This week, Stanford University will have a groundbreaking ceremony to initiate construction of the Bing Concert Hall, a performance hall scheduled for completion January 2013. (See here for plans.) It’s part of a larger plan to create an “arts district” on the campus that will consolidate arts programs and connect with the Cantor Arts Center. For more on the Stanford Arts Initiative, see here.
The initiative is important for a particular reason that extends beyond the Stanford campus. As everyone knows, the arts continue to struggle for roles and places in rural, suburban, and urban communities. Theaters come and go, performing groups linger from year to year on financial cliffs, and performers barely eke out a living.
Everyone wants the arts, though, and here is where campuses come into play. In many areas, campuses are the only place where people can hear live chamber music and jazz, watch old foreign films, and enjoy Restoration comedy and modern dance. Providing access to the arts for people in the area is one of the best ways in which colleges do community outreach, not to mention refining the cultural atmosphere for 18-year-olds enrolled in the school.
According to the 2008 NEA Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, participation in opera, jazz, classical music, ballet, galleries and museums, and crafts/visual arts festivals has declined significantly in recent years. (See here.) And on the 2006 National Survey of Student Engagement, when asked how often they attended an art space or performance, 31 percent of seniors replied, “Never,” 45 percent of them “Sometimes.”
More commitment to raising cultural climates on campus might help change the trend.
One Response to Universities and the Arts: an Example at Stanford
goxewu - May 7, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Nice idea, nice post. But a small problem: Access to the events for the general public. Bauerlein’s alma mater, UCLA, is especially difficult: Parking on campus is very difficult (scattered parking structures, inadequate capacity), parking near campus is impossible (the Little Holmby richies have obtained parking restrictions on their streets so tight only the domestic help with leafblowers can park their trucks for 15 minutes), and the exact venue is often hard to locate on the sprawling campus. Schools in big cities with adequate public transit (e.g., NYU) can manage it, but otherwise there’s nothing like a concert hall or art museum with a real street address.