After students gathered at an Ohio University branch campus last Tuesday to protest the removal of studio art classes, student representatives met with school administrators to discuss what classes would be offered in the future.
Two weeks ago, officials at OU Chillicothe announced that certain studio art courses were not going to be offered during Spring Quarter, said Donna Burgraff, dean of the Chillicothe campus.
Officially, OU-C currently offers six bachelors’ degrees that students can complete without traveling to Athens. Art is not one of those six.
However, because Chillicothe offers 300-level art classes as electives, students have been able to meet art degree requirements, said Karalea Lane, a senior studying art and literature.
“Unofficially, (Chillicothe offers) the classes that were needed to complete a bachelor of arts … We all knew we could get it here,” Lane said, adding that she chose to stay in Chillicothe to avoid the costs of transportation and main campus tuition.
It is possible to achieve certain degree requirements at branch campuses without taking courses in Athens, said Dan Evans, executive dean of regional higher education.
“It is accurate to say that the regional campuses are not approved to offer a Bachelor of Arts degree in studio art,” Evans said. “Over time, (students) may actually be able to earn enough of those courses to say, ‘I meet the degree requirement,’ but it was not something that is systematically designed by us.”
Some of the studio art classes might not be available Spring Quarter to make room for the new 100-level courses, she said.
The decision to begin offering more 100-level courses and less studio art courses was budget-related, Burgraff said, but ridding Chillicothe of art classes was never the intention.
“These can sometimes be trying times, and my job is I have to position the campus to be successful,” Burgraff said. “That sometimes means we have to make a few changes, and what we have in Chillicothe is we have art classes, but we don’t have an art program.”
Originally, Lane was under the impression all the studio art classes were going to be canceled and organized Tuesday’s meeting at OU-C’s Quinn Library.
“It looks bad, and immediately, it was going to be bad because there was a handful of us that weren’t going to be able to graduate,” Lane said, later adding she was proud that those who attended the meeting were able to convey the importance of art class variety at Chillicothe.
“People got proactive, which is great,” Lane said. “It was much bigger than I thought but that gave me an opportunity to hear how this would affect everybody … I’m so glad that the student’s voice was recognized.”
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