American Journal of Arts Management
“The ‘Evolving’ Crisis: The Precarious State of the Arts in Higher Education”
by Rebecca Taylor, Debra Mexicotte, Claudia Dorn, and Nicoleen Willson
https://www.artsmanagementjournal.com/editions/volume-14-issue-2-may-2026
This paper argues that the contemporary state of the arts in U.S. higher education is characterized
by two structural dynamics that help explain the persistent vulnerability of non-revenue-generating
programs: the Advocacy-Resource Trap, a self-reinforcing cycle in which understaffed units cannot
generate the impact evidence needed to secure resources; and the Decentralization Paradox,
wherein programming distributed across multiple units produces fragmentation rather than
integration.