Introduction

The Arts at the University of Michigan: A Benchmarking Report provides a picture of the Arts at the University of Michigan (U-M). Over the course of a year and a half (2024-2025), the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) and ArtsEngine staff partnered with Arts Initiative (AIM) staff to illustrate the arts ecosystem at U-M.

Nationally, the arts tend to be data poor and uniquely difficult to quantify. This paucity of comparable information results in the arts often being undervalued on campus. This project endeavors to:

• provide a landscape analysis of the arts at U-M, establishing benchmarks for longitudinal analysis

• make clear the value of the arts, as well as the unique set of skills students who engage with the arts acquire, and how those skills benefit their lives, careers, and communities

• contribute to metadata standards that benefit the arts in higher education as a field, specifically: a model protocol for both quantifying and describing the arts landscape across higher education, thus enabling deeper arts impacts research and informing best practices for “accounting” for the arts on campus

This report represents a second phase of the project, augmenting an initial report “Arts Data Pilot for the University of Michigan” completed in 2023.

For the initial quantitative study represented in that 2023 report, a2ru and a seasoned advisory team of arts researchers and evaluators as well as U-M staff and students endeavored to map the university’s considerable arts assets— including both formal and informal arts experiences. The purpose of the project was to understand “what we have” in order to inform strategic planning around arts gaps and needs, as well as to prevent the duplication of arts efforts. The pilot explored existing data on a series of indicators, such as gallery and performance spaces, degrees offered, funding for arts faculty, course offerings, partnerships with arts organizations, student groups devoted to the arts—anything we could find to quantify the arts on campus. Challenges identified in the pilot project generated questions for this current report, such as how to contend with the lack of available, uniform, quantifiable data.

Embarking on Phase 2, we looked for climate surveys that included arts questions we might draw on. We found that existing campus-wide surveys (such as ASSET and UMAY) touch on areas AIM also addresses, such as feelings of mental wellness, inclusion, and belonging. However, they rarely have arts-specific questions we could pull out in the way that the National Endowment for the Arts creates their Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) from census data.

As a result, this second phase expands the scope of the project, utilizing surveys, focus groups, and interviews to provide a more comprehensive picture, beginning to fill gaps that could not be covered with the available data. For example, in Phase II we do a deep dive into student engagement with the arts through the lens of student groups; more importantly, we partner with the Arts Engagement Project, an ongoing, longitudinal survey of a cohort of students from Freshman to Senior year.

This report augments insights from the pilot work, expanding evidence of the “how and why” of the value of the arts. For example, we demonstrate that the arts are crucial for students, and we offer support for the importance of the arts for the university’s reputation. We also begin to unpack how the arts units and organizations at U-M are not only nationally recognized for their leadership; they are also pillars of the arts experience locally.

The report includes sections such as the student experience, staff experience, and the landscape of arts research. The sections are grounded in different questions, represent diverse scopes and methods, and were written by various contributing teams. They are presented here in full to best convey their insights. A Summary Report is available.

With this report, we hope to demonstrate the depth and breadth of the arts at the university. In turn, we hope this information will not only help university leadership here and across higher education to understand the full picture of the arts on campus, but also inspire them to support and strengthen these invaluable assets.

• Authors

  This report was written by Veronica Stanich (a2ru), Maryrose Flanigan (a2ru), and Deb Mexicotte (ArtsEngine), with contributions and guidance from Alison Rivett (Arts Initiative).

  Two student teams—including Krithika Balaji (survey design, statistical analyses and interpretation, data visualization and synthesis, and report design) and Umang Bhojani (survey design, distribution, and synthesis) for the Arts Initiative and Mya Dobbs, Nathaniel Liganor, Sarosh Manzur, and Cindy Ye (survey design and distribution, statistical analyses and interpretation, and data visualization and synthesis) for the Arts Engagement Project—were integral to the project. All students are graduates of U-M’s School of Information.

  Gabriel Harp, now Director of Research and Creative Practice at Taubman College, was co-investigator for the first iteration Arts Engagement Project 2010-2015; with Jack Bowman and Mengdan Yuan, graduate researchers who contributed significantly to the 2010-2015 AEP analysis reported here.