BACHELOR OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS WILL HAVE 2008 INTAKE - HEAD OF SCHOOL
Associate Professor Lynette Sheridan Burns, Head of the School of Communication Arts, has emailed to correct a factual mistake we made about the Bachelor of Contemporary Art (BCA). We note that it has been "indefinitely" suspended. Lynette says by email, "This is not true and has never been true. The Bachelor of Contemporary Art has been approved by the UWS Course Approvals and Articulations Committee and will be introduced in 2008."
Changes to the text of the Petition cannot be made unfortunately. Once a Petition is live at that site it is permanent and cannot be altered. So please note Lynette's correction.
However, we stand by our motivating intention that the point of the petition is to rally support for the arts and art education in western Sydney when, until now, there has been ambiguity over the fate of the Fine Arts / Electronic Arts due to constant restructuring, lack of adequate funding, staff redundancies, subsequent lowering of morale for students and staff affected by these change proposals, and importantly, constant reminders from management that the arts areas have not been financially sustainable to date and have dropped in enrollements.
We hope, now we have solid confirmation that the BCA is slated for 2008, that it can service the needs for a well-rounded arts education for the west, with suitable consultation with fine arts/electronic arts staff (in addition to the consultation that is being sought from relevant arts bodies in the west) rather than a tokenistic gesture on the part of the university to provide an art degree.
PS. We just found Lynette's image when we looked her up on Google Images.
posted by UWS Arts at 11:20 AM
14 Comments:
Isn't the problem that one immediately thinks,"Yes, but can they be trusted?'.
If the course is not offered in 2007, staff contracts will have to be terminated, and once gone, positions may be refilled at a lower cost.Or they may not be refilled at all.Is this the reasoning? Or is the idea to recoup the previous losses, by taking a breather for a year. This might not work, because you'd loose the funding for new students, and the actual work done by less staff may not be much more costly for one year's worth of students.(eg ,if the workshop is attended by a techo for 10 students, for 2 hours, it costs the same to have the techo stay there for 20 or 40 for the same two hours.)
The figures put forward, that "Fine Arts owes the university" point to a very odd method used to quantify costs and benefits.
It looks like someone has tried to squish education into a Microsoft Project Manage" pie chart and come up with a strangely narrow viewpoint.
If , for example, a student emerges from UWS with a BA and then a Dip Ed , qualified to become an Art Teacher, has the Education School refunded Fine Arts some money because the student qualified in a School whose workshops cost more to run than a lecture based subject? The benefits each sector of the uni gives to another is not so neatly packaged. Obviously, some courses are going to be more expensive to run thatn others.
If the uni made more effort to highlight the products of the Arts workshops, they might get more value out of them.
I don't think these administrators have any idea how valuable these facilities are to the community, having had no involvement with art production in a workshop.
If there is a gap in the population of school leavers interested in Arts programmes at the momment, it may be because the populatin itself has a dip in it.
These facilities are treasures that the univresity should protect for future generations.
Perhaps it might be wise for the university to reorient the use of the facilties to a "University of the third age" client, alongside a BCA. This would pring fruitful interaction with people , such as practising artists or interested members of the community who could afford to pay a modest fee, and keep the facilities used to the maximum until the "baby bonus "generation arrives at the university doorsteps in seventeen years time.
In the meantime, the university might have to change its attitude towards its students a little.
I do know two school leavers and their parents who will be disappointed for 2007. If you loose these prospective students and their peers, they will have to go to Sydney, and then you may have missed out on a whole three years of their custom -once they've set up somewhere else, they're gone.
I supppose the youth of The Blue Mountains and Western Sydney could always do the new Military Service option for a year.They might be a bit tougher to deal with after that though!
Given the article you've just republished from the Sun Herald, it looks as though other parts of the University are feeling the pinch, and it might be better to stick together, keep offering all the courses, see what the recruitment numbers say, and go all out for public support for one off re-establishment funding from the Federal Government.
