We’re inviting all a2ru members to join us for a interactive and informal information session to meet a2ru staff, leaders, and network colleagues. We’ll kick off the academic year by sharing case studies about how member institutions have leveraged their a2ru memberships to advance scholarship, creative practice, and strategic initiatives on their campuses, and we’ll outline all your your a2ru benefits so that you — and your campus communities — can take full advantage of being a part of the network!
Drawing on responses from more than 1,700 alumni across the United States, the latest SNAAP Pulse survey turns to community engagement, asking respondents how creativity shapes their identity, how they support the arts, and how connected they feel to the places where they live. The results paint a hopeful but nuanced picture. While day-to-day participation in arts and cultural life varies, nearly all respondents say creativity is central to their identity. Most actively support the arts, and many report a strong sense of belonging in their communities, even as they highlight opportunities to strengthen support for artists and arts education.
The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) is a leader in enabling scholarship and insights that bolster the lives and careers of postsecondary arts graduates. SNAAP defines “arts” broadly, encompassing art, architecture, design, media arts, film, music, theater, dance, and creative writing.
For nearly two decades, SNAAP data have informed the national conversation on the value of an arts degree by collecting, examining, and sharing data on over 300,000 arts alumni from more than 400 educational institutions across 49 states, the District of Columbia, and four Canadian provinces. SNAAP data are considered the gold standard for what is known about intensive arts education.
Roulston, Kathryn., Acheampong, Kwame O., Callahan, Mark, Nibbelink, Nathan, King, Elizabeth, and Haas, Brian. “Implementation of a Curricular Intervention to Enhance Imaginative and Collaborative Capacity Among Graduate STEM Students.” Thinking Skills and Creativity. (2026).
Findings indicate that participation in learning opportunities involving collaboration across disciplines provided significant opportunities for students to reflect on the meaning of creativity and collaboration in relation to their work and disciplinary interests, and how they might engage in interdisciplinary work in the future.
Featured in a special issue on “Understanding, Designing, and Teaching the Curriculum to Incorporate the Cultivation of Thinking Skills,” the article shares research from a series of arts-based workshops developed at UGA with the support of an Innovations in Graduate Education award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant provided $499,835 of research funding to the university and represented a partnership of campus programs including the UGA Arts Collaborative and the Center for Integrative Conservation Research.
Based on student feedback and the success of pilot programs supported by the Graduate School and the Willson Center for the Humanities and Arts, a team of researchers from the arts, humanities, and sciences worked together to design activities to train students to think creatively, to collaborate across disciplines, and to work with people with different perspectives, knowledge, and values.
Hundreds of crawling critters have taken up residence in Cedar Street Building B on the University of Georgia Athens campus, but there is no need to panic. The multi-legged neighbors are part of the newly reopened UGA Insect Zoo. Supported by the Department of Entomology at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the zoo aims to not only educate but also ease the fear that often accompanies arthropod sightings.
The spacious new location is open to the public and can accommodate greater numbers of visitors. A colorful mural featuring the zoo’s arthropods, supported in part by the UGA Arts Collaborative, welcomes visitors to the new space. The illustrations were created by students in the scientific illustration program at UGA’s Lamar Dodd School of Art.
This is a pivotal moment in recognizing the essential role of the arts in service to society through the evolution of neuroarts, a field emerging at the intersection of the arts, science, and technology. For decades, artists, scientists, clinicians, arts practitioners, educators, technologists, architects, culture bearers, and others with either professional expertise or lived experience have independently advanced how creative and aesthetic experiences shape the human brain and body, as well as our behavior and wellbeing.
Welcome to a new semester at UGA! If this is your first visit to the UGA Arts Collaborative website, please take a few moments to explore and learn about some of the current and past projects and events. You may be interested in joining the Arts Collaborative listserv, a newsletter with local events and opportunities in the arts.
Please also welcome our new recipients of Graduate Assistantships in Interdisciplinary Arts Research: Edward Hemphill (Art), Julien Berger (Music), and Mingjun Han (Theatre and Film). These exceptional graduate students will develop creative research and collaborative work across disciplines with faculty, students, and community members.
