The College of Saint Rose Center for Art Design

ALBANY — In her 40 years teaching art and pattern at the College of Saint Rose, Jeanne Flanagan has watched the college's once-tiny art programme evolve and flourish.

She began her piece of work with the campus art gallery in the 1970s, which in the old days was located in the living room of a Victorian home. Soon it expanded into Picotte Hall, an office building endemic by the college on State Street.

"It mushroomed from at that place; it got bigger and bigger and we outgrew our facilities and somewhen we moved back uptown," the recently retired Flanagan said. The gallery eventually found a home in the Massry Middle for the Arts, a sprawling fine art and musical functioning space that opened in 2008.

She is amid many in the Saint Rose customs reeling from the news that for the second fourth dimension in v years, more than than two dozen programs — this fourth dimension including most degrees in art and music — will be eliminated from Saint Rose' offerings as part of a restructuring plan designed to stabilize the institution'southward finances.

Before COVID-19, the Massry Eye for the Arts served as a artistic showcase for Saint Rose also as the wider community and has drawn earth-renowned artists, musicians, and performers. It'south unclear how the building will exist repurposed once those programs are gone.

"I do think the arts, in detail, are actually paying the price for financial issues that institutions are experiencing," Flanagan said.

2020 reductions at The Higher of Saint Rose, past the numbers

Cathleen F. Crowley/Times Union

Founded by the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet, the 3,774-student liberal arts college has been located in central Albany for 100 years and occupies a 48-acre chunk of existent estate in the city's Pine Hills neighborhood. The college is known for its School of Educational activity which has produced many of the teachers that serve local Uppercase Commune schools.

The overhaul also eliminates adolescent didactics in math and biology, business, and graduate-level educational activity programs. Some 33 tenured or tenure-track faculty members and 8 full-time visiting professors will lose their jobs by Dec of 2021.

College officials say the cuts — which are projected to save the higher $five.97 million over two years — were necessary due to an immediate fiscal crisis acquired by demographic changes and exacerbated by pandemic-related stresses. The college likewise fabricated approximately $8 one thousand thousand in administrative budget cuts as part of a multi-year financial program to balance the upkeep past 2023.

"With the onset of COVID-xix, the higher teaching sector is in a period of real transformation," Acting President Marcia J. White said. "It's no cloak-and-dagger that these financial challenges are pressing throughout the country with all colleges and universities. I guess the question is, what do you do virtually information technology? Saint Rose has decided to be proactive. "

Saint Rose'southward financial troubles predate the pandemic. For years, college leaders have unsuccessfully tried to whittle downwardly a $10 million to $14 meg operating deficit which currently stands at $11.4 million.

Like other colleges in the Capital Region, Saint Rose had to crush out millions of dollars in refunded room-and-board costs last fall and grapple with a decline in out-of-state enrollment in low-cal of the pandemic. Colleges across the region have announced furloughs, pay cuts and hiring freezes to bargain with COVID-19-related losses.

Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings predict a long and tumultuous postal service-pandemic recovery for higher education.

The cuts at Saint Rose bring uncertainty to 332 students in programs that will be canceled next year. Near 62 percent of those affected are juniors, seniors, and graduate students who volition be able to consummate their degrees, according to the college. First-twelvemonth and sophomore students volition work with the college to come up with individualized degree-completion plans.

Tim Hussner, a graphic pattern student who is graduating next fall, said he transferred to Saint Rose because of the reputation of its art and design plan.

"The cuts are a major accident ... I'k left wondering what is going to happen and if I'll actually be able to cease my degree," he said. "I don't think any of us were expecting the higher to just cutting the two nationally accredited programs they have altogether."

Morgan Denman, who graduated with a graphic design degree in 2016 and now does design work for NASA, said she was "heartbroken and disappointed" to learn that her degree would no longer be offered at Saint Rose.

"The programme and the people that shaped my life were somehow deemed unworthy of funding by St.Rose," Denman said. "That fact baffles me. A consistently top-ranked graphic design program somehow has no value to this struggling school? I cannot believe that."

Targeted programs take seen the sharpest enrollment declines or had the highest costs to maintain, White said.

