BLAIR WOYNARSKI / ASHLEIGH MATTERN
The Sheaf

A Fine Arts Divisional Town Hall meeting Feb. 17 discussed the impact of recent university budget cuts on fine arts and humanities departments.

The departments are running out of money. One of the first things to get slashed was sessionals: budget allocations in each department for sessionals have been reduced from $700,000 to $300,000 per annum.

Next on the chopping block are certain senior programs.

Faculties themselves received little notice of the meeting and alerted their students as quickly as they could Thursday morning. The claustrophobic Arts 212 was selected for the meeting, but after well over 100 people elbowed their way inside, it moved to Arts 143.

Vice dean David Parkinson began his address by saying that we were in the later stages of serious budget cutbacks and funding reallocation. One student immediately asked why we were not informed of this in the early stages. Parkinson responded that there were problems with communication early on, but the important thing was that the dialogue was opening now.

Parkinson gave a passionate defence of the departments, saying that the university should be prepared to run at a deficit to maintain the quality of education. In order to justify that, however, these departments need to increase enrolment. The trade-off there is that it will shift increasing attention to lower-years classes, taking resources away from senior-level classes.

Parkinson said that some trimming of upper-level programs in the fine arts needed to happen, and how there were a number of degree programs that had not seen more than ten graduates in five years. Several students challenged this statement, citing programs that require small classes to function, such as the drama department’s design program. They stressed that the number of graduates does not necessarily reflect the quality of the course. Parkinson agreed.

The majority of audience members expressed the same sentiment, that students had enormous faith in the quality of their program and their professors, and already working with limited resources and inadequate facilities, they did not know what more they could sacrifice.

Nothing was resolved at the town hall: primarily, it was used as an airing of grievances. The vice dean came under fire with complaints about budget cuts and faculty reductions, though he frequently expressed solidarity with the audience.

The town hall was not a place for strategy or financial prediction, but rather was the opening of a dialogue between different levels of the university, as well as shutting down certain misconceptions about expanding the administration in spite of cutbacks. Currently there is no indication of where the situation will go. All that is certain is that the already cash-strapped fine arts departments will be facing further cutbacks.

But what was most remarkable about this meeting is the sheer number of students who attended to make their statements. If we can take this as an indication, at least a portion of the normally apathetic student body is ready to fight for something.

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image: Flickr