CAA News Today

Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Who Should Pay for the Arts in America?

After fifty years, the ethos on which the National Endowment for the Arts was founded—inclusion and community—has been eroded by consistent political attack. As the NEA’s budget has been slashed, private donors and foundations have jumped in to fill the gap, but the institutions they support, and that receive the bulk of arts funding in this country, aren’t reaching the people the NEA was founded to help serve. (Read more from the Atlantic.)

New White Paper Examines Arts Organizations of Color

The National Center for Arts Research at Southern Methodist University released a white paper titled “Does ‘Strong and Effective’ Look Different for Culturally Specific Organizations?” that examines the distinguishing characteristics of arts organizations primarily serving Asian American, African American, and Hispanic/Latino communities. The study is designed to provide insights, based on measurable data, about the operating contexts and unique challenges that these organizations face. (Read more from the National Center for Arts Research.)

New York Arts Organizations Lack the Diversity of Their City

New York City’s cultural sector does not match the demographic diversity of the its population, though the sector is more diverse than arts organizations on the national level, according to a survey released by the city’s Cultural Affairs Department. By examining the staff and leadership at city‐funded nonprofit cultural organizations, the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio hoped to show its commitment to promoting and building diversity among arts institutions. (Read more from the New York Times.)

How University Museums Bridge the Gap between Art and Science

It is hard to resist looking at images of your own brain. When the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive reopens on January 31 in a new $112 million building, visitors will see intricate drawings of radiolaria by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel and sketches of the human brain’s branching neural networks by the Spanish-born Santiago Ramón y Cajal, known as the father of neuroscience. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

Academics Get Real

Academic bios—such as those for department or personal websites, conference proposals, and social media—are supposed to simultaneously explain scholars’ work and “sell” their potential. While they aim to make one seem intellectually desirable and hirable, authenticity isn’t usually a priority. But what if academic bios got real? (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

The Limits of Open

As Coursera tweaks its business model to find a financially viable way to offer massive open online courses, critics say its MOOCs are becoming less open. Coursera has announced the release of dozens of new courses and course sequences, which it calls Specializations, in subjects ranging from career brand management to creative writing. But many new MOOCs cost $79 up front for the first of five courses or $474 prepaid for the entire program. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Teaching “Selfies”

If you’re looking for ways to improve your teaching this year, record yourself teaching in the classroom. There are many reasons why this form of self-observation works. As uncomfortable as it can be to see yourself on screen, recording yourself is also a powerful tool for reflection. It is relatively easy, low-risk, and totally customizable (Read more from GradHacker.)

What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us

College course syllabuses are curious documents that represent the best efforts by instructors to distill human knowledge on a given subject into fourteen-week chunks. They structure the main activity of colleges and universities. And then, for the most part, they disappear. Despite the bureaucratization of higher education over the past few decades, syllabuses have escaped systematic treatment. (Read more from the New York Times.)