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The upheavals of the last few years within higher education and the labor force have catalyzed leaders in arts and design postsecondary education to question assumptions within their institutions about "what it means to be embarking on a career and life" in arts and design today (Novak-Leonard, Dempster, Scotto Adams, & Walters, 2022, p. 9). Ultimately, the questions being raised seek to better understand what constitutes "success" for alumni and who is determining those terms of success in the current, evolving contexts of education and work. To inform these critical considerations about student outcomes and notions of "success," this report uses data from the 2022 Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) survey to provide insights on the most recently measured employment outcomes for alumni of arts and design postsecondary programs and alumni reflections on their work and careers, including satisfaction with different aspects of their work and careers. The 2022 SNAAP survey asked alumni of postsecondary arts, design, and adjacent programs about their employment as of September 2022, and about their perspectives on connections between their postsecondary arts and design training and their employment and the development of their careers during Fall 2022. [This report was supported by funds provided by the University of Illinois College of Fine and Applied Arts, and the University of Illinois Investment for Growth Fund, in partnership with the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP).]

During the COVID-19 pandemic there were many changes in arts and design alumni's paid work, creative work, income and in the skills that they needed to be successful in their careers. Given the documented impact of the pandemic on the arts and culture sector, on arts and creative workers, and on institutions of higher education, the authors turn to data from the 2022 Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) survey to understand how the impact of the pandemic was felt by people doing arts, design, or creative work as part of their job or occupational roles and the varied experiences across socio-demographic characteristics. This report focuses on providing insight into arts and design graduates whose work is--or before the pandemic was--in the arts, design, or creative realm by examining their working lives, economic lives, and the skills that they needed to attain or update during the first two years of the pandemic in the United States. In addition to presenting analyses and findings about arts and design alumni's experiences of the first year of the pandemic along these dimensions of their creative and working lives, the authors also dedicate a section of the conclusion of this report to the impressions and challenges identified by higher education arts leaders in a series of formal conversation at the beginning of 2021 to frame commentary about university preparation for resilient arts and design alumni. [Additional funding for this report was provided by the University of Illinois College of Fine and Applied Arts, the University of Illinois Investment for Growth Fund, and the Department of Arts Administration, Education, and Policy at The Ohio State University.]

High-impact practices (HIPs) are educationally purposeful activities that college students experience in and out of the classroom which are found to be positively related to several learning outcomes including: better gain of academic knowledge and artistic skills, recognition of community issues and real-world problems, career success and leadership building, and community engagement. In arts education, HIPs have been gaining attention as a significant learning experience for nurturing future artists and art professionals who contribute to a wide range of organizations and communities. This report examines a recent study on the association between arts alumni HIP participation and their community engagement outcomes. In examining the association between HIPs and community engagement, the researchers hypothesized that resource allocations between higher education institutions and community partners are critical in providing community-engaged HIP experiences such as working with local artists, service-learning, or internships.

SNAAP research scientist, Angie L. Miller, Indiana University Bloomington, and co-authors Nathan Martin, Arizona State University and Alexandre Frenette, Vanderbilt University, used SNAAP data to explore whether participating in "high-impact practices" (HIPs) such as internships, community service, study abroad, creating a portfolio, and working with an artist in the community are related to various educational, career, and community involvement outcomes for alumni with undergraduate degrees in the arts. This study originated from a presentation at the annual Social Theory, Politics, and the Arts Conference in 2017, and was recently published in "The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society."

The SNAAP survey includes questions for alumni to rate both how important the skills they learned in school have been for their careers (perceived importance), and how well their alma maters helped them develop these same skills (perceived preparedness). Survey results and previous SNAAP Data Briefs [see ED612788] suggest a gap between alumni's sense of perceived importance and perceived preparedness (the skill preparation gap). Using three logistic regression models, this study investigates the impact of perceived preparedness and skill preparation gaps on three approaches of arts alumni entrepreneurship: freelancing, founding an arts-related venture, and starting a business of any kind. The study also examines other factors such as family resources, race, and student loans in determining whether someone will start a new venture or work as a freelancer to compare with the influence of university training.