The Center for Arts and Culture is pleased to announce the twelve recipients of the Research Policy Grant Program.   This award was designed to support research on issues in the arts, humanities, cultural heritage, creative industries, philanthropy and cultural administration. (View the Request for Proposals for more information.)

More than 100 proposals were received, making the field highly competitive.   Excerpts from the winning proposals can be read below:

Faculty and Independent Scholars:

Christine Martell, University of Colorado at Denver

Susan Scafidi, Southern Methodist University, School of Law

Elizabeth Strom, Rutgers University at Newark

Stefan Toepler, Johns Hopkins University and Volker Kirchberg, William Paterson University

Graduate Students:

Patricia Dewey, Ohio State University

Cora Sol Goldstein, University of Chicago Keith Lee, Ohio State University

Keith Lee, Ohio State University

Candace Matelic, The University at Albany Kelly Quinn, University of Maryland

Kelly Quinn, University of Maryland

Lisa Sharamitaro, Ohio State University

Michael Wakeford, University of Chicago

Herlinda Zamora, University of Texas at Austin

Christine Martell, University of Colorado at Denver
Special Taxing Districts

The proposed research seeks to explore the use of special taxing districts as an alternative funding source for arts and cultural organizations. Based on the premise that viable, sustainable revenue sources are integral to the long-term financial health of arts and cultural organizations, this research contributes to an understanding of how organizations might attain and use tax proceeds to develop the arts and cultural sectors. This research investigates the option of using a special taxing district to fund the development of arts and cultural facilities. Attention will identify what constitutes a special taxing district and discuss its advantages and disadvantages.

To illustrate concretely the effects of a special taxing district, the study will examine Metropolitan Denver’s Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. Discussion will focus on the authorizing legislation; the district’s allocation structure among various scientific, arts and cultural organizations; and the district’s effects on growth of the scientific, arts and cultural sector. Equally important, the study will explore the use of funds by recipients of the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District funds to understand how the funds have affected the sustainability and volatility of the recipient organizations’ revenue structures.

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Susan Scafidi, Southern Methodist University
Intellectual Property and the Commodification of Culture

Community-generated cultural commodities have tremendous economic and social value – yet most source communities have little control over them. Euro-American fitness instructors teach yoga and tai chi, white suburban youths become rap singers, and bar owners of all stripes dye Budweiser green for St. Patrick’s Day. While claims of authenticity or quality may prompt some consumers to seek cultural property at its source, the communities of origin are generally unable to exclude copyists through legal action. Like other works of unincorporated group authorship, cultural property in the form of cuisine, dress, music, language, handicrafts, or folklore lacks protection under our system of intellectual property law.

My research will examine the systemic problem of group authorship and intellectual property, with particular attention to cultural production within a heterogeneous polity. As existing scholarship inadequately explains the traditional lack of intellectual property protection for cultural commodities, I plan to suggest a broader socio-political rationale for this phenomenon. Finally, I will consider an equitable balance between the interests of source communities and the enrichment of national culture and the public domain.

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Elizabeth Strom, Rutgers University at Newark
Community Cultural Organizations and Urban Revitalization

This study examines the development of performance centers and art museums as instruments of urban revitalization. My goal is to describe the scope of this phenomenon (through a systematic analysis of cultural facilities in the largest American metropolitan areas) and to explain it, largely through the material collected in detailed case studies of urban development strategies and cultural resources in four cities. This research should offer a bridge between urban scholars who are interested in the city’s economic and political fate, and cultural scholars who are concerned with the changing function of arts institutions in redeveloping cities.

I shall prepare extensive case studies on cultural developments in four cities: Newark, Philadelphia, Seattle and Houston. These cities have all recently built, or are in the process of building or expanding major cultural facilities. The contrasting political cultures, political economies, and cultural histories in the four cities allow me to examine how the arts are used as an urban revitalization strategy in different settings. I shall conduct interviews with cultural, political and economic leaders in these cities in order to learn firsthand how they coalesce (or fail to coalesce) around cultural development strategies, how these efforts differ from other kinds of development initiatives, and what impacts completed cultural developments have had on the city’s economic vitality and its cultural institutions.

In order to understand the scope and timing of urban cultural facility development, I am also compiling a database of all mid-sized to major art museums, as defined by the American Association of Museums (all those with annual budgets of $200,000 or more) and mid-sized to major performing arts center (those with 1,000 or more seats) in cities that have populations of at least 250,000.

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Stefan Toepler, Johns Hopkins University and Volker Kirchberg, William Paterson University
Museums and Merchandising: When does the Tail Start Wagging the Dog?

Museum merchandising has significantly increased over the past decade or so. In addition to the expansion of on-site and off-site shops and mail-order catalogues, many museums are now also adopting e-tailing technology to open virtual stores (e.g., MuseumShop.com). Although frequently hailed as a major revenue source, for some large museums at least, the costs of running this business almost equal the costs of running the museum itself, while the net income appears to be very small compared to the resources going into merchandising.

