Students on Summer Project Team:
Jude Gerhart '23, CSB
Mikhail Kossir '21, Architecture
Hannah Roach '21, Cognitive Science
Adrian Suarez '22, Economics
Yunqi Yang '22, Finance / Business Information Systems

Faculty Mentor(s): Todd Watkins, Professor of Economics and Executive Director, Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise

Project Video: Click here to view

Project description:
Arts & cultural organizations and artists everywhere are suffering from a dramatic loss of performance opportunities, ticket revenue, grants, and other significant sources of income. A healthy creative sector contributes strongly to a region’s long term economic growth and quality of life. The Lehigh Valley may be particularly at risk with its high concentration of arts and cultural organizations and its proximity to New York City. An emergency survey of artists and non-profit arts and cultural organizations conducted in April 2020 by the Cultural Coalition of Allentown revealed a dire situation in the region’s arts and culture community. Individual artists have lost most of their income and nearly all non-profit arts & culture organizations across the Valley have had to cancel critical events. Preliminary survey results estimate an attendance decline of 2.5 million to 3.5 million which threatens the very existence of many organizations. The Data for Impact student team’s goals are (1) analysis of data from those two surveys; (2) development of an asset map of the region’s arts and cultural resources and of the impact on those assets of the COVID-19 crisis; (3) development of high-impact visualizations of (1) and (2) in support of a major advocacy campaign among the region’s political leaders and philanthropic and donor communities to support artists and non-profit arts and cultural organizations in crisis.

Links for further information and work of the team:

Wordpress Site: https://wordpress.lehigh.edu/lvarts/

Kumu Asset Map: https://kumu.io/Lvac/organizations-asset-map#untitled-map/view-1

Tableau Storyboard (Individual Artists):
https://public.tableau.com/profile/adrian2651#!/vizhome/COVID-19ImpactonLehighValleyArtsCulture/COVID-19ImpactonLehighValleyArtsCulture-Storyboard

Tableau Storyboard (Cultural Organizations): https://public.tableau.com/profile/hannah.roach#!/vizhome/LehighValleyArtsandCultureOrganizations/Story1