Course Spotlight: Using Data for Cultural Policy and Advocacy

In the ARAD program, research and data-driven decision-making are essential skills for arts administrators. The Using Data for Cultural Policy and Advocacy course, co-taught by Professor Arden Armbruster and Gonzalo Casals, equips students with practical tools to analyze and interpret data for meaningful impact in the arts and cultural sector. In this spotlight, Professor Armbruster shares insights into the course’s relevance, key topics, and the hands-on experiences that not only prepare students for their careers, but also instill in them the confidence and readiness to tackle real-world challenges.

Interview with Professor Arden Armbruster

From your perspective and multi-disciplinary background, how does the Using Data for Cultural Policy and Advocacy course complement the overall objectives of the ARAD program? Alternatively, why is this course important?

The ARAD program recognizes that arts administrators need a solid foundation of research skills to be successful. Rigorous academic research principles are the core of that foundation—the Cultural Data Analysis course is required for a reason! “Using Data for Cultural Policy and Advocacy” builds on those principles by looking at them from a practitioner’s perspective. Gonzalo Casals (my co-instructor) and I aimed for our course to mimic and prepare students for the types of research and advocacy work they will inevitably come across in their professional lives.

Can you share some key topics or case studies covered in the course that students find engaging and essential for their future careers?

In one section of the course, we discussed survey methodology, including how to write reliable and valid survey questions. The students then worked in pairs to produce a short survey on a topic of their choice. Many students in the program collect data using surveys for their IPs, so it was an opportunity for those students to test their ideas and get feedback. However, the IP is far from the only time you will work with surveys as arts administrators. Knowing how to structure a study to maintain trust with your respondents or when to anticipate issues such as non-response bias allows administrators to collect high-quality data and avoid making decisions based on misleading data. Quantitative data tends to seem factual, but in reality, data can be biased in many ways. The ability to separate the good stuff from the nonsense is something students use regularly in their careers.

How does the course encourage students to engage with current data analysis and policy-driven challenges in the arts, and what practical skills do they develop?

It is not particularly difficult to learn how to use Excel or to calculate descriptive statistics, even though those may be the complex skills students who take this course will add to their resumes. The challenge is understanding what to do with what you learn from the data, which is at this course’s heart. The data students worked with this semester are from publicly available datasets with real implications for the field. For example, students merged and analyzed two datasets from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs to understand the distribution of Cultural Development Fund grants across organizations in different boroughs and disciplines. They led the class through case studies on issues facing the cultural sector right now—price gouging for concert tickets, competing demands for cultural space and affordable housing, labor concerns, and the tradeoffs of art fairs—and wrestled with how to make data-informed decisions that account for the needs and concerns of different stakeholders. These are not topics with easy answers, and we hope the course helped prepare students to engage in similarly complex discussions using empathy and data.