Former head of NEA returns to ASU to drive social impact in communities
Maria Rosario Jackson was the first African American and the first Mexican American woman to head the National Endowment for the Arts. She is now back at ASU, based in Los Angeles, with the new title of University Professor of Creativity and Social Impact. Courtesy photo
When Maria Rosario Jackson took over as head of the National Endowment for the Arts in 2022, she wanted to promote an “artful life” for all Americans.
She described an artful life as an expansive concept of arts and cultural participation.
“It includes what people default to usually, which is consumption of professional art products,” Jackson said.
“But it also is about making, doing, teaching and learning at all levels. There is something really important about that inclusive concept and the notion that the arts are part of our lives, not just compartmentalized.”
Jackson was an Arizona State University professor in The Design School when she was nominated by President Joe Biden to be the NEA’s 13th chair, the first African American and the first Mexican American woman in that position. She ended her term in January 2025 and is now back at ASU, based in Los Angeles, with the new title of University Professor of Creativity and Social Impact.
With a background in comprehensive community development, public policy and urban planning, Jackson has long worked on the connection of the arts, culture and design as critical for healthy communities. At ASU, she created the Studio for Creativity, Place and Equitable Communities.
She continued that theme while heading the NEA by partnering with many federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Labor and the Department of Transportation.
The collaboration with FEMA had two facets, one of which was helping the agency better serve cultural communities after a disaster.
“It was making sure FEMA had a better understanding of how artists set up their lives and what cultural organizations need that might be different from other kinds of organizations, and how artists’ needs could be different from other kinds of entrepreneurs and workers,” she said.
The partnership also helped FEMA to activate artists and cultural organizations in the prevention of and response to disasters.
“Some of that work was thinking about how cultural resilience is a component of a more comprehensive understanding of resilience,” Jackson said.
Under her direction, the NEA started a program to embed artists in EPA units that worked on water issues to help educate the public about waterways, among other contributions.
“The work is rooted in a belief that artists have something to offer that is important and impactful in our efforts to protect the planet,” she said.
Jackson’s focus on the holistic nature of an artful life also led to a first-of-its-kind summit that gathered experts across many sectors, including government officials and policymakers, artists and arts advocates, academics, community leaders and nonprofits and foundations. “Healing, Bridging, Thriving: A Summit on Arts and Culture in our Communities,” held in January 2024, addressed how art contributes to health and strengthens communities. (Watch a recording of the summit here.)
Jackson told the crowd at the summit: “For my entire career, my sincere belief has been that the things we aspire to as a nation of opportunity and justice are not possible without the integration of arts and culture within our society.”
During her term, she also saw how communities embraced the arts as a way to heal.
“We went to Buffalo, New York, and to Uvalde, Texas, to meet with communities that had been impacted by mass shootings, where artists were working with psychologists and social workers and others in individual and collective recovery from that trauma and loss.
“That was really impactful,” she said.
Among those she encountered in her travels were Native American communities who were recovering cultural and aesthetic expressions that had been erased.
“That was always inspiring because it helped us to understand that part of what makes this country interesting and powerful is that diversity of perspective and experience and access to different ways of understanding and imagining and innovating,” she said.
Examples of accomplishments during her term at the NEA include:
- Creating the National Arts Statistics and Evidence-based Reporting Center in 2022 to track data such as how much time Americans spend in arts activities, how many small businesses are involved in the arts and the number of art teachers in schools.
- Launching a new Arts, Health, and Well-being Initiative that supported nine demonstration projects, including one in New Orleans that supports artists to become community health workers.
- Establishing the NEA Office of Native Arts and Tribal Affairs.
As University Professor of Creativity and Social Impact at ASU, Jackson will work on Los Angeles-based projects but also nationally and globally focused initiatives.
She said the common thread of her career has been helping to build communities where all people can thrive.
“And I believe to my core that the arts are a part of that, and that they are most powerful and impactful when we don't understand them only in isolation in a bubble, but as critically important elements of all these things that we want to achieve,” she said.
“I think we’re at a time where so many of us are thinking about how our country works and what it needs to look like for everyone to succeed and benefit. What is the role of the arts in a healthy democracy?”
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