NHEG-Magazine-November-December
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www.NewHeightsEducation.org<br />
Why Art Schools Are<br />
Disappearing<br />
Art programs need to teach students the<br />
skills they need to live a life in the art of<br />
their time.<br />
By Michael J. Pearce<br />
Saturday, June 1, 2019<br />
A series of disasters face art colleges and the art departments of American universities. Their campuses are closing, their<br />
freshmen numbers are dwindling, and their graduates are struggling. Getting more students into an art program is a hard sell.<br />
To restore their appeal, art schools would do well to de-politicize their programs and focus on turning students into masters of<br />
their field who can then harness creativity for their art and their audience.<br />
Low Chances of Success<br />
Art colleges struggle with the toxic perception that their graduates are qualified for nothing and have been bankrupted by<br />
their education. They take on tens of thousands of dollars in debt, only to be employed as burger-flippers clutching a worthless<br />
degree in their paint and grease-splattered hands.<br />
Their prospects are dismal: A 2018 Bankrate report noted that over nine percent of them are unemployed, and fine art degrees<br />
ranked last of 162 different majors for their employment prospects—more than triple the average. Appallingly, with a 7.7<br />
percent unemployment rate, high school dropouts are more likely to get a job than art majors. Of an estimated two million<br />
arts graduates, only 10 percent make a living as working artists.<br />
It is difficult to know exactly how many art schools have closed nationally, but they are arm-in-arm with the closure of campuses<br />
across the nation. The Chronicle of Higher Education reportedthat 1,200 college campuses have closed in the last five<br />
years, displacing 500,000 students. More than 100 for-profit and career colleges and 20 non-profit colleges closed in 2017 and<br />
2018. Worried MFA program heads have secretly reported poor enrollment to artnet News.<br />
In 2015, the entire freshman class of the MFA program at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art and Design<br />
dropped out amid turmoil as the university restructured its art programs. In Portland, the Oregon College of Art and Craft is<br />
closing its degree program by summer 2019. And Marylhurst University and the Art Institute of Portland were both shuttered<br />
last year. These closures and dropouts are symptoms of a severe illness afflicting higher education.<br />
The Harmful Effects of Politicization<br />
That illness is the politicization of the academy, which alienates many of its paying customers and drives away prospective students.<br />
Conservative parents are wary of paying for an education that they perceive as political indoctrination and are especially<br />
suspicious of art departments. That distrust is hardly surprising when we consider the history of the avant-garde, which<br />
was founded by revolutionary proto-communists in 19th-century France and embraced by left-wing art professors throughout<br />
the 20th century.<br />
A survey from the National Association of Scholars on the political beliefs of liberal art professors at 51 of the 66 top-ranked<br />
liberal arts colleges showed that there are more than 40 registered Democrats for every Republican, and placed art departments<br />
at No. 6 for the most politically imbalanced university departments.<br />
In art schools dominated by politically motivated professors, social justice activism dominates the work of many students, who<br />
can feel pressured into acting and working just like their mentors. Why would a student interested in an art career want to pay<br />
for a degree that leads to a job in political campaigning or unemployment?<br />
98 98 <strong>NHEG</strong> | GENiUS <strong>Magazine</strong> MAGAZINE | <strong>November</strong> | www.geniusmag.com<br />
- <strong>December</strong><br />
www.NewHeightsEducation.org<br />
The language used to describe student thesis shows reveals the political focus of art on campus. In art-speak buzz, the Maine<br />
College of Art claims that its graduates hybridize a range of conceptual themes and material approaches as they relate to<br />
visual culture, the political landscape and to contemporary art practice.<br />
Applicants to the Tufts MFA program are told,<br />
You’ll explore the broader implications of your practice through aesthetic, social, political, economic, and scientific<br />
considerations.<br />
Their graduating class of 2019 titled their thesis show“No Time for Laundry” because they were too busy with, “School, art, and<br />
political engagement.”<br />
The Atelier Movement<br />
The desire for a de-politicized curriculum doesn’t only come from conservative critics: Art students have voted with their feet.<br />
Avant-garde art colleges face growing competition from the burgeoning “atelier” movement.<br />
An atelier is a small art school offering training in sculpture, drawing, and painting based on studio practices that were primarily<br />
taught from the Renaissance to the 19th century. Although universities are experiencing a nationwide decline, ateliers have<br />
flourished and appeared in every major American city. In 2002, the Art Renewal Center (ARC), a non-profit company dedicated<br />
to the revival of 19th-century studio art, listed 14 approved ateliers.<br />
By 2018, it listed 76, and another three institutions await affiliation. The ARC salon, a prestigious competition for painters and<br />
sculptors from the atelier scene, has seen entries grow in the last five years from 1,100 artists to 4,300. Several programs offer<br />
accredited bachelor’s and master’s degrees—including The Florence Academy, The New York Academy, and Laguna College of<br />
Art and Design. College admissions officers would do well to pay attention to this competitor for art students.<br />
Ateliers are reforming art training, but high schools are driving the shift away from traditional art schools. Mandy Theis, president<br />
and co-founder of The Da Vinci Initiative, which introduces atelier training into K-12 schools, said:<br />
I teach workshops all over the country for art teachers. At the beginning of every workshop, I ask who has heard of atelier<br />
training. When I started 5 years ago, I rarely ever saw a hand raise. Now, I get about 30 percent hands raised in my workshops<br />
when I ask this question. I see very consistent and strong growth of awareness of atelier training.<br />
At the Career Technology Education Center (CTEC) in Salem, Oregon, high school students are better trained to find work in<br />
creative industries than many college students. At CTEC, students are taught the techniques they need to go directly into<br />
careers with local companies, such as Soma Games and the architecture firm BRIC, who recruit directly from the program.<br />
Lead 3D-design instructor Graham Toms teaches the design principles and drawing skills of classical art because these are precisely<br />
the skill-sets sought by businesses. Although art programs struggle locally and nationally, CTEC is thriving—Toms told<br />
me that its enrollment is now capped and competitive admission to the program is governed by students’ attendance scores.<br />
Why would a student interested in an art career want to pay for a degree that leads to a job in political campaigning or<br />
unemployment?<br />
Philosophical Creativity<br />
The sickness that afflicts college art education is a philosophical one. Increasing funding is often proposed as a cure. But<br />
funding should not reinforce the philosophical illness; rather, it should go to programs that show successful outcomes for<br />
students.<br />
Instead of repeating the failed ideas John Dewey described in his book, Art as Experience, where art is about self-expression<br />
rather than technical mastery, successful art programs make use of the real pragmatism of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi as found<br />
in his books Flow and Creativity. In no other discipline has self-indulgence been touted as a model for training as thoroughly as<br />
it has in art.<br />
Art programs need to teach students the skills they need to live a life in the art of their time.<br />
But creativity does not lie in self-indulgence. Creativity grows from mastering a domain. True creativity is born after skills<br />
become second-nature, not before. Art program funding should fund people who teach technique, not political ideology. To<br />
restore the appeal of art schools, they need to build upon the intensive training model such as those offered at high schools by<br />
the Da Vinci Initiative and CTEC. Reform can also come from people like David Chang at Florida International University, who<br />
has broken new ground by including an atelier program in the range of art degrees.<br />
<strong>November</strong> - <strong>December</strong> 2019 | <strong>NHEG</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> 99