I recently read that state appropriations to public research universities have dropped 34 percent in the last decade.

Now, seven years after the end of the Great Recession, per pupil state expenditure on higher education in North Carolina is $2,600 below pre-recession levels.  State universities have been pressed to make difficult decisions, both in finding new resources of revenue and making cuts in expenditures.

UNC, for example, has continued its impressive growth in securing external research funding while at the same time increasing tuition and fees and cutting course offerings.

In addition to making hard budget choices, universities are increasingly asked to explain their product.  To demonstrate that the return on investment as it were justifies the expense.

This is a fair request.  Given that many worthy demands are made on state tax resources.  The challenge is to figure out how to measure that return for so many of the creative activities and universities that defy categorization and therefore conventional measurement.

The recent Collaborators-in-Residence weekend hosted by Carolina Performing Arts is a good case in point.  In concerts on Friday and Saturday, an extraordinarily diverse collection of performance artists stunned and enthralled audiences in Memorial Hall.

Musicians included a classically trained violinist, tabla or Indian drum player, a bagpiper, and a sheng Chinese windplayer.  All collaborating or jamming with Lil Buck, a virtuoso dancer known for jookin, a Memphis street dance.  The inspired intensity, bathed in joy on Friday night, was for 60 minutes like experiencing the tension between staring at the brilliance of staring at an exploding star and knowing that you should look the other way.

Then, as if all of the creative energy had not already been used up, I can only imagine what it was like when Abigail Washburn joined them for a concert on Sunday.

Strong universities enable and nourish this type of creativity.  I don’t know how to measure this return on investment.   But, I think we are all diminished if we allow these sparks to extinguish.

— Lew Margolis