The purpose of the proposed project is to investigate whether merchandising activities are an efficient means of contributing to the long-term self-sustainability of museums. We will do this through the collection and detailed analysis of annual reports and financial statements of a sample of museums nation-wide going back for a number of years to create time-series data of the extent of merchandising activities and the development of net revenues.

In a policy environment that is marked by reduced public funding and growing pressure from municipalities on cultural institutions to become more efficient and self-sustainable, it becomes increasingly important to scrutinize the actual viability of earned income strategies, especially if they involve significant investments and a high degree of financial risk. If the results of this research indicate that economic pressures tempt cultural institutions to engage in inefficient strategies, privatization policies and requests for greater self-sustainability at the local level would need to be re-evaluated.

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Graduate Students:

Patricia Dewey, Ohio State University
Culture and Development in New Democracies of Eastern Europe

With the goal of enhancing the abilities of arts managers toward development in the new democracies of Eastern Europe, I intend to conduct a pre-dissertation research project in Europe in July and August, 2001. My focus on development will be threefold: 1) growth in arts organizations and cultural industries; 2) the development of culture in support of civil society; and 3) the cultural component of national/regional economic development. The conjunction of these three areas of development will be explored in the context of globalization, comparative arts policy, and capacity building of cultural managers.

As cultural industries in transitional democracies move from a system of public patronage toward privatization and nonprofitization in a mixed-funding structure, arts managers face numerous obstacles to development. Struggling for survival in a new social market economy might require the transferal of market-oriented business skills and non-profit management skills (e.g. fundraising, governance), and privatization may be assisted or hindered by certain political structures or policies. Through the use of surveys, observation, interviews, and informal networking, I will check my assumptions of the skills I have identified as necessary for arts managers to succeed in new democracies. I will explore borrowings from other policy systems that might be adapted or adopted for use, and will assess the needs and challenges for cultural development in Eastern Europe.

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Cora Sol Goldstein, University of Chicago
The Control of Visual Representation: American Government Policies in Occupied Germany 1945-1949

Democratization scholars tend to concentrate their analyses on the economic and judicial aspects of political transitions, and consider only marginally the role of cultural policies in the construction of new paradigms of normalcy and self-understanding. In particular, they overlook the role of visual representation – including art and film – in shaping public conceptions of self. In my dissertation I explore the role of visual images in modern mass politics, taking as a case the actions of the American Military Government in occupied Germany in the period 1945-1949.

In my dissertation I address two questions: (1) How did the American military government deal with the highly politicized German visual sphere? (2) What was the role of art and film in the American agenda of denazification and reeducation? To answer these questions, I explore the ways by which the American military government achieved the substitution of the system of visual representation established by the National Socialist by a new system of visual representation compatible with the development of a democratic, tolerant and peaceful Germany.

In particular, I discuss two successive processes: the construction of collective guilt through exhibits, documentary film, and photography of concentration camps; and the construction of visual images of a new Germany through documentary film and fine art. My research explores the role of visual images in the construction of a national meta-narrative of collective identity.

The main claim in my dissertation is that art was a crucial terrain in which to impose and negotiate the very definition of the new German identity, as well as a way to manage the past in the post-Holocaust context. My hypothesis is that the U.S. Military Government in Germany used images (documentary film, documentary photography, and painting) as political tools by which to generate a new sense of Germanness. The German case sheds light on issues of global significance, such as the formation of new historical narratives and political identities in times of political transition.

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Keith Lee, Ohio State University
Supporting the Need: A Comparative Investigation of Cultural Trust and Endowment Funds at State Arts Agencies

Three concepts frame this research: 1) strategic fund development for cultural trust funds (CTFs) and cultural trust endowments (CTEs) including companion foundations at State Arts Agencies (SAA); 2) third party agent relationships between state government and non-government organizations; and 3) civic participation as donor cultivation. The question to be addressed is: "When SAA utilize trust funds, endowments, and companion foundations as long-term development vehicles, which private and non-profit organization (NPO) strategies for fund development are adopted and which are discarded?" Collective case study and content analysis methodologies are used to compare SAA fund development strategies, administrative practices, and donor policies. At least nineteen SAA (over a third of all states) have created cultural trust funds, cultural trust endowments, and/or companion foundations. This study of the inversion of third party government agent use of the NPO endowment strategy will highlight the limits of civic participation in donor cultivation. As SAA and government arts organizations (GAO) implement long-term funding strategies from private and corporate donors, federal and state policymakers and politicians continue to raise questions concerning the roles and relationships of Federal government to funding arts programs and services at the Federal, state and local government levels. This research will inform policymakers, politicians, and arts administrators about the potential, or lack thereof, for fund development from private donors and corporations.

