Congress to the State Department, and culture makers that include the National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities. Allina’s work a decade earlier helped sharpen her focus on STEAM. As director of government relations for College of the Environment and Life Sciences at the University of Rhode Island, Allina was assembling a large National Science Foundation grant for the state. “But as a Bennington alum who did politics and painting,” she says, “and was responsible for how you develop research in the state that has one of the best art and design schools in the country, I included [RISD] in the science grant.” The NSF advised Allina to take RISD out. But Allina believed in the imperative of an interdisciplinary approach: art deserved a place at the table of innovation. She tried again, this time giving RISD a lead spot on the grant along with the University of Rhode Island and Brown University. The grant was accepted, garnering the state twenty million dollars over five years. “So we went from the NSF balking at including an art school,” Allina says, “to [RISD] being the only art and design school” to lead this type of grant. RISD took note and recruited Allina shortly thereafter. Allina and her team emphasize that STEAM is not a departure from STEM—it is a partnership. The two fields must work together to better prepare the nation’s workforce for a future in which creativity is one of the only known necessities. Recent data corroborates the value of creativity in the workforce. In a 2010 IBM survey of over 1,500 CEOs, the single most crucial factor selected for a company’s future success was creativity. And a 2012 Adobe study
“I think studying music [and] the arts taught me to see an idea or a solution to a problem as a whole, rather than in isolated parts.”
“The mantra here is the disciplines together are stronger than apart. Particularly if you’re looking for creativity in the workforce and problem solving.” found that 78 percent of recent college graduates see creativity as important to their current field. Jay Schunter ’11 is one of those graduates. He studied music at Bennington and believes that experience gives him an advantage in his current work: a graduate mechanical engineering program at Boston University. “I think studying music [and] the arts taught me to see an idea or a solution to a problem as a whole, rather than just these isolated parts,” he said. “You need to get from point A to point B and realistically, there could be many ways to do that. Making that decision is where you get to exercise your creativity and that is when the thing becomes your own.” Fulbright award winner Ben Underwood ’13 sees a parallel in his experience studying music and his role as CEO of Fuel City, which is cultivating the emerging industry of anaerobic digesters. These convert organic waste into renewable energy and fertilizer. Ben finds that the primary barrier for the adoption of the technology is a lack of connections between the right people. He sees his path, “not only in the sense of a business—but as an artistic pursuit. It’s fundamentally about finding ways for diverse voices to add to a common expression. My senior concert used sound waves. The media I’m interested in now are metal and concrete.” While there is likely to be an increase in the number of STEM jobs in the U.S. in the coming years, a major barrier is that U.S. students are not performing up to their potential, especially compared with their international counterparts. The STEM Education Coalition projects that while STEM jobs in the U.S. will grow significantly over the next six years, the majority of high school seniors are not ready for college-level science and math. S U M M E R 2014 • 21