The following is an excerpt from a new book I co-edited with Susan Kattwinkel, Performing Arts as High-Impact Practice, with particular emphasis on our chapter on undergraduate research.

Our overall goal was to acknowledge that the performing arts contribute to “high impact practices,” (HIPs) as identified by the American Association of Colleges & Universities. Using the well-known map of the HIPs to illustrate the centrality of performing arts practices in higher education, Kattwinkel and I call for increased participation by performing arts programs in general education, and campus and community initiatives. We use specific case studies as a guide. Ours is the first book to explicitly link the performing arts to HIPs. As a result, it will help institutions implement best practices to meet the transformative educational goals of students and ready them for the creative careers of the future. At stake is the viability of performing arts programs to continue to serve students in their pursuit of a liberal arts education.

Each chapter describes the performing arts disciplines’ contributions to one particular HIP, including a chapter on undergraduate research. Accepting creative activity as research is still contested ground, even among artists. Administrators and faculty need to advocate for the understanding of creative activity as research, and creative scholarship by students and faculty should be acknowledged for their contributions to the institution’s research profile. Ensembles and individuals that create plays, choreography, and compositions are conducting undergraduate research, and we need to educate our peers in other disciplines that this is the case. In our chapter on the HIP of undergraduate research, we review the literature of the performing arts as research and trace the history of the incorporation of undergraduate research into the higher education landscape. We present two dynamic case studies. First, Kathy L. Privatt describes how engaging students in a dramaturgy project of their own choice has been a fruitful model of individual research. Second, Malaika Sarco-Thomas illustrates the benefits of integrating theory and practice in a dance project that gives undergraduates the framework in which to pursue their own research project.

Critical reviews of the book have been extremely positive:

“A combination of advocacy of arts in higher education, common sense, creative thinking, and twenty-first century ideas, this book reconsiders the myriad ways in which the arts could make our institutions richer and our students’ pathways more innovative, leading to career outcomes that transform society.”

–Nancy J. Uscher, Dean, College of Fine Arts, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

“An absolutely crucial read for practitioners, teachers, and scholars of the performing arts. Remarkably cogent, it meets a long-outstanding need: a point-by-point, thoroughly evidentiary argument for bringing the arts from the margins of higher education practice to the center, where they can help students meet the challenges of this new age.”

— Jacob Pinholster, Associate Dean, Herberger Institute for Design & the Arts, Arizona State University

Cover Photo courtesy of Yasmin Falzon

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