Dorrance Hamilton Hall at the now-shuttered University of the Arts used to remind me of a museum. It was the Philadelphia university’s main and most recognizable building, with four Greek Revival stone pillars and a large set of stairs leading up to the entrance on the northwest corner of Pine and Broad streets, the latter of which is also known as the Avenue of the Arts. Most of the university’s buildings are just blocks south of Philadelphia’s iconic Gothic Revival City Hall. North of the massive structure is Temple University, where I’m a student in the journalism program.
A few days after the June University of the Arts closure blindsided everyone but the board of trustees, I visited the disheartening scene at Hamilton. Students were camped out on the staircase, many holding signs and chanting, and the air was filled with anger and sadness. Rather than hurrying to painting studios or design critiques, some students were in the midst of moving their supplies out, lugging them down the stairs to who-knows-where.
Many former University of the Arts students received the news not through a school email, announcement, or any official university channel; instead they were informed of it via social media or through local news outlets. I tried to speak to some students, but they were mostly concerned with keeping up their chants and creating protest signs. One sign, plastered to the stone siding of the building, read, “I found out on Instagram.”
“School is not a place to go to be made into an artist; it’s something that can help, but it’s ultimately up to a person’s desire to make art.” — Michael DiPietro
“A friend of mine described it as … the factory in town is closing down,” says Alice Yorke, former University of the Arts faculty member and co-artistic director of Lightning Rod Special, a Philadelphia-based performance company. “You know, we have seen all these cities — Philadelphia being one of them, Detroit, Rochester, New York — cities that were built on factory work. And when those factories closed down, those cities, those institutions, those industries, really dried up.”
The University of the Arts gained university status in 1987, and has a rich history behind its doors: Its roots are grounded in the Philadelphia Music Academy and the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, which later became the Philadelphia Museum of Art. But according to its most recent president, Kerry Walk, who had only been there since August 2023, low post-pandemic enrollment, a structural problem with a recently renovated building, and other financial burdens quickly piled up, leading to, for some, a shocking decision to close with no warning.
Luckily, Philadelphia doesn’t have just one factory: The former school’s Avenue of the Arts neighbors include the Kimmel Cultural Campus, home of Opera Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and buildings that include the Kimmel Center and the Miller Theater; the Tony Award-winning Wilma Theater is across the street from many UArts buildings; and the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, home of the Philadelphia Theatre Company (and starting next season, Philadelphia’s contemporary ballet company, BalletX) is also close. Further south is the Clef Club of Jazz and the Performing Arts, and the Rock School of Ballet. The offices of Center City District have recently relocated to the avenue as well, and it’s all a stone’s throw from some of the city’s toniest addresses and most upscale shopping and restaurants.
The university’s portfolio is valued at $162 million, according to a 2022 tax assessment. Its mix of historic properties, residential, ground retail opportunities, and its prime location presents an interesting development opportunity. One option might be that the assets will be split between an acquiring university and multiple developers who would collectively shoulder the cost of upgrades, renovations, and accompanying code compliance.
But the closure of the University of the Arts will, of course, have a massive impact on those who were inside the institution.
Laura Grutzeck, the former special archival and digital collections librarian at University of the Arts, says this is a “tragic way” for a university to reach its end. “I still don’t understand why the UArts administration decided to keep us all in the dark about the closing, so no one was able to make any plans about their future,” Grutzeck says.
A scramble for studio space, transfers, and a plan for real estate and other holdings
Emily Sampson, a University of the Arts graduate, feels as though this closure “strips the very foundation the city was built on. Closing UArts will leave a gaping hole on Broad Street, with at least five different buildings left vacant on South Broad alone,” she says. Sampson explains that Hamilton Hall (designed by two renowned 19th-century architects, John Haviland and William Strickland, with the involvement of Frank Furness, who designed the extension of the rear that opened in 1875), is the oldest standing building on Broad Street.
“You know, the students who came to UArts chose that specific school for a reason,” says Yorke. “They were really excited about the community that that school offered, and to be at a school that was dedicated exclusively to arts education.”
On the technical side, one can only imagine the nightmare that will come along with trying to transfer thousands of students’ credits to other universities. Yorke says it’s not going to be easy, “practically or emotionally.”
Susan Cahan, the dean of Tyler Art School at Temple University, explained that Temple is working hard to make this a seamless transition for former UArts students.
“Our empathy for the students at Tyler has inspired us to do the best possible job we can at creating a smooth transition,” says Cahan. She explains that there is a teach-out agreement between the universities, which outlines which UArts degree programs align with programs at Temple. But while the Tyler Art program has many degrees identical or similar to those at UArts, it is not always a perfect match.
“There are some programs we do not have here, like game design. Of course, we welcome those students, but they would have to go into a program that we actually offer,” Cahan says.
Obviously, this creates some complications.
The first concern when UArts closed was for the needs of the students, but the closure also impacted faculty and staff who lost jobs and had to contend immediately with what to do with their supplies, works in progress, and archival collections. With a history as rich as that of this university, we are not only losing the talent and artistic vision of these students, but the physical architecture, design, and the deep history of what lies inside the buildings themselves.
Grutzeck explains that during the week of June 1, she received zero information about what would happen to the massive library collection housed at the Greenhouse Library.
“I spent that week frantically reaching out to neighboring libraries and cultural institutions to see if they would be interested in taking our archives and special collections,” she says.
“One should never underestimate the power of inertia to stop progress, particularly in a system as sclerotic as academia.” — Franklin Einspruch
Grutzeck later informed me that all of the collections must be sold to other institutions, with no donations allowed.
Cara Reese, a ceramic artist living in Philadelphia, was planning to attend University of the Arts for her master’s degree. Being a ceramicist requires materials that are not easy to lug around: heaps of clay, space-taking creations such as vases and bowls, and tools to sculpt with. Before hearing the news, Reese had packed everything in her home studio up, preparing to make the transition to a new studio space at UArts.
