About Us
Joan Harris and Betty Farrell
What is Cultural Policy?
Our History
Our Growing Impact
Our Supporters
What is Cultural Policy?
Formulating a response to this question is part of our work. Cultural policy is an approach to a set of questions as much as it is a focus for analysis.
The United States lacks a formal cultural policy such as that existing in Europe. Because America is so decentralized, culture -- the arts and humanities, broadly defined -- are subject to a wide range of policies, private and public, formal and ad hoc, local and transnational, with disparate and sometimes conflicting objectives.
Cultural policy seeks to emphasize the effects these policies have on culture, an impact that is often underappreciated if not outright neglected.
Identifying and analyzing this impact requires innovative collaboration among humanists, lawyers, policymakers and social scientists examining everything from disciplinary boundaries, the responsibilities of public intellectuals and cultural rights to government-sponsored street theatre and the regionalization of American popular fiction.
Our History
In 1998, a small group of faculty at the University of Chicago from diverse disciplines with keen interest in the cultural sector began discussing ideas for a research and teaching center that would focus on cultural policy.
Several of them had grown up in countries where this kind of research was commonplace, where it was understood that cultural policies can have a tremendous impact on citizens of all ages. These faculty members agreed that a clear understanding of how the cultural sector functions is a necessary prelude to any possible public intervention by government, foundations, citizens groups or legislatures.
Their ideas were put into action. A year later, the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago was founded. In January 1999, we held our opening conference, "The Arts and Humanities in Public Life" with the support and participation of 130 members of University faculty, the Provost, University trustees, and friends of the University.
Since then we have successfully drawn on the extensive resources of the University of Chicago-its faculty, its research collections, and such institutions as the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, the University of Chicago Press, the Division of Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Law School.
Our Growing Impact
Our participation in projects that are national in scope has built a wide and loyal constituency of practitioners, policy makers, philanthropists and foundation officers from throughout the United States. At the same time, we have created an intellectual constituency on campus, with faculty from fields ranging from law to anthropology, sociology to art history, philosophy to public policy that have collaborated on researching and teaching cultural policy.
The success of our collaborations and support is evident from public conferences held annually on subjects ranging from the arts and humanities in public life, arts controversies that emerged from the experience of the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999-2000, video games, historic preservation and development in Chicago, state cultural policy, to the future of public television. The CPC has initiated, sponsored, and funded numerous research projects, hosted numerous academic workshops and offered quarterly briefings to bring the latest research findings directly to arts advocates and the general public.
Our research is central to all of these activities, producing data to inform cultural advocates and policy makers involved in arts in community development, cultural industries and globalization, arts education, cultural heritage and landmark preservation, intellectual property rights, censorship and First Amendment issues, and civic engagement.
We have a strong track record of success in all of these areas. We know how to engage both academics and the general public in significant dialogues about the practical workings of culture in our lives, as stated in our mission.
Our Supporters
The Center wishes to thank its generous supporters, including:
- The Irving Harris Foundation
- The Smart Family Foundation
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
- The Kresge Foundation
- Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies
- National Opinion Research Center
Past supporters include:
- The Joyce Foundation
- The Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust
- The Chauncey and Marion D. McCormick Foundation
- The McCormick Tribune Foundation
- The Rockefeller Brothers Fund
- Jamee Rosa
- The James S. Kemper Foundation
- The Chicago Community Trust
- Provost, University of Chicago
- Division of Humanities, The University of Chicago
- The Pew Charitable Trusts
- The David and Lucille Packard Foundation
- The Otto L. and Hazel T. Rhoades Fund
- The Charles P. and Lavinia S. Schwartz Foundation
- The Northern Trust Company
- The Wallace Foundation