Lost in Translation: Making Sense of Assessment in the Fine Arts

Faculty in the fine arts rarely speak the language of assessment. University administrators are equally challenged by the language of artists. When both sides are lost in translation, what’s a chair to do?

Within the arts, providing a substantive knowledge base from which students can discover and develop their talents is at the core of both faculty and administrative interests. Administrators seek quantifiable results in efforts to prove a program worth continuing while faculty consider the nuances of student performance in an experiential-based mode. Seemingly, each approach has little to do with the other, and both sides can experience the frustration of failure to communicate.

Acting as the buffer between faculty and administration, department Chairs are challenged to speak both languages fluently and act as an interpreter for both sides. This presentation considers the cultural and linguistic issues facing faculty, chairs, and administrators as they pursue the goal of “closing the loop” for programs in the visual and performing arts. Role-playing will help to make underpinning issues clear.

Examples of successful, and less-than-successful assessment strategies from the fields of art and music will be explored. These include the development of a visual assessment system to normalize faculty evaluation of student art and a step-by-step program to improve piano proficiency for music students. Further studies are being instigated by both programs to discover where in the curriculum to instill, and to measure, the growth of artistic confidence and independence in students.