art of New England higher education, The

New England Journal of Higher Education, The, Summer 1998 by Hoy, John C

The economic role of the arts in New England is a hot topic. In the spring, the New England Board of Higher Education assembled a select group of arts educators and others at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine to discuss the cultural, economic and social impact of college and university arts programs on the region.

A few months later, the New England Council, America's oldest business organization, sponsored a forum at Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass., to encourage cooperation between the arts and business and promote "cultural tourism" in the region.

Such attention from "practical" New England organizations is important and overdue, for this little corner of the United States has long served as America's studio, gallery and theater.

All told, New England is home to more than 9,800 cultural organizations and about 98,000 of the nation's 1.6 million artists, according to Northeastern University Economics Professor Gregory H. Wassall, who has diligently attempted to take stock of the economic role of New England arts in collaboration with Douglas DeNatale of the New England Foundation for the Arts.

NEBHE's interest in the subject stems from the fact that New England's vibrant arts community is nurtured by the region's colleges and universities. Indeed, the stunning montage of academic arts programs associated with New England's 260 colleges and universities may represent the most richly diverse concentration of quality arts programs in the Western Hemisphere.

Sure, Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum is America's oldest continuously operating public art museum. And the Museum of Fine Arts is world-renowned. But so are the Fogg and BuschReisinger art museums at Harvard University, as well as museums at Dartmouth, Yale, Brandeis and several other New England colleges, including the Housatonic Community-Technical College Museum, which claims to hold more works of art than any other two-year college in the country.

Yes, the Boston Symphony Orchestra is world-class. But how many admirers are aware that nearly half of its musicians are New England Conservatory alumni and faculty? The region hosts other key music institutions as well, including the Boston Conservatory and Berklee College of Music.

New England higher education's contribution to the arts is growing.

The region's campuses granted more than twice as many bachelor's and doctoral degrees in arts and music in 1995 than they did in 1970, and nearly twice as many master's degrees in those fields. Nationally, the number of bachelor's and master's degrees granted in arts and music grew by just 27 percent and 33 percent, respectively, during that 25-year period, while the number of doctorates granted in the fields grew by 49 percent.

Yet the arts are in a precarious position as we approach the 21st century. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) survived the now-predictable threats of elimination again this year, but the federal program is a shell of its former self. NEA funding in New England sunk from nearly $14 million in 1988 to less than $7 million last year. Meanwhile, arts, culture and humanities causes capture just 3 percent of American charitable giving.

As federal arts funding has suffered from political attacks, state arts funding has been buffeted by recession. State support for the arts in New England neared $26 million or $1.95 per capita in 1988, but sunk below $9 million or 67 cents per capita during the depths of the recession of the early 1990s, dragged down primarily by a precipitous drop in Massachusetts arts funding. Despite gradual improvement since then, state investment in arts throughout New England remains below $21 million or $1.54 per capita-still better than the national per-capita state investment of 82 cents!

Notably, the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of State Arts Agencies reports that state investment in the arts is rising across the nation, not to make up for the shortfall in federal arts funding, but because states increasingly see connections between the arts and public priorities in areas such as education and economic development.

Still, funding isn't the only problem. The arts carry little weight in key phases of academic life. High school arts grades often matter little in college admissions decisions. Artistic accomplishment matters little in faculty tenure decisions-and so on.

Constance Bumgarner Gee, who teaches arts policy at Brown University, notes: "If we want other people to value something, then we must show that we value that something as well. The first step I would suggest New England colleges and universities ought to take is to require several high school arts credits for admissions, just as they do the sciences, history, literature and mathematics."

Above all, New England educators, policymakers, business leaders and other decisionmakers need to work together to ensure that the region prepares students for the creative careers of the 21st century and fosters the economic and cultural development of cities and towns.

John C. Hoy is president of the New England Board of Higher Education and publsher of CONNECTION.