Entrepreneurial Strategies for Advancing Arts-Based Public Engagement as a Form of University-Sanctioned Professional Activity in the New Creative Economy

Written in the first person and drawing from an autoethnographic methodological framework, this essay shares aspirations, experiences, and reflections on a faculty memberʹs professional work in a large U.S. public research-oriented university, focusing specifically on her attempts to reconcile her service-oriented civic engagement work with her universityʹs priorities and workplace conditions. The author positions her work within a larger community of practice in art education higher education, a community dedicated to embracing cultural diversity and social justice, and whose work now takes place in multiple sites, including but not limited to schools and universities. The author establishes linkages between contemporary art education values and aims, and recently popular writings about the creative class, the new creative economy, and the contributions of cultural creatives to community development. These connections help the author establish a personal philosophical foundation for her current work and to explore an entrepreneurial framework-both as a