Fine art and pattern majors dropped 47 pct between 2015 and 2020. The programs have a student-to-faculty ratio of 5:ane. The iii music programs slated for closure have seen a 13 decrease in enrollment. With a student to faculty ratio of 6:i, keeping those programs was unsustainable, college leaders said. The college'southward popular music manufacture major has been retained.

Discontinued programs at Saint Rose

Undergraduate programs

Art
ane. Design Media Arts (BS)
2. Graphic Design (BFA)
3. Studio Art (BFA)
iv. Studio Art (BS)

Music
5. Music (BA)
6. Music Performance (BM)
seven. Music Educational activity Thou-12 (BS)

Mathematics
8. Mathematics (BA)
9. Mathematics: Adolescence Education (BS and BS/MSED in Special Educational activity)

Science and Technology
10. Biology-Cytotechnology (BS)
11. Biology: Adolescence Education (BS and BS/MSED in Special Education)
12. Chemistry (BS)
xiii. Medical Technology (BS)
xiv. It (BS and BS/MS)

Concern
xv. Fiscal Planning (BS and BS/MBA)
sixteen. Business organisation Economic science (BS)

Concentrations
Business Assistants: Financial Planning Concentration
Business Administration: Accounting and Audit Concentration

Master'south degrees

Didactics
1. College Ed Leadership and Assistants (MSED)
2. Higher Student Services Administration (MSED)
iii. Literacy grade 5-12 (MSED)
iv. Literacy nativity-12 grade (MSED)

Business and Engineering science
5. Business Analytics (MS)
6. Information technology (MS)

Advanced certificates
1. Fiscal Planning Advanced Certificate
2. Literacy birth-course 12 Avant-garde Certificate
3. Quality Command in Higher Teaching Advanced Certificate

The last time Saint Rose announced sweeping cuts, in 2015, the higher lost degrees in American studies, economic science, philosophy, art education, and women'due south and gender studies.

To many in the art section, the elimination of art education was "a precursor" of what was to come, according to Flanagan.

That yr, faculty members protested the reductions and took a vote of "no conviction" in so-President Carolyn Stefanco, arguing that college leadership did not sufficiently involve them in the decision-making or provide financial transparency as required by their contracts. Stefanco stepped downward from the mail in June 2020 afterwards leading the college for six years.

This time, White said, the board worked " in unison" with faculty at every step of the procedure.

Still, many long-time instructors were caught off guard. Bruce Roter, a tenured music professor who will lose his job after  20 years at the college, said the news doesn't bode well for the future of academia.

"One of the legacy programs at Saint Rose was music education. Saint Rose taught many of the music teachers that are now instruction in our community and to see it cut is devastating," Roter said. He said he and his colleagues are exploring the appeals process as well every bit legal options.

Psychology Professor Kathleen Crowley said her department wasn't impacted merely the changes, but questioned whether the new round of cuts would exist enough to sustain the college.

"Prior to the pandemic, the administration and board were not effectively addressing ongoing chronic problems, the terminal round of cuts were supposed to set everything direct and they did not," Crowley said. "The last time they cut, at that place was about a 10 percent decrease in enrollment because we were no longer offer programs that are bonny to students. While they may have eliminated costs, they as well reduced enrollment prospects."

Asked why the college's finances worsened later on the first moving ridge of cuts intended to narrow the gap, White said, "perhaps nosotros didn't cut enough."

"You lot take a demographic issue here; you accept a financial issue here in the Northeast," she said. "More students are leaving the area... and more students are deciding on whether it'due south a worthwhile investment to become to college."

Private non-profit colleges in the United States are under increased pressure course mergers with other colleges to avoid closure, but White says for at present Saint Rose is staying solo.

"I believe you have to get your ain house in order start," she said.

The college is offer a generous retirement incentive to kinesthesia who take worked at the college for 20 years or longer. The college has recently rebooted its nursing program, added degrees in sales management and cybersecurity, an MS in Social Work, and an accelerated MBA programme.

Ii kinesthesia members involved in talks with higher officials, political scientific discipline professor Angela Ledford and art professor Robert O'Neill, declined to discuss the process maxim, "Nosotros are all grieving the loss of our friends and colleagues."

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Source: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Saint-Rose-elimination-of-art-and-music-has-some-15788497.php