How COVID-19 Has Impacted the Needed Skills of Arts Graduates
(2021) Rachel Skaggs, Erin J. Hoppe, and Molly Jo Burke
The second of two Strategic National Arts Alumni Partnership DataBriefs is now available! Click the title for a quick read about some of the impacts we’ve uncovered through a year of research, including interviews with 65 arts alumni.
Excerpt: “Arts alumni pursued and refined a variety of skills during the pandemic. Among these skills were an increased need for the kinds of financial and business management, entrepreneurial, and networking skills that are well-established in past SNAAP research. The ability to successfully plan and implement the business side of artistic work, particularly in a time when established organizations and clients may have cancelled or delayed work, is essential. Some alumni used these skills to transform their existing employment into more flexible and lucrative freelance work while others started new ventures. However, networking skills were more difficult to use and develop given social distancing and cancellation of events and opportunities.
Aside from these established skill needs, two broad categories of skill emerged as increasingly relevant compared to pre-pandemic artistic work: technological skills and skills related to interpersonal relationships and working collaboratively.”