Arts Entrepreneurship Educator's Network

Gary Beckman has launched a great new resource reflecting the development of an Artistic Entrepreneurship curriculum aimed at empowering undergrads, MFAs, and MBAs alike.

Artistic Entrepreneurship has many layers--it's not just about teaching artists to use powerpoint and excel for five-year financial projections, but it's about teaching MBAs and MFAs about the vast value of a classical liberal arts education. All of the laws upon which entrepreneurship is founded are natural rights as expressed in the US Constitution and other classical literature. Thus the curriculum marries the "can do" spirit to common sense and self-reliance, reminding the students that all rights come with responsibilities. Ideals are real, and they are most useful tools in the arts--both on the artistic and the business level.

Warren Buffett has stated, "I am not an investor--I am an artist," and also, "My favorit time for holding a stock is eternity." --the same eternity Shakespeare and Dante wrote for.

The front page of Gary's site states:

Visit often for updates in events, articles of interest and other content for Arts Entrepreneurship Educators. If you have any questions about Arts Entrepreneurship, suggestions for additional features, submissions or comments, please see the Contact Page. Also, please view the AEEN's mission statement.

This site is a partial outcome of my recent study on Arts Entrepreneurship programs funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. After months of on-site interviews, it became clear that those interested in the topic lacked resources, information and a method to communicate. The AEEN is an initial step in addressing this lacuna. Again, my thanks to all who participated.

The site has three distinct modules: 1) A series of reports on the state of the discipline (including a catalog of institutions) 2) Reading Lists & Events 3) Interviews with Arts Entrepreneurship educators, program directors and administrators in the initial phases of program design. A dedicated listserv will be added if interest dictates.

Gary's "State of the Discipline" offers wonderful insights, as well as a call to create a currciculum better serving the students:

As a response to poor student outcomes in the arts, colleges and universities have been offering career-based courses and services for decades. However, in recent years this concern has gained national attention. Today, Entrepreneurship education in the fine arts is the most dynamic and exciting trend to appear in recent memory.

The discipline itself is in a shaping process. Given the suffix - "entrepreneurship" - much of the curricular content and thrust is drawn from the business school. Accounting, management, organizational principles and New Venture Creation (NVC) are weighted heavily in many Arts Entrepreneurship efforts. Yet in the past decade, new ideas about the nature of entrepreneurship and arts higher education have begun to broaden the curriculum.

Today, arts administrators are wrestling with a number of issues in this context. Questions of curricular design are perhaps the most obvious. Yet as the financial realties of higher education funding collide with a sense of moral duty to the students they nurture for four or more years, decision makers are increasingly looking for the most effective method to a "successful student outcome" and the benefits institutions may enjoy thereafter.

Thanks to Gary for creating a flagship resource to lead this rising curriculum.