Arts Innovation Steering Committee to discuss arts education at UNC

In ten years, if a UNC student majoring in business is able to capitalize on University resources to sculpt, paint, sing or dance, Hogan Medlin’s vision for the campus will be complete.

That vision — to be drafted by a gathering of artistic leaders from the campus and Chapel Hill community at large — forms the backbone of what Student Body President Medlin hopes to call his legacy at the University.

On Friday, Medlin formally launched the Arts Innovation Steering Committee, a group that aims to direct the future of arts education and creation at UNC.

And with members as varied and influential as Executive Director for the Arts Emil Kang, the chancellor’s special assistant for innovation and entrepreneurship Judith Cone and UNC’s first lady Patti Thorp, the committee stands a chance of influencing campus policy in a year already packed with far-sighted academic planning documents.

“This is a real opportunity to push out some strong language on where the arts can and should be going,” Medlin, himself a former UNC Clef Hanger, said on Friday.

Whatever plan the committee finally drafts will be presented as a call to action at the March meeting of the University’s Board of Trustees — Medlin’s final meeting as student body president.

The committee faces an uphill battle of sorts as it attempts to shape campus conversations on the arts.

The Board of Trustees is already set to process the implications and suggestions in the University’s new academic plan — to be released in the coming weeks — and the Chancellor’s recent report on innovation initiatives, Innovate@Carolina.

But Medlin is confident that his committee can synthesize the findings of these other reports, he said.

Members of the committee said that they are eager to begin work on the sizable goals of the plan.

“We (in the Office of the Executive Director for the Arts) are constantly engaged in how to get students to use the arts in their broader education,” Kang said. “And we applaud student government — this has been a long time coming.”

The University’s artistic community received considerable mention in the 2003 academic plan. An Arts Common, or central meeting place for visual and performing artists, was meant to have been developed behind the then-unfinished Kenan Music Building.

But funding difficulties prevented complete construction of the building, and the arts common remains an unrealized dream.

By extending its vision to foster a long-term discussion of curricular and campus improvements in the arts rather than on physical construction goals, Medlin’s committee aims to avoid these kinds of budgeting snafus.

“We need to change the University, even with the knowledge of current budget issues,” Medlin said.

And though Friday’s meeting produced few definitive goals, the committee did create a considerable wish list.

An increase in campus performance space, reformed artistic academic requirements and the development of a dance minor were all mentioned as important issues for the committee to consider.

“Exhausting the current ‘dance’ curriculum is easy,” said committee member senior Sarah McGuire.

Bill Andrews, associate dean of the college of arts and sciences and a committee member of both the academic and arts innovation plans, said that the University is currently evaluating the cost of developing a more significant dance curriculum.

Andrews also acknowledged problems with current graduation requirements — proposed in the 2003 academic plan — that call for broad campus enrollment in arts-orientated classes.

“It’s a great idea — but it doesn’t work,” Andrews said. “We shouldn’t make requirements if it’s hard to get classes.”

Committee members also admitted that it might be hard to convince a money-conscious General Assembly to support initiatives that don’t have clear financial benefits.

“It’s easy to calculate the impact of science and math education through company creation and revenue,” said Mark Meares, director of corporate and foundation relations. “But it’s not so easy to calculate the value and impact of the arts.”

It’s this value that the committee says it hopes to explore in the next six months of meetings.

“It doesn’t matter where or what,” Cone said. “The arts are not just about enjoyment or consumption.

“They are a part of full academic integration.”

Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.