Save SCA

Hi Please keep NSW University and Sydney University Fine Art Colleges open It is a vital component of what makes Sydney great

SCA is a treasured and unique institution and of great benefit to the University of Sydney in terms of research, reputation and teaching.

As a graduate of Sydney College of the Arts, the news that Sydney is facing a future where it will be home to only one art school makes for a very grim future indeed! Sydney College of the Arts, the National Art School and UNSW Art & Design (formally College of Fine Arts), each offer students a uniquely different experience of art and importantly provide students with the chance to find an art school that reflects their area of interest. SCA taught me how to think critically, how to see art not just as an object but rather as a means for society to understand itself. The strong conceptual focus at SCA allowed me to develop a critical understanding of art that has shaped not only how I understand the world, but indeed the career path I have taken. When you look back at the list of artists that have graduated from SCA and consider the impact these students have had on not only the national but international stage, you appreciate just how much we have to lose if we lose SCA.

More diversity in the arts, not less.

SCA changed my life. It is very sad that it should be doomed. A healthy society needs many different Art Schools.

Shame shame shame!

As an alumni of SCA, and now Melbourne resident that is able to experience how vital the diversity among the various art schools is in this city is, I whole heartedly echo the demands of this petition.

The SCA should be maintained as a leader in the art community thereby providing diversity.

Please keep the tradition and save a most magnificent space for our most talented to survive I truely love SCA

I am a mature aged, 2nd year undergraduate student at SCA. It has taken me 18 years to return to SCA and restart my undergraduate studies because financial hardship precluded me from completing the first time around. I paid the HECS for two years of architecture and two years of visual arts while I waited and worked, to return and try again. As a sole parent it took enormous amounts of planning and ongoing sacrifice to come back and work towards receiving by Bachelor of Visual Arts from Sydney University; it is literally a lifelong dream but with a genuine plan for career and financial independence upon completion. My studies are not a folly. I consistently receive High Distinctions and won the Jerome DeCosta Memorial Scholarship in first year. I work very hard to balance my studies with my onerous responsibilities and still find time for executive duties of the faculty student society and sit on an undergraduate staff student committee. I regularly cater for 120 first years then run to an assessment presentation, such is my dedication and gratitude to this institution. The brutal dispossession I am experiencing at the hands of the University of Sydney is one of the most painful and distressing traumas of my life. There is no excuse or justification for the chaotic mismanagement of this situation. How can a University, that I proudly joined believing it was one of the best in the world, dump enrolled student mid degree with what appears to be no plan, no contrition, no honesty and no conscience? I came to SCA because I am taught by the best, in the best facilities this state offers, with course resolutions that strike the perfect balance of critical theory, studio based practice and technical aptitude. This has already resulted in a show of SCA undergrad students at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in April this year. I co-curated this show and made work with 5 other students and our show was very successful. Our professional practice starts while we study

another blow to the arts in NSW. Universities are being run like a business..sacrificing the quality of education. We need more opportunities and better resources for artists, not less. This is hardly consolidation for improvement, its diminishing critical resources and environments for the arts to blossom. The critical thinking, creative problem solving skills developed in art schools are beneficial for society as a whole. This complete disregard for the arts in NSW will be detrimental.

It is vital we keep the NAS open as it is our best way to ensure the freedom of art over academia.My son Daniel French Wollen and myself have enjoyed and benefited greatly from tuition in NA S It is a great source of suppourt and inspiration for young artists for generations and today.Its tutors are second to none and the great comraderie and mentoring is excellent.All will be lost if we have to merge into a university based course .It goes against the ethos and motto of NAS Please keep it going We are losing so much that can never be replaced Margaret Keenan 24.07.16

As a self taught artist, SCA provided me with an alternative pathway to become a research student. Under the proposed 'merger', I and others like me, would simply not be eligible to make a contribution to a creative society. Exclusion of those who fall outside the norm is just one reason of many not to go ahead with this devastating plan.

Both myself and my eldest son are alumni of SCA. I have also studied and graduated in art and design from Solihull TAFE, Brighton Polytechnic UK, SCA, UNSW CoFA, Western Sydney Uni. And, my son graduating from SCA and UNSW CoFA. What a great education SCA delivered - radical, open, contemporary - don't throw it away UniSyd...

When I first moved to Sydney I was excited at the prospect of living and working in Australia's international city. I was warned at the time that it was actually still pretty provincial. I refused to believe it until now.

As one of the first SCA grads (1979) and an fine art academic I am appalled by this decision to close SCA.

SCA has since inception has been the outstanding art school of our times. As an a teaching institution SCA has produced scores of the countries leading artists. The college has always been a national cultural asset and its autonomy needs to be not only preserved, but it must be enhanced.

Australia needs the quality art education offered at SCA and I deeply value my BVA and MFA from SCA. Art education is not just about the dollar bottom line: it is intrinsic to the existence of an open and thoughtful society. Proposing to have just a single art school in a city with a population approaching 5 million is preposterous. #LetSCAstay

The people behind these near sighted mergers have obviously never attended the graduation exhibitions of the three Sydney art schools and seen the diversity.

For the future of Arts Artists and the broader community in NSW when creativity is paramount not only for people's well being such as National and State Arts and Health Framework but for the positions of the future..please sustain Independent Art Schools of Excellence...