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Candace Matelic, The University at Albany
Organizational Change in History Museums

The purpose of this research is twofold: first, to learn about the process of major organizational change in history museums, from multiple perspectives (those who initiate and direct change, those who implement change, those who are recipients of change); and second, to explore the role of directors (or others) who serve as change agents. There are seven organizations participating in the study, all of which are large or medium sized history museums that have undergone major or transformational change during the last two decades. These history museums include: Minnesota Historical Society; Missouri Historical Society; Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village; Detroit Historical Society; Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum; National Museum of American History; and Historical Society of Washington, DC.

American history museums are one group of cultural organizations in the public and nonprofit sectors that have been experiencing major change during the last two decades. The reasons for the transformation of many of these institutions range from sheer economic survival to a fundamental redefinition in purpose to become more open and community-driven organizations. History museums have not been the subject of any systematic study by organizational researchers. While there has been some recent research that included museums as a category of nonprofit organizations (see for example DiMaggio, 1983; Young, 1992), researchers equated art museums with all museums, or erroneously assumed that art museums were representative of the entire museum field.

The research methodology is comparative retrospective analyses of major change processes (rather than intensive case studies). Examples of major change processes include an era under a particular director, or a major building project, or a merger/redefinition. The data is being collected through informal, but semi-structured interviews with a group of individuals at each organization, representing multiple perspectives on the change process. The research also includes documentary material about each organization that pertains to the change process, such as archival documents, e.g. internal report, memos, meeting minutes, organizational charts, planning documents and educational materials, as well as published sources, e.g. annual reports, local newspaper articles, exhibit catalogs, new program materials, conference session tapes/reports, and articles in professional trade publications.

It is very important for all cultural organizations to learn about the processes and implications of organizational change, not only from a theoretical point of view, but also from real organizations that have undergone major change or transformation. We need to understand how change is envisioned, communicated, and implemented in cultural organizations. We need to learn how major organizational change affects individuals at all levels of cultural organizations, and how it is managed effectively and humanely. Thus, this research will add to our body of knowledge about a subject that is of critical importance to cultural organizations and the development of cultural policy.

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Kelly Quinn, University of Maryland
Learning from Langston Terrace

Through an on-line exhibit that explores the architectural, political, social, and cultural history of a neighborhood, Learning from Langston Terrace seeks to recover, document, and interpret the history of the first public housing program built in Washington, D.C.. Opened in 1937 specifically for Black families, Langston Terrace, with its low-rise, low-density modern architecture, supported and nurtured community in the early decades of the project; it continues as a housing program administered by D.C. Housing Authority. Learning from Langston Terrace has two primary goals: to serve as a pedagogical platform for students and scholars concerned with New Deal housing, art, and culture and to serve as a virtual exhibit where former and current residents may present their stories. As a virtual archive, the Web site provides access to primary sources about Langston Terrace’s architect, Hilyard Robinson; the original applicants; and the public art program.

In an effort to investigate how federal housing policy affected the physical construction of the built environment and the social construction of racial and gendered identities, Learning from Langston Terrace grew out of a series of field trips and conversations. While there are other Web sites dedicated to the history of the New Deal, none concentrates on the accomplishments of a Black architect and none examines the legacy of the New Deal for Black residents during the period and beyond. As such, Learning from Langston Terrace offers a unique, on-line opportunity for people interested in exploring the relationship between policy, art and culture.

In the future, I intend to digitize several hundred documents culled from the Public Works Administration project files from the National Archives. These documents include a rich collection of applications, internal departmental correspondence, and publicity records. Together, these materials provide a glimpse into the experiences of Black Americans during the Great Depression who turned to the government, hopeful for decent, modern housing. Also, in an interpretive, hyper-textual essay, I would like to examine the origins of the sculptural program that includes a frieze entitled, "The Progress of the Negro Race." Additionally, I would like to include an extensive set of materials from the architect’s papers that are housed at Howard University. Finally, in order to assess the project’s early successes with contemporary experiences, I would like to conduct oral interviews with former and current residents: these stories will provide an important opportunity for public housing residents to reflect on the relationship between art, architecture, and historic preservation in their lives. Ideally, I will conduct interviews in collaboration with teenagers in the neighborhood, and publish our efforts on the Web site.

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Lisa Sharamitaro, Ohio State University
An Explanatory Study of the Regional Arts Organizations

"The arts" is a network of agency relationships. The term agency refers to an organization or administrative division, but agency also indicates permission to act on the behalf of another, or what agency theorists define as "acting for." But, case by case, determining who stands as AGENT (acting on another’s behalf) and who as PRINCIPAL (benefitting from another’s action) becomes complicated. For example, consider the policy implications of the relationship of federal agencies (NEA, NEH, IMLS) to arts organizations, to artists, to audiences, to the legislators, and to the president.

