VIDEO: Art students feel budget backlash in programs
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by Briana Davis on February 18, 2010 at 12:01 am under A&E
The Beasley Art Gallery's walls have remained mostly bare throughout the semester. There was a meeting Feb. 12 to split up show times between student artists. Emily Carpenter / The Lumberjack
Art students pursuing degrees, ranging from painting and sculpting to ceramics and interior design, are expressing concern for the quality of their education and the future of their department.
Megan Phillips, a senior painting major, said as an art major, she feels neglected and undervalued by the university.
“Our classes are getting shorter, giving us less time to produce quality work,” Phillips said. “Often, we have to dual enroll in classes we need to graduate, which means we have to do double the coursework in already short time. I am currently dual enrolled twice — two sets of two painting classes. Try doing this when you have 21 credits like I do this semester. The arts are not important to the people who make the decisions, especially here in Arizona.”
A particular concern for students has been the disappearance of the jewelry and metalsmithing program.
Dr. Jean Boreen, associate dean of the College of Arts and Letters, said the elimination of jewelry and metalsmithing is not a consequence of budget cuts, but of an inability to replace retiring faculty.
“The only real change the department is experiencing is the loss of jewelry and metalsmithing,” Boreen said. “But this is only because [Professor] Joe Cornett is retiring, and he would be virtually impossible to replace. It’s a really unfortunate loss; we’re really going to miss him.”
Additionally, Boreen said she believes NAU is lucky to have sustained existing programs while local schools are experiencing more difficult losses.
“We’ve been able to maintain all of our art, theater and music classes, and we have one of the best art education programs in the state,” Boreen said. “I can’t think of any cuts we’ve had because of budget, but the Flagstaff Unified School District has concerns for [an] override that will directly impact the arts.”
While students agree a lack of funding for the arts is not a problem unique to NAU, many said they do believe the issue has made itself evident in a lack of opportunities available to students.
The Beasley Art Gallery, a place to showcase student works, has significantly reduced the hours during which visitors can experience student pieces. This has affected many art students, limiting opportunities to display their creations in a public forum.
“To graduate, we have to put on a student show for a week or two with our artwork on display,” Phillips said. “I would put my hard work on the wall, have a show opening where family and friends and supporters of the art come and see it, and then, the door’s locked. We want our research and energy and hard work to be seen by the world.”
Samantha Renteria, a junior interior design major, expressed her concern for the effects budget cuts may have on her future.
“I feel that the university has really been cutting our art programs apart and fear that there will soon be nothing left,” Renteria said. “Until then, I feel that we will all suffer substandard supplies, instructors and low respect. With my program shrinking away to the bare minimum standards, it makes me think about how my future is continually being jeopardized every day.”
Click below for Lumberjack exclusive video by Kristine Cannon about the effects of the budget cuts on the art programs at NAU.
1 Comment
Dr. Boreen is talking nonsense in this article. Roughly a year to a year and a half ago, I was enrolled in a figure painting class. When I asked the teacher if there was going to be another of the same class offered soon, the reply was “probably not while you’re still at this school.”
As art students, we have definitely lost classes because teachers couldn’t be paid to teach them. Furthermore, because of this drop in class availability and because of the way art students are treated by faculty and administration alike when they try to speak out against negative changes in their program (a pat on the head and an eye roll), the art department at NAU is CERTAINLY not the best in the state.
ASU has three galleries where students can hang their material, and word is that their work is insured. Student work at NAU isn’t insured specifically BECAUSE its produced for a class at the university, meaning that everyone else’s work is insured if they’d like to show at Beasley. Just not ours.
So, to wrap up, because we are art students we do not get our work insured if we show in OUR OWN gallery. We have to protest just to keep the gallery open for OUR OWN shows, and when we do we get patronized by the staff in OUR OWN department. We are working ridiculously hard just to get treated fairly WHILE AT THE SAME TIME producing original work to be shown at a school that increasingly fails to act like it cares. “Best department in the state”? I would like to see the justification for that.