Dear Provost Fuchs,
We, the undersigned students, faculty, staff, alumni and administrators in the creative arts at Cornell, are deeply concerned about the recommendation to restructure the Cornell Council for the Arts in a report submitted to you, based on the findings of an ad hoc committee chaired by AAP Dean Kent Kleinman. In particular, we are disturbed by the elimination of the grant programs, which has regularly funded faculty, staff, student organizations and undergraduate/graduate student artists, in a professional, unbiased and fair vetting structure since 1967. In its place, you have accepted Dean Kleinman’s recommendation to fund “two years to those units, with the expectation that when the central funding is no longer provided in FY2014 the individual units will continue to provide similar funding opportunities for students, and faculty.” In essence, the “units’ you describe are the chairs of departments, who will make decisions on art projects. After two years, the individual departments will have to come up with the monies in order to support its artists. We believe the elimination of grants signals a larger administrative attitude toward the arts at Cornell. In addition to the obvious harm to student and faculty creative projects because of lack of funding, the committee report provides no opportunity of support for staff artists and registered student organizations, or anyone not affiliated with the 12 units. We agree that it is extremely important to raise the visibility of the arts at Cornell and we do share in the belief of providing the best creative arts experience for our students and faculty. But we are convinced that the model proposed by Dean Kleinman is seriously flawed and will not achieve desired results. It would have been beneficial if a larger collective of interested and invested parties were included in the dialogue before a report recommending dramatic changes to the CCA was accepted by your office. Before implementation by Cornell’s Central Administration, we respectfully ask that you consider the serious implications in Dean Kleinman’s report that will negatively impact individual artists.
We ask that you meet with a delegation of faculty artists and students, listen to those who would be most affected at Cornell and consider reversing your approval of a remodel that ignores Cornell’s emerging and faculty artists. By signing this petition, we are united in our objections to the report.


Coverage on this issue

Cornell Daily Sun: Profs Outraged by CCA Overhaul  10/20/10

Cornell Chronicle Online: Provost endorses a revised CCA  10/21/10

Cornell Daily Sun: Fuchs Officially Announces  10/21/10 (report)

Cornell Daily Sun / Former Sun Assoc. Editor, Letter to the Editor  10/22/10

Cornell Daily Sun Editorial: Arts & Sacrifices  10/25/10

Cornell Daily Sun Editorial: Defending Changes to the CCA  10/27/10

Ithaca Times Editorial: Threat to Creativity  10/28/10

Cornell Daily Sun Editorial: Threatening Creativity  11/2/10