The Campus Art Museum - Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Institutional commitment to the arts appears to be more recent at sites in
the study with museums established since the 1950s. For example, although the
University of Chicago (UC) “has a strong humanities core” (intern) and is wellknown
as intellectually rigorous, an emphasis on the arts as part of what the
university has to offer is fairly recent and due, in large part to a new president
who took a strong interest in the arts after commissioned research suggested its
importance in attracting gifted high school students. (See Appendix IV.A. for an
interpretive distillation of this and other interviews.)
That changes in perspectives and institutional emphases are possible may
give some solace to other campus museums. The UAMA, for example, is dealing
with the most severe budget cuts of any museum in the study. These cuts put the
museum and remaining staff under pressure as each person struggles to do more
with fewer resources. Creative and innovative, they find ways to make increased
use of University of Arizona (U of A) students and community docents who are
enthusiastic about and supportive of the museum, as are faculty who use the
museum in classes. The budget challenges at the UAMA, however, are augmented
by a university culture that supports science and technology with, as a respondent
stated, “arts and culture, a kind of afterthought.” Various interviewees commented
on this point:
This is a really extraordinary university. Its level of research is so off the charts….
When the administration is trying to sell itself, which it has to do continually with
the legislature, the strength of medicine and science is always at the top of the
list.... When pressed, they can talk eloquently about the importance of the arts
and humanities and social sciences, but the reality is what resonates with the
legislature is high tech, new technology, new discoveries, how that relates to jobs.
(staff, UAMA)
What is scariest, I think, is that people are saying ‘teach your kids math and
science’ but they don’t get that art ties into those in so many ways. (student, U of A)
A culture of commitment to the arts somewhat obviously suggests that
college or university administrators and faculty would be supportive of the
campus art museum. Less apparent is the relevance of a culture of collaborative
and interdisciplinary learning. What connection might institutional emphases on
collaborative and interdisciplinary research and teaching have to appreciation and
use of campus art museums?
History and Culture of Collaborative and Interdisciplinary
Learning
Collaboration and interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, or sometimes transdisciplinary,
are current academic buzzwords. Collaborative and cross-disciplinary
approaches are integrated into many of the ten key high-impact educational
practices identified by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (Kuh
Supportive Campus Cultures and Structures
10