As people working in the humanities and the arts, we know our work matters–to our fields, to our disciplines, and to society. We have seen how the arts and humanities transform perception, provide expertise, and help people grapple with the biggest questions about what it means to be human and to live in an increasingly interconnected, yet often divided world. And, in both the arts and humanities, we know UM faculty are contributing to their disciplines in deeply meaningful ways.

Yet, for all we know about these positive effects, arts and humanities research is often imagined to be at odds with the metric-driven language of “impact”--a term often seen as imposed from fields outside the arts and humanities. At the same time, “impact” has become the dominant framework for measuring the value of academic research. As a result, arts and humanities faculty are often called upon to describe our “impact” in ways that are legible to University leadership and funding imperatives, even as we feel uneasy about how to answer such calls in ways that are authentic to our work. How do we avoid finding ourselves outside terms that are increasingly important in the fight for the continued growth and resilience of higher education in the U.S?

“What’s Our Impact?: Understanding how the Arts & Humanities Matter” is a series of events slated for October 29 & 30 on UM’s Ann Arbor campus. A joint initiative of the UM Arts Initiative, Office of Vice President of Research (OVPR), and the Institute for Humanities, the gathering will serve arts and humanities faculty seeking more ways to discuss their work in terms that are legible within the ascendant impact paradigm, while also ensuring that those terms are authentic to our disciplines, methods, and creative practice. Through a public conversation, facilitated workshop, keynote from UM leadership, and a panel with funders, the 1.5 day long event will bring together experts–those engaging “impact” in their research, those in leadership, and those community partners with whom we work–and put them in conversation with arts and humanities leadership and researchers at the University of Michigan. In addition to allowing our communities to come together to elaborate what “impact” means on our terms, this event is also designed to help humanities and arts faculty recognize how they could become more competitive in University grant opportunities, including the Strategic Initiative Fund, the Arts Research: Incubation and Acceleration (ARIA) program, Humanities Institute Fellowship, and a range of other internal and external funding initiatives.

Thursday, October 29, 4:30-6:30
What Works Now: arts and humanities advocacy in the impact paradigm
Pendleton Room, Michigan Union (2nd floor)
a public discussion about making the best case for the arts and humanities with leading voices, including
Professor Jill Dolan, Annan Professor Emeritus of English, Princeton University
Artist, Curator, and Organizer Ryan Myers-Johnson, Director, Sidewalk Festival (Detroit)
Professor Shelome Gooden, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research in the Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Related Fields, University of Pittsburgh
Jennifer Rupp, President & CEO, Michigan Humanities

Friday, October 30
Michigan Room, Michigan Union (2nd floor)

9-11:30
“Impact” in Our Own Words: a workshop for arts and humanities faculty
Arts and humanities faculty bring current project ideas and experiment with ways of discussing “impact”

11:30: Lunch served

12-12:45: Keynote lunch talk with Vice Provost for Arts & Humanities Sara Blair
Michigan Room, Michigan Union (2nd floor)

1-2:30
Making the Case: Funders on Arts and Humanities Impact
Michigan Room, Michigan Union (2nd floor)
Hear from internal and external funders on how “impact” plays a role in their granting process