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While insights gained from data and interpretation of interview responses are a rich source of information, they are most exciting as a jumping-off point for sensemaking, assessment, planning, and case-making.
In an effort to create a broad view of this landscape, and to help research leaders locate their own work within it, we created a map and instrument for further inquiry into the impacts of arts integration. The data used to create this map are drawn from primary interviews and surveys, as well as from a secondary literature review of exemplary use-cases and scholarly sources. The map helps prompt new questions about the relationships among impacts, and it affords researchers, teachers, and leadership a more specific vocabulary and set of categories from which to ask better questions and apply new frameworks and insights. The Impacts Map can be a particularly effective tool for case-making, illustrating the impacts of arts-integrative work to university administration, funders, parents, or the community. On the reverse side of the map is the worksheet used in our Impacts Workshops to facilitate this case-making. Download the map below (right-click, save-as).
This map helps demonstrates how arts integration improves research, promotes student success, and engages and serves the public. Research universities recognize and leverage the broader impacts of the arts through the work of higher education in five key areas: academic activities (including teaching, research, and engagement), student experience, student futures, the world outside the university, and with disciplines other than the arts.
