During my studies at MICA, the school was re-structuring due to enrollment based financial shortages. As a result many faculty & staff members’ jobs were on the line, students were anxious about continuing their education and tension was strife amongst different groups.
My research revealed that this wasn’t an isolated incident. Many art & design insititutions are grappling with declining enrollment, funding shortages and the increasing precarity of its employees.
This thesis was developed from evaluating this crisis, and exploring tensions between different groups — delving into some of the deeper underlying problems often swept under the rug at many art & design universities.
I researched, designed, staged interventions to bring together students, faculty and staff to re-collect their learning experiences and re-examine what should be dismantled, built anew or repaired
in art & design schools.
Understanding student, faculty & staff voices
MICA had announced a huge re-structuring of its degree programs and as a response, students responded by protesting.It was imminent that the enrollment cliff was leading to many changes at MICA (and other universities) but the response to these changes told a story that’s age old — lack of transparency, exhausted faculty, anxious students — all of them wanted accountability.
Synthesizing & Analyzing
I also interviewed 20 people across students, faculty and staff to learn from their lived experience. A lot of them recounted stories of feeling unheard, scared of speaking up, job loss fears. Students talked about how university decisions are top-down and frustration around where their tuition is going. In all of these interviews though, was this undercurrent of wanting change in the system — many discussions went beyond the protest or the current state of things. A lot talked about how separated the educational pedagogy was from how universities’ actual operations run.
Connecting themes together — from an inequitable structure, to lack of community and sustained stress from university — I was able to see a larger story unfold. A space of education was seemingly no different than the definitions of capitalism.
After having interviewed different individuals, I sought to bring these perspectives together in a forum. Using the themes from my research, I formulated How Might We questions so people could brainstorm together and come up with ideas on how to work through these problems.
Impact & Next Steps
This project will also be showcased along with a parallel workshop at the AICAD Symposium at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.