“Now I have to unpack everything again,” says Reese. “It has really put a pin in everything.”
Reese received a scholarship to the university, nearly half-off tuition for her to complete her master’s program. “There were so many resources there for me,” she explains.
Now Reese feels stuck and left with few resources. She questions why she is in Philadelphia at this point, because she stayed here for the sole purpose of getting her master’s at the university.
As a fellow student, I can only imagine the fear of these students. Attending art school is already a risky move to some. Enrolling and paying tuition with the expectation you will keep creating, even through burnout, little remuneration — or both — is a gamble.
The last days of the art degree?
Franklin Einspruch is an artist and writer based in New Hampshire who has written extensively on whether the art world is imploding from overreach into the realm of the political, failed business models exacerbated by the pandemic, and a general debt debacle.
I corresponded with Einspruch over email about the closure at the University of the Arts. He argued that an environment where freedom of expression is limited is not a viable place to create. “The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has found that 64 percent of college students felt worried that a misunderstanding of something they said or did might damage their reputation, and you can’t make art in an environment like that. Add to that the late-postmodern, progressive-identitarian art curriculum in which little of value is taught, and you quickly run out of reasons to enroll,” he says.
Einspruch’s pieces on his Dissident Muse Substack, including the essay “The Last Days of the Art Degree,” describe the crisis of failing art institutions. He explains that the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) has discontinued its three- and four-year certificate programs as of 2017. In January, PAFA announced that it would be eliminating its degree programs. In his piece, Einspruch explains that the university continues to focus on expanding education opportunities and leasing out “unused space” to new partners. “One should never underestimate the power of inertia to stop progress, particularly in a system as sclerotic as academia,” writes Einspruch. “But PAFA’s BFA and MFA were such institutional burdens that jettisoning them puts the school in the black by 2028, according to the board.”
Einspruch continues, “I feel terrible for everyone who was in the middle of acquiring [a degree at University of the Arts] when this closure happened, but I suspect that they will soon have a lot of company in their misery. UArts is by no means an isolated institutional failure.” He believes some of the blame can be laid on the Department of Education (DoE).
On the closure of art institutes across the country, he wrote in his post “The Art Institutes, 1921 — 2023,” that “The peculiarities of the American federal loan system for financing college has driven up tuition costs faster than inflation for four decades and counting. This debt is the financial equivalent of nuclear waste. It is the byproduct of a wealth transfer from the taxpayers to the universities. The debt holders can’t get rid of it. The debt issuer, the DoE, has neither the means nor incentive to collect it. So instead it shuts down the worst of the contamination sites, which range from relatively legitimate operations like the A.R.T. Institute to relatively predatory institutions like AI/MIUAD (Art Institute/Miami International University of Art & Design).” Another regional art program — the Delaware College of Art and Design — also shuttered its doors at the end of May.
We all know the stereotype of the starving artist: students paying way too much to make way too little. According to ZipRecruiter, the average freelance artist makes only a mere $22.60 an hour. That’s after investing in a whopping $55,630 tuition at University of the Arts, $40,095 at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), and up to 72 thousand at Pratt Institute, to name a few renowned art universities. And that does not include the cost of the supplies needed, which varies by major and is a source of economic angst for many students.
Einspruch believes that instead of expensive degree programs, we should be looking to let a thousand certificates bloom. “Whatever happens, two things are apparent,” he writes. “The federal student loan system is a river of poison, and the art degree needs to disappear.”
Creativity and resilience
Michael DiPietro was three credits shy of receiving his masters of music in jazz studies with a focus on piano at the university. He had also attended the university to receive his masters of business, entrepreneurship, and technology.
“My group chat for my work-study job with the music technology office was blowing up after a shift with chatter of UArts closing and sharings of the article,” DiPietro told me. “Of course it was a mix of emotions, but it was mostly confusion. I tend to not believe the press at first glance on a breaking story. I almost believed The Philadelphia Inquirer article was satire.”
While many fear for the future and what this closure represents, DiPietro explains that the art community in Philadelphia is strong and “has his back.” He explains that this summer, he has had the most gigs yet, but this does not change the fact that his own personal and academic closure was not received from the university.
“I was really excited to finish my thesis this summer and present it at UArts, which I am still doing and going to present at Temple, but it was really a huge wrench in my plans,” he says. I had never had a recital in my five years of attending UArts, and I was finally going to have my own night to present something I felt was really special on a stage that I had supported a lot of musicians on and seen my upperclassmen mentors perform on.”
However, DiPietro did assure that Temple was doing a solid job of helping students to make the switch.
“I want to go on record and say that the staff at Temple University have been immensely helpful to helping me continue my academic progress and making me feel secure again.” DiPietro has been working with Terell Stafford, director of jazz studies at Temple’s Boyer College of Music and Dance, and Tim Warfield, a jazz studies assistant professor. DiPietro says the pair “run a tight ship, and they, along with the Boyer faculty and staff, are doing a lot for our community right now.”
A question that is now undoubtedly circulating in the minds of students is, “Do I even need this degree?”
DiPietro puts the conundrum perfectly. “School is not a place to go to be made into an artist; it’s something that can help, but it’s ultimately up to a person’s desire to make art. Sometimes a degree is a requirement for a job, especially in public education, so if that’s someone’s ideal career then they should go. Ultimately, no one comes out of a college arts program and says, to quote my teacher Don Glanden, ‘Man, that syllabus really changed my life.’”
Iona Clark, a Temple University student, is an editorial assistant for Root Quarterly. This piece originally ran in Root Quarterly’s Fall 2024 issue. Subscribe to Root Quarterly here.
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