Engaging Students in the Advancement of a Music Economy: A Case Study

Arvada, Colorado could hardly be identified as having a significant reputation for its music scene. Essentially a sub-urb of Denver, residents typically find their entertainment in that larger city or in Boulder or Morrison (Red Rocks), among other places. On the other hand, the city of roughly 100,000 draws vast amounts of outsiders to its amazing arts center and the area known as “Olde Town” could experience a massive rebirth if a planned mass transportation strategy comes to fruition. The potential to grow the music and arts economy in Arvada, Colorado was a key incentive for the city to enlist in the Hometown Colorado Initiative (HCI), a program that engages universities in communities with the mission of deploying students in service-learning-type research aimed at addressing “real world” problems and challenges as they interact with public servants and citizens. In a sense, the world just beyond campus becomes the labora-tory where students put their learned knowledge and skills to work for the better good all the while under the wing of academia. Four students undertook just such an endeavor in Arvada as they researched the music economy and developed sixteen potential projects to further develop it, prior to carry-ing out four of those initiatives. The planning, implementation, and execution of the “Arvada Music Project” greatly informed how this academic experience could be utilized elsewhere within higher education partnerships with their communities. We will discuss here the valuable learnings and best/worst practices that can be carried forth from this project.