Joe Anglim's recent work (Photo by: Andrew Conte)
During a recent Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) meeting, Liz Grobsmith, NAU academic affairs vice president and provost, announced the university will be cutting almost 50 pathway programs. Students in the jewelry and metals program are concerned with the effect this will have on their education.
NAU and its sister institutions have been striving to cut costs, tighten up and become more efficient. Now, with the announcement of the state budget cut, working with fewer resources has become a reality for NAU.
Students in the jewelry and metals department are experiencing the repercussions of fewer resources. Jamie Vigil, a junior jewelry major, said the program would be ending in spring 2012.
“It’s like they’re saying, ‘Our budget is more important than your education,’” Vigil said.
Tom Patin, director of the School of Art, said he wanted to stress he felt differently.
“Our first concern was, ‘Could these students finish the program in time?’” Patin said.
Patin said he has met with each student individually to create a plan allowing them to finish the required jewelry courses before they are discontinued.
However, the art students feel this will negatively affect their progression as artists. Hannah Walsh, a junior jewelry major, said speeding up the progress of students’ degrees is unacceptable.
“Imagine putting four years into two,” Walsh said. “It’s ridiculous. Our portfolios are being completely screwed over.”
Fellow art student Joseph Anglim, a junior studio arts major, said he agrees with Walsh.
“It takes time to make our art — to make it unique. It all adds [up] over the course of four years, to make a strong résumé, show off your talent and ability, and now that’s being taken away from us,” Anglim said. “How do you say to a possible employer, ‘Oh, my program was cut, but I’m a good artist, although I don’t have much to show you.’”
Other art students agree and stress the fact that a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, with a jewelry concentration, is in fact a four-year degree. The first two years serve as an introduction to technique that provides students with ample time and experience to experiment with personal style, while the last two years are to prepare students for their senior show. Josh Schretenthaler, a sophomore jewelry major, said he would be getting his bachelor’s degree in two years — something that did not please him.
“We’re doing all that in two years,” Schretenthaler said. “We’re getting rid of the play time, so we have to hit the ground sprinting — it’s so hard.”
According to Grobsmith, the decision to eliminate certain pathways will provide a more concentrated focus and effort toward the pathways and majors students want. It will also provide the university with an opportunity to deploy faculty to focus on areas in higher demand.
But Schretenthaler said he considers the courses in his program to be in high demand; he remembers when there was a student at every desk in the studio.
“Every introductory class was full before they cut [the classes],” Schretenthaler said.
Grobsmith said the pathways considered for elimination were not chosen quickly or frivolously. For the past six years, all departments in the university — as well as deans, department chairs and faculty — have been examining pathways with low graduation rates.
“We did a report of all programs on our books,” Grobsmith said.
The Office of Academic Affairs documented the number of students graduating from pathways in the past six years. If the office found a track that had not graduated enough students in the time period, they met specifically with those colleges and faculty to examine and eliminate under-subscribed programs.
Another issue affecting the decision to eliminate the jewelry program was the early retirement of Professor Joe Cornett.
“In a period when we’re about to have a big budget cut from the state, we can’t afford to replace faculty in every area,” Grobsmith said. “So we need to concentrate on putting faculty in our high-demand areas.”
Many students in the jewelry department said they are outraged and confused by the university’s logic behind its decisions. Walsh said her personal confusion comes from the announcement of a budget cut while the installation of a $5 million staircase is in the works.
“I could live off of $5 million forever,” Walsh said. “I don’t understand the priorities that the school has. I feel like, as students, we are on the back burner.”
However, Grobsmith said the decision to cut programs will positively affect NAU and its students.
The report and research of possible programs to be eliminated, conducted by Academic Affairs, is in its final stages. Every spring, the university must create an Academic Strategic Plan. This plan is designed to document changes under way and for the future. ABOR affirmed the current methodology regarding the study and potential elimination of low-production programs. The report is part of combined efforts to create a streamlined curriculum that is more cost-effective and clean, while still being aware of what classes NAU students want to take.
The official list of eliminated pathways, based on research and votes made by the Faculty Curriculum Committee, must first be submitted to ABOR before being made public.
“We will post it,” Grobsmith said. “I’d say that will be toward middle or late April, whenever we go to the Academic Affairs Committee and Board. That’s when our list will be released.”
Until the release of this list, the jewelry and metals program students will continue working diligently to save their program. They have created a blog, a Facebook page, testimonials and petitions all in support of the program.
The students said they are still hoping — and fighting — for a change in the phase-out process or the possible merger of the jewelry pathway with another department in Fine Arts.
Patin said he is not dismissing the possibility of a merger but acknowledges funding plays a huge part in this decision and said no particular decision has been made.
Karen Pugliesi, vice provost for undergraduate studies, said such a merger is one of the larger curricular questions the School of Art is examining. She said factors in the decision include what is fitting to capacity, resources and budget.
“On the one hand, students want maximum opportunity to experience things while attending the university,” Pugliesi said. “On the other hand, the state is substantially reducing our budget, and we’re trying to hold the line on tuition so students don’t need to pay more. In that equation, something has to give.”
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