Art Schools can be very useful in a publicity campaign, Vice Chancellor! they might give you a win-win situation yet!
best regards
Jack
And yet in every press statement or public comment thus far we get the tell tale " no guarantees" on the 2008 revival.
This has been going on for years, I began a programme in 2001, B. ARts(fine Arts) this was changed to B.FIne Arts, this since finishing , the school changed its name to the school of communication arts, wow, if as much recognition of what actually happens in YZ building was taken into account as the persistent name changes someone at the top may relise the importance of the place, firstly...why have the technical staff ALL been offered redundencies, why are the accademics pondering there futures instead of preparing the ever exhilerating course work...?? To be honest UWS doesn't deserve such an important art school, but this is not the point, the point is I was lucky enough to experince the place first hand, and my practice has benefitted from the experence in ways to many to mention here, it is crimminal that at a time when budding artists are making a conscious decision to enrole in the most innovative art school in sydney, if not australia, that it's future is in doubt.. or ON HOLD. Open your eyes, and get down any number of galleres accoss sydney accoss australia, pick up some art publications and read the names, look at the innovative critical discourse that is out there, and if you do some research instead of crunching numbers than you will notice that many of the artists making some of the more important art comming out of this country are former stundents of what I will always refere to as SOCA. School of Contemporary ART- UWS. p.s how much was spent the new logo a few years back?????????
These constant changes must cost a fortune: I think that's what is so frustrating: that these decicions may not even save money. How much does a redundancy cost? It must have been a fortune to ask all those "middle Managers ", such as various professors, to take redundancies.
Must be a fortune. They also used to have a very fancy website. Now there's no sigh of the students or staff work at all. i think morale must be at such a low, as much of the work to set up the school was carried out voluntarily.
Why no seek some emergency funding,from someone like the Whitlam Institute, for example, and keep the course intact for one extra year?
if there really are less enrolments, perhaps some of the staff might elect to job share for that one year.
The suggestion that a prospective Fine Arts student should enrol in Design just shows how little the Professor is familiar with Art. One is comimg from a completely different place.
Could you seek support from departments with whom you share common interests?
You need another 1.5 m dollars, to keep going, and a new School to support your interests.
I was a journalism student at UWS and had to buy Professor Sheridan-Burns book 'Understanding journalism' as a textbook. Basically I graduated recently and felt a bit ripped off that Lynette never actaully gave us a lecture in journalism but expected us to read her book. Anyway, I sold the book off to some other unsuspecting sucker who enrolled to take part in a degree at the University of Western Apathy.
Hey, a friend of mine told me UWS recently was awarded some prestige for having nice student feedback for their journalism degree. Take it from me. They don't even have a consistent magazine. One year journalism has a credible magazine called ANGLE. The following year they have a really stupid and cheaply produced newspaper called ANGLE which were handed out kinda embarrassingly as an afterthought at last years design grad show. I wish it had a 'trading post' section - I'd trade my journalism degree in for one I belive in.
does journalism at uws teach blogging?
after this exemplary blog, journalism may need to integrate it into the curriculum if it's not already there and use the save uws art website as a case study of the power of the public sphere in action.
ZOMG. Rumours and conspiracy theories abound. Where lies the power behind the throne? Well I think I have a good idea, and if I'm right then creative accounting, spin and misdirection are very much tools of the trade. Beware, beware.
And it still is the school of *contemporary* arts as far as I'm concerned. They may have the naming rights, but we're the ones who're in the building. I have never, ever seen Wayne or Lynette anywhere near Z building.
They are *not* the arbiters of our culture, and I'll take degenerate art over the official version any day.
[last paragraph deleted by Save UWS Arts because it was unnecessarily offensive]
A reminder that comments at this blog are unmoderated, so please keep comments clean and unoffensive to particular individuals to maintain the integrity of the blog.
