On Friday, November 20th, 2009, the NEA hosted a discussion of how art works as part of the real economy. Academics, foundation professionals, and service organization representatives came together to discuss improving the collection and reporting of statistics about arts and cultural workers, and to develop future research agendas and approaches. The program was as follows:

9:00 a.m – Opening Remarks and introductions

Joan Shigekawa, NEA Senior Deputy Chairman and Sunil Iyengar, NEA Director of Research & Analysis

9:30 – Panel One: What We Know About Artists and How We Know It

• NEA Research on Artists in the Workforce
  Tom Bradshaw, NEA Research Officer
• Artist Labor Markets
  Greg Wassall, associate professor, Department of Economics, Northeastern University
• Artist Careers
  Joan Jeffri, director, Research Center for Arts and Culture, Teachers College, Columbia University
• Artist Research: Union Perspectives
  David Cohen, executive director, Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO

11:00 – Panel Two: Putting the Research to Work

• Cultural Vitality: Investing in Creativity
  Maria Rosario Jackson, senior research associate, The Urban Institute
• Artists and the Economic Recession
  Judilee Reed, executive director, Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC)
• Teaching Artists Research Project
  Nick Rabkin, Teaching Artists Research Project, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago
• Strategic National Arts Alumni Project
  Steven Tepper, associate director, the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, Vanderbilt University

1:20 – Panel Three: Widening the Lens to Capture Other Cultural Workers

• Artists in the Greater Cultural Economy
  Ann Markusen, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
• Creative Class: Who’s in, Who’s out?
  Tom Bradshaw, NEA Research Officer
• American Community Survey: An Emerging Data Set
  Jennifer Day, assistant division chief, Employment Characteristics of the Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division, United States Census Bureau

2:20 – Comments and questions from panel participants   

3:00 – Discussion: Summary and Recommendations for Future Research

Moderated by Sunil Iyengar and Tom Bradshaw

Lead discussants: Holly Sidford, president, Helicon Collaborative and Paul DiMaggio, professor, Department of Sociology, Princeton University

4:30 – Adjournment

N.B. There will be 15-minute breaks at 10:45 a.m. and 2:50 p.m.; and an hour break for lunch at 12:15 p.m.

In addition to the above presenters, the NEA Cultural Workforce Forum included the following respondents:

• Randy Cohen, vice president of local arts advancement, Americans for the Arts
• Deirdre Gaquin, consultant
• Angela Han, director of research, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
• Ruby Lerner, president, Creative Capital Foundation
• Judilee Reed, executive director, Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC)
• Carrie Sandahl, associate professor, Department of Disability and Human Development, University of Illinois at Chicago
• Mary Jo Waits, director, Social, Economic & Workforce Programs Division, National Governors Association

An archive of the event will be available on www.arts.gov during the week of November 23rd.