M’s early history—the arts have been an integral part of the University’s identity and the student experience nearly since it began awarding degrees in the 1840s. Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) was the first college founded, reflecting the value that engagement with the arts was considered part of a well-rounded education. By 1905, LSA students were able to have music classes count toward their degree. The first department of fine arts was founded in 1910 and the arts were broadly included in the curriculum. The School of Music was founded as a stand-alone entity in 1929, though music classes were available since the 1880s. Meanwhile the arts were accessible to a wide segment of the student body and Ann Arbor community as a social organization and convening force; for example, the Civic Theater was a feature at the Union in the 1930s.
By mid-century the university was headed to a professionalization of the arts. The School of Music moved out of LSA and formed its own unit in 1964. Dance (1974) and Drama (1984) followed to consolidate in the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance (SMTD) on North Campus. With the move of the arts units, an “arts district” was created on North Campus. In a recent interview, former Provost Lester Monts noted that when many arts activities migrated to North Campus, central campus lost a lot of the look and feel of the arts—one would rarely see students walking across central campus with a cello case, for example. However, members of the U-M community adapted; they created additional avenues for making and viewing the arts, which led to more overall arts activity and greater interdisciplinary approaches. For example, the Residential College established a robust music, performing, and visual arts program to fulfill its mission to serve as a small liberal arts college within the larger university. Each unit, from the International Institute to the School of Dentistry, eventually established a gallery.
