2024-2025

Arts and Cultural Management, Bachelor of Science

Department of Comparative Cultural Studies

College of Arts and Letters

The Arts and Cultural Management (ACM) degree prepares the student with the necessary global and comparative content in the arts, religions, humanities, and cultural innovations through the ages, and the management, marketing, and economic content related to the creative industries. The ACM curriculum teaches skills in qualitative and quantitative reasoning, entrepreneurship, data literacy, policy, management, leadership, collaboration, organization, and cultural analysis and interpretation.

This plan is available for students as of Fall 2025

  • To receive a bachelor's degree at Northern Arizona University, you must complete at least 120 units of credit that minimally includes a major, the liberal studies requirements, and university requirements as listed below.

    • All of Northern Arizona University's diversity, liberal studies, junior-level writing, and capstone requirements.
    • All requirements for your specific academic plan(s).
    • At least 30 units of upper-division courses, which may include transfer work.
    • At least 30 units of coursework taken through Northern Arizona University, of which at least 18 must be upper-division courses (300-level or above). This requirement is not met by credit-by-exam, retro-credits, transfer coursework, etc.
    • A cumulative grade point average of at least 2.0 on all work attempted at Northern Arizona University.

    The full policy can be viewed here.

In addition to University Requirements:

  • 39 units of major requirements.

  • 15 units of certificate requirements.

  • Up to 9 units of major prefix courses may be used to satisfy Liberal Studies requirements; these same courses may also be used to satisfy major requirements.

  • Elective courses, if needed, to reach an overall total of at least 120 units.

Students may be able to use some courses to meet more than one requirement. Contact your advisor for details.

Minimum Units for Completion 120
Major GPA 2.0
Highest Mathematics Required MAT 114
University Honors Program Optional
Progression Plan Link Not Available

Purpose Statement

Arts and Cultural Management (ACM) is an umbrella term for programs in higher education that encompass cultural management, arts administration, arts leadership, arts management, and arts entrepreneurship. Programs at the undergraduate level prepare students to enter the field with the management skills required to sustain the mission and vision of organizations whose primary purpose is the delivery, presentation, and preservation of arts and culture. ACM degrees ensure students have familiarity with the practice and history of the arts AND have the business skills needed to operate in entrepreneurial, data-driven environments in the not-for-profit and for-profit arts sector ("Standards for Arts Administration Undergraduate Curricula," Association of Arts Administration Educators 2018).  The Arts & Cultural Management BS at NAU will provide graduates with the tools to create, develop, evaluate, and lead arts and cultural heritage organizations.

Arts & Cultural Management prepares students with the cultural competencies, communication skills, and managerial practices necessary to work in the creative industries. The scope of the program covers trends, patterns, and particulars of global cultures together with the means and methods of preparing and managing cultural symbolic and material culture for a specific audience and context. The content studied will include ancient, modern, and contemporary visual arts, religions, literature, and values along with business management, marketing principles, and entrepreneurship.  Skills developed will include the ability to understand and translate the meaning of material, solve problems relative to the communication of symbolic and material culture, and evaluate products through effective written and oral communication. Students¿ learning experiences will include individual and group presentations, research, interviews with experts in the field, design and development, evaluation and interpretation of models in a professional capstone, and a professional internship in the arts and cultural management domain. At the successful completion of the ACM BS, students will be able to demonstrate accurate cultural knowledge, work individually and collaboratively to develop and manage the dissemination of such knowledge and be well prepared to enter the career field of arts and cultural management or graduate study in humanities or business.

The ACM degree prepares students to develop, lead, and manage arts and cultural organizations and creative businesses. Students will be ready for careers as archivists, art directors/administrators, art consultants, booking agents, collection specialists, event planners, house managers, interpretative specialists, marketing associates, outreach coordinators, production managers, preparators (install and deinstall exhibits), resource consultants, sales associates, and social media managers in diverse sectors such as government, education, nonprofit, national and state parks, cultural heritage organizations and other socially oriented institutions. The degree also prepares students for graduate school in ACM, art history, business, and communications.

 

Student Learning Outcomes

  • Demonstrate an understanding of the meaning of information through the translation and classification of relevant materials and symbolic culture for a variety of audiences.
    • Examine trends in the visual and performing arts.
    • Compare and contrast the needs of diverse arts and cultural institutions.
  • Apply methods, principles, and concepts from arts and cultural management to develop creative solutions to problems using relevant information and materials. 
    • Understand the differences among the most common business models in arts administration.
    • Identify relevant governing policies in arts and cultural management.
    • Apply appropriate models to case studies
  • Analyze, classify, and defend choices in written, visual, and oral communication for a variety of audiences.
    • Apply the basics of web publishing platforms such as Omeka.
    • Assess audience values and determine best practices in written, oral, and visual communication.
    • Generate sample communications.
  • Create new applications of knowledge and skills that demonstrate an understanding of the relevance and value of materials and internal and external criteria. 
    • Create a business and exhibition plan to suit a particular set of needs and spaces.

Major Requirements

  • This major requires 54 units distributed as follows:

    • Major Course Requirements: 39 units
    • Certificate Requirement: 15 units


    Take the following 54 units:

  • Students enrolled in this plan may not enroll in or pursue the following due to the number of overlapping units:

General Electives

  • Additional coursework is required if, after you have met the previously described requirements, you have not yet completed a total of 120 units of credit.

    You may take these remaining courses from any of the academic areas, using these courses to pursue your specific interests and goals. You may also use prerequisites or transfer credits as electives if they weren't used to meet major, minor, or liberal studies requirements.

    We encourage you to consult with your advisor to select the courses that will be most advantageous to you.

Additional Information

  • Be aware that some courses may have prerequisites that you must also successfully complete. For prerequisite information, click on the course or see your advisor.