We had to delete part of the above comment because it was blatantly offensive towards particular UWS management individuals.
wayne opens the grad shows in the z building, so he's there at least once a year. (he did the last few years from what I recall). one year - was it last year? - he introduced mikala dwyer who was officially opening the exhibition. he said: "apparently mikala is a well known artist". wow!
when i do tutorial presentations on warhol, i usually say the same thing.
it will be interesting to see if he attends this year's grad show.
Will they get to keep Z building under a new degree if it ever gets back up. That equipment has been gathered over years and is owned by the uni...the rumours are they will ditch all the workshops...this blog needs to hang around to keep everything out in the open
note to uws students: wayne and lynette are a strong alliance and could be hard to beat! they obviously have a grand plan of some kind. so keep up the good solid work because this blog fuckin rocks. information is coming out. at last.
lynette and wayne form a strong alliance because newcastle is in their blood. they're old buddies from newcastle university - they both originated from newcastle uni, which you may remember had that big redundancy drama last year as reported at http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Staff-in-uproar-as-cashstrapped-uni-slashes-jobs/2005/05/02/1114886318659.html. Lynette obviously got out of Newcastle U before the shit hit the fan.
It is not uncommon for Newcastle academics to end up at UWS because Wayne hires them to carry out his work.
And I thought I was being paranoid. Who indeed can we trust? Such a hard question. But let's use our intuition and the advice of our anonymous friends...do so and you may reach the same conclusion - if anyone is to be trusted it is sure as fuck not the echelons and their minions. (OR THEIR FUCKING MUPPETS)
Of course 'they' would use their stable of tame academic muppets to fill positions of responsibility. The incompotent are more easily manipulable.
And never trust the *appearance* of openness, it is called spin and it's the biggest card they got. Trust no one.
I AM SO ANONYMOUS RIGHT NOW! CAN YOU SEE I AM ANONYMOUS?
Stay critical, my friends.
One of the changes that the proposed BCA course will implement is already in action:
First year FA, EA and Performance students have already had their lectures combined. Previously, the performance lectures were separate. This was for a very good reason which is now made even more ovious - they are separate courses and focus on different disciplines, and therefore teach different material!
The combined lectures are already proving to be too vague and general, because they are attempting to address each course as a whole. None of the subjects is being done justice at all in this way. Consequently the students are receiving wafty meandering lectures that don't go into depth about anything.
This is only one of the changes that will come into play with the proposed degree. Perhaps this is one of the tactics behind the new degree - satisfy no one, then use dissatisfaction to carry out whataver changes and cuts are being planned.
With respect to Peformance, I cannot agree more with the last comment about the lectures being squashed.
As a first year performance student, and also as a previous Bachelor of Arts graduate at the ANU, I am appalled that my money is being spent, on- as the previous blogger mentioned -'wafty meandering lectures'. This is an issue of quality that must be addressed. How can you expect students, who are serious about being in peforming arts, to waste their time and money on lectures that regularly pose no meaning to them. Much of what we learn in these lectures, is general theory which loses its meaning to each specific communication arts group. I feel as if I am back in first year at the ANU, not studying drama but first year philosophy or cultural studies. The readings are no better, often containing articles which confuse and alienate. These articles often contain nothing in them which refers to 'communication arts' Is it no wonder that many in my year are considering going elsewhere for solid acting and performance training.
In our last lecture performance students, held Sally Macarthur back after the lecture so that we had clarification on the course's direction over the next two years. Naturally Sally was in no position to give definitive answers. We all know that the real shakers and movers are much higher up. We are all hoping that Sally will be able to get more information on the course's direction when she speaks to the Dean and the Head of School next week. But even if she makes our intentions known, how are we able to prepare ourselves for future endeavours at this time of the year. All areas of communication arts are subject to rigorous entry requirements such as submitting work and auditions. It is irresponsible of the university to leave us in the dark about any further changes, especially for those of us who still have many years to get through them.
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