This thesis explores the topic of how American performing arts centers that are housed by universities and colleges function and are run. In many cases, these centers function as nearly autonomous arms of their parent organization. My purpose was to explore the extent of this autonomy, alongside the best practices that these performing arts centers have embedded in their day-to-day operations over the years. I focused my attention on four institutions: Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke in Pembroke, North Carolina, and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. All of these centers mainly stage outside performances, and do not focus on student performances.

In addition, I also chose to look at how university-housed performing arts centers act as an outreach program to their local communities. Often, community members' only interaction with these universities is through their performing arts centers. I wanted to take a cursory look at outreach programs and other efforts to connect with local communities.

Research proved that these performing arts centers are often similar in structure, with parallels in their relationships with their corresponding universities. Additionally, I found that programming within these performing arts centers is done principally autonomously, with few stipulations from the university.