Abstract:

Artistic schools are distinctive group among universities in Poland for number of reasons. First, they are the only ones exclusively under supervision of Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Secondly, as sole ones pertain to specific and distinctive in polish legislation knowledge category, that relates to art. It makes them the only authorized entities to grant science titles and degrees in area of art. Thirdly, they form quite homogenous group of 19 art universities in Poland, concentrated on higher education in the fields of music, theater, film and arts. Fourthly, just as rest of the universities they are struggling with different problems related with adaptation to the conditions created by their environment, however their profile and some sense of stability related with the ways of education and the art makes them unique. Therefore the research problem, that we are trying to pick up in this paper, is connected to management in that kind of universities in Poland, specific problems faced by the deans in their charge, which in the same time distinguish those from other universities in Poland.

The goal of this study is to recognize and asses most important areas of artistic university management in Poland, as well as to create general comparison to most important challenges related to managing this kind of universities in the world. In particular, we would like to discover how main stakeholders are perceiving problems of managing them in relation to challenges, that are identified by people in charge.

This research paper was based on studies done in years 2016-2018 among 15 (of 19 existing) artistic universities in Poland. It was assumed that studied universities will form single case study, as part of which mixed scientific methods, both quantitative as qualitative, will be used.

Conducted were:
- Individual interviews with three groups of artistic universities stakeholders: graduates (28 in-depth interviews, realized in 2016); people in charge of artistic universities (10 in-depth interviews in 2016) and employers, that were hiring graduates – artists (28 in-depth interviews with representatives of public organizations, non-governmental organizations and companies;
- Focus interviews with management staff (deans, councilors) of artistic universities, performed in 2016 and 2017;
- CAWI survey (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing), performed yearly in 2016-2018 with graduates of artistic universities (surveys of 2500 graduates from years 2012-2017 were analyzed).

Keywords:

Artistic schools, higher education, managing artistic universities.