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Research Support

Film and Digital Media student at UC Santa Cruz

Student Research in the Arts

As a high impact educational practice, there are a number of benefits associated with undergraduate research experience. The positive effects of undergraduate research participation have been shown effect student learning by providing a sound academic foundation that enables students to develop independent critical thinking and written communication skills. In addition, increased research participation has shown to have both personal and professional benefits which includes a better understanding of the research process, clarification of career goals, becoming part of a learning community, and increased self-confidence in academic abilities. 
 
Undergraduate research aims to foster student passion for inquiry and discovery through the development of a research plan in which students learn to challenge assumptions, ask difficult questions, conduct empirical observation, and develop cutting-edge technologies. Important to the Arts, research provides a crucial opportunity for our students to engage in a process that examines the actual making of artistic expressions in all of the different forms of the arts that facilitates students moving from classroom theory to practical experience to solidify learning. Instruction in the arts inspires and develops the capacity for individual and collaborative creative inquiry, analysis, and action within and beyond the university. With emphasis on creative entrepreneurship and research, the student to scholar model demonstrates the very notion that artists are creative. They are disrupters. They take initiative. They implement enduring change. They bring others along. They make something new and put it out in the world, over and over again.