Creativity & Motivation: A cross-disciplinary mini-conference
Thursday, October 2 from 10 AM to 3 PM
Moore Hall, Room 116
https://coe.uga.edu/events/torrance-conferences/

Register to attend this free event: https://forms.gle/PWPeJhm4emk6xM4m7

This event is organized by UGA’s Torrance Center (Chair: Anna Abraham, Torrance Center Director) in affiliation with the 2025 Torrance Lecture by Teresa Amabile.

Schedule:

2025 Annual Torrance Lecture: Teresa Amabile
Thursday, October 2 at 4 PM
UGA Chapel
https://coe.uga.edu/events/torrance-lectures/

Please register to attend this free event: https://forms.gle/h6yf42QWNFuYbGQ29

“A Labor of Love – Insights from a Creativity Research Program”

Teresa M. Amabile is an internationally recognized researcher, writer, speaker, and emerita professor at Harvard Business School, most widely known for her pioneering research on creativity, everyday work life, and retirement. Her 45-year program of research on how the work environment can influence creativity and motivation yielded a theory of creativity and innovation; methods for assessing creativity, motivation, and the work environment; and a set of prescriptions for maintaining and stimulating innovation.

2026 Emerging Creatives Student Summit: “Rewilding: New Stories of Collective Wellbeing”
March 5-8
Michigan State University
https://a2ru.org/event/2026-emerging-creatives-student-summit-rewilding/

As a member institution of the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru), UGA may nominate up to four student representatives. Please contact mark.callahan@uga.edu by October 24 for more information about how to participate.

Emerging Creatives is a three-day collaborative experience in which students form small cross-disciplinary teams to explore a specific area of the Summit’s theme. Over the course of the event, teams make something that represents their exploration: a syllabus, cookbook, podcast, app, opera, pair of shoes, urban blueprint, pop-up store, musical score, website… the list of possible outcomes is endless.

Call for Participation: Spotlight on the Arts LIVE Research Competition 4’33”
Deadline: October 30 at 9 AM
https://arts.uga.edu/4minutes33seconds/

This competition highlights UGA student research in the arts and provides an opportunity to win prizes and to share creative inquiry with peers, faculty, administrators, and alumni throughout the university community. The competition is open to any graduate student, or undergraduate student working on an advanced project, who is conducting research related to the literary, visual, or performing arts or artists.

4’33” Research Presentation: oral presentation no longer than four minutes and thirty-three seconds in length. All contestants must be available to present their research in person on Monday, November 17, from 4-6 PM at the Athenaeum. Awards include $433 for the grand prize winner and $150 for three runners-up.

Quantifying the Arts in this Moment: A Community Conversation
Tuesday, September 16 at 4 PM
https://a2ru.org/event/quantifying-the-arts-in-this-moment-a-community-conversation/

This event is free and open to the public

Please join a2ru for the second in a series of community conversations, following up on June 30’s Mapping Creative Futures: A Community Conversation. From that discussion, we pulled out several topics that participants marked for further exploration. September 16th’s discussion will explore the productive tension between the need for “return on investment” or quantifying the value of the arts (in economic terms, audience numbers, etc.) versus the pitfalls of minimizing the influence of the arts through reliance on these reductive measures alone.