Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary

Salary Overview

Job Outlook (2024–2034)

Key Skills

Knowledge Areas

What They Do

• Explain and demonstrate artistic techniques.
• Evaluate and grade students' class work, performances, projects, assignments, and papers.
• Prepare students for performances, exams, or assessments.
• Maintain student attendance records, grades, and other required records.
• Keep abreast of developments in the field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional conferences.
• Participate in student recruitment, registration, and placement activities.
• Participate in campus and community events.
• Prepare and deliver lectures to undergraduate or graduate students on topics such as acting techniques, fundamentals of music, and art history.

Tools & Technology

★ = Hot Technology (in-demand)

Education Requirements

Typical entry-level education: Master's Degree

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Featured In

Careers with the highest skill compatibility from Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary.

A Day in the Life

A typical day for a fine arts professor might begin with a painting studio class, circulating among easels to offer individual critiques on composition, color mixing, and technique. Mid-morning shifts to a lecture course on contemporary art movements, incorporating slides, video clips, and directed discussion. A drama professor might spend the afternoon directing rehearsals for a student production, working on blocking, vocal projection, and character interpretation. Music faculty often teach individual lessons—a voice lesson at 1 PM, piano lessons at 2 and 3 PM—before leading an ensemble rehearsal in the evening. Between teaching, faculty work on their own creative projects: composing music, preparing for gallery exhibitions, writing plays, or rehearsing for performances. Committee meetings on curriculum review, admissions, and faculty governance fill remaining gaps. Student advising, thesis supervision, and portfolio reviews consume additional hours throughout the week.

Work Environment

These faculty work in dedicated arts facilities—painting studios with north-light windows, sculpture labs with kilns and welding equipment, performance halls, rehearsal rooms, recording studios, and practice rooms. The environment is distinctly creative and hands-on compared to traditional academic settings. Schedules centered around studio courses, rehearsals, and performance seasons can be irregular, with intensive periods around exhibitions, concerts, and theater productions. The collegial atmosphere among arts faculty tends toward informal collaborative culture, though competition for limited tenure-track positions can create tension. Travel for exhibitions, performances, conferences, and residencies is common and often expected as evidence of professional activity. Many arts faculty maintain studio spaces off campus for their personal creative work.

Career Path & Advancement

Terminal degrees vary by discipline—MFA (Master of Fine Arts) for studio art and creative fields, DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) or Ph.D. for music, and MFA or Ph.D. for theater. Professional accomplishment in one's creative field is weighted heavily alongside academic credentials. The career launches with adjunct positions, visiting appointments, or lecturer roles while building a body of creative work. Tenure-track assistant professor positions require demonstrated teaching effectiveness, an active creative portfolio, and scholarly engagement. Promotion through associate and full professor ranks is based on creative output (exhibitions, performances, publications, commissions), teaching excellence, and service contributions. Some faculty pursue department chair or dean of arts positions. Distinguished artists may be recruited as named chairs or artist-in-residence positions.

Specializations

Within art departments, faculty specialize in painting, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, photography, digital art, fiber arts, or graphic design. Drama departments include specialists in acting, directing, playwriting, scenic design, costume design, lighting design, and dramaturgy. Music departments divide among performance (voice, keyboard, strings, winds, percussion), composition, conducting, music theory, music history, ethnomusicology, music technology, and music education. Interdisciplinary specialists bridge traditional boundaries—digital media artists combining coding with visual art, or sound artists integrating music with installation art. Some faculty develop specializations in arts administration, community-engaged art practice, or arts-based research methodologies.

Pros & Cons

Industry Insight

Arts education faces ongoing tension between financial pressures (enrollment competition, budget constraints) and the documented value of creative education in developing critical thinking, innovation, and cultural understanding. Technology integration—digital art tools, virtual reality performance environments, AI-assisted music composition—is creating both new teaching possibilities and debates about artistic authenticity. Diversity and inclusion initiatives are reshaping curricula to include broader cultural perspectives and non-Western artistic traditions. Some institutions are developing interdisciplinary arts programs that cross traditional department boundaries, creating opportunities for faculty with diverse skill sets. The adjunct faculty crisis is particularly acute in the arts, with many institutions relying heavily on part-time instructors without benefits or job security rather than hiring tenure-track positions.