Jacques,
In my experience, it's the opposite of what you describe. Creative activity is a newer addition to recognized criteria for retention and tenure. Prior to that, American universities treated forms of artistic production as second to scientific and social scientific research. The bias is still entrenched. Additionally, US academic institutions-facing budget crises-are placing greater emphasis on externally-funded research. And add to this a strong and growing interest in engaged scholarship (supplanting outreach/community service), which also promotes itself as a form of research. The recognition of "creative activity" didn't really get much chance to take root before these other emphases came fully to the fore. This is not to say creative activity is not recognized as a legitimate form of scholarship, but it's not flourishing as a "peer" to what many on this list would define as research. This tends to push artists and designer/artists back into legitimizing their work as research, pursuing external funds, and listing how much money they've raised to fund projects. Dept chairs and deans within universities provide these numbers to their upper administrators per annual reporting requirements. And this process, in turn, reinforces the sense that creative activity is quickly becoming less valuable to university execs.
Michael
--
Michael Schmidt, Director
Center for Multimedia Arts
The University of Memphis
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On 12/1/10 10:15 AM, "Jacques Giard" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Gunnar, Terry et al,
Further to comments about "research/creative activities" as terminology
often used in American universities, there appears to also be a
misappropriation of the word "research" in certain academic units when
referring to what is commonly known as "creative activities." Architecture
is one area that comes to mind. There are others.
The tendency to use the term "research" instead of "creative activities" in
these situations is most likely because research has currency with the upper
administration of the university while "creative activities" does not, at
least not as much. Therefore, what was once a creative activity embedded in
a typical design studio activity suddenly becomes research. The design
activity has not changed significantly but its perceived value has, perhaps.
Jacques Giard PhD
Professor of Design
School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
480.965.1373
http://web.me.com/jrgiard/Site/Welcome.html
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