Contributing to the complexity are leadership successions, new alliances, and advancements in technology – all increasing the temp at which the arts are propelled into unfamiliar territory. Long-standing assumptions about reciprocity, accountability, and aligned objectives may not be valid any loonger. Contemporary cultural policy research has been attentive to the need for evaluation, however, it has not focused on the nature of these tacit agreements and how they factor into (or interfere with) the evaluation process.

Agency theorists construct models that incorporate social theory, economics and organizational behavior in order to understand the nature of dynamic relationships. This proposal explores and expands agency theory, specifically the principal-agent model, to test its application toward enhanced evaluation strategies in the arts.

The six mainland Regional Arts Organizations (RAOs) constitute the case study set. Using a mission-driven construct of agency theory we ask who do the RAOs ‘act for,’ or who do they serve in a principal-agent context? Artists? the arts community? the community at large? their boards? their member State Arts Agencies (SAAs)? their donors? their federal funding source (the NEA)? Are the, in certain instances, agents, and at other times principals? If so, do these situations reinforce each other? confound each other? dilute each other?

This agency-based analysis strategy has potential utility for enhancing evaluation of partnership development, strategic planning or accountability in any arts organization. The funding environment for arts organizations continues to evolve, in many cases moving market-driven (profit-maximizing) values to the forefront. My goal is to contribute to a deeper analysis of how organizations in the arts both function and position themselves for service in the field and in their communities. However, in this shifting paradigm, I also see value in assessing the distinctive qualities of mission-driven organizations and the correlation of market and mission.

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Michael Wakeford, University of Chicago
Art Education and the "Cult of Creativity" in Post-WWII America

I will research how art education programs engaged dominant cultural ideas of ‘creativity’ and ‘expressive selfhood’ in the post-World War II United States. The resulting essay will explore what I speculatively identify as a ‘cult of creativity’ that pervaded the era’s cultural politics and deeply influenced cultural policy involving education in the visual arts. My preliminary research suggests that during the 1940s through the 1960s, a ubiquitous interest in defining and cultivating human creativity animated the goals not only of art educators, but also figures in the scientific, psychological, business, and philanthropic communities. Though the anxiety over creativity was no doubt tied to Cold War concerns about lagging behind the Soviet Union in scientific innovation, I am more interested in the way that ‘creativity’ spoke to issues such as the concern with social conformity, the development of an ethic of therapeutic expressiveness, or the nature of modern work and its perception as meaningless and routine. The issue if creativity, fears of its imperilled status, and ideas about how to cultivate it, brought art education into a shared public dialogue that cut across professional boundaries, spawned the careers of self-help gurus (such as Alexander F. Osborn, a former advertising executive who became a best-selling evangelist of creativity and creative education), and garnered ample attention in popular mass periodicals. Such concerns, ironically, spurred both passionate defenses of art education, on the grounds that it bred original thinking and innovative citizens, as well as inspiring powerful attacks against it, on the ground that the promotion of individual creativity and expression abandoned standards of excellence and diverted needed attention from teaching hard, scientific critical thinking skills. Utilizing archival and published sources, my proposed work will explore the sweeping coalescence around questions of creative expression and production. By exploring the complex intersection of artistic ideals with those of science and commerce, the essay will place art education and arts policy in a broader history of mid-twentieth century American culture and thought.

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Herlinda Zamora, University of Texas at Austin
Latino Museums and Community Involvement in the United States: A Historical Case-Study

Research by the Latino Oversight Committee (1997) has indicated that Americans, including Latinos, know little about the country’s heritage with respect to the importance of the Latino influence on the United States. According to the most recent Bureau of the Census projections, by 2010, nearly one-third of the U.S. population will be minority, and Latinos will be the largest single ethnic group, accounting for nearly one in seven Americans. In the face of a growing population of Latinos in the United States, museums may need to develop programs that achieve the goals of disseminating cultural awareness about Latino culture through the means of education.

My proposal is based on the lack of research concerning Latino museums in the United States and their importance in regard to the growing population of Latinos and their relevance as cultural institutions. My research will fill a historical void and draw attention to the implementation of community-based programs in Latino museums. I have chosen four Latino museums for my research: The Museum of Fine Arts Center in Illinois, the Mexican Museum in California, Mexic-Arte Museum in Texas and El Museo del Barrio in New York. Preliminary research has indicated that the four museums share a similar historical development, mission and programming.

The goal of my research is to provide an awareness and appreciation of the implementation of their community outreach programs as they relate to mission. A historical case-study will serve three important purposes: 1) it will provide a historical documentation of the development of Latino museums in the United States; 2) their community involvement based on their historical development; and 3) will highlight their collaborative work within mainstream museums.

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These research grants are made possible by support from the Ford Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The Center for Arts & Culture is grateful for the continuing general support of the Rockefeller Foundation.