Revisiting entries: Should community culture master plans include elements on higher education arts programs?

This article was published in 2016, "Should community culture master plans include elements on higher education arts programs?," and the next year there was a brief follow up on the for profit arts school sector.  Both sectors should be included in such plans if relevant.

The article made the point that community cultural plans should have an element on higher education if they have small/independent arts colleges, to be prepared if economic and other circumstances change significantly for those organizations.  In DC, the fulcrum was the independent Corcoran Gallery of Arts and its related College of Arts and Design.  

It wasn't until some time after its dissolution that I figured out what would have been the best course--not giving its property to GWU and art to the National Gallery of Arts but to reposition as a locally serving fine arts museum and shifting the college to the University of the District of Columbia.

The piece reads great 8 years later!

Philadelphia brings this back to the fore because the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts is shutting down most of its academic programs ("Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to end its degree-granting programmes," Art Newspaper) and last year the University of the Arts shut down ("Closure of Philadelphia Art School Spurs Review by State Attorney General," New York Times, "Heartbreak, anger and many questions follow University of the Arts’ abrupt decision to close," AP).

WRT PAFA, according to the Art Newspaper:

The academy’s educational transition website states that there was no “single reason for the decision to wind down degree-granting programmes”, but rather several “converging trends” that led to the downsizing. Principal among the trends listed on the site are “[i]ncreasing expectations from students, prospective students and the families that college should provide a broader range of academic and professional opportunities beyond the fine arts”. This sentiment is echoed in Pryor’s statement that “universities in our own region and across the country are struggling with these trends”, with PAFA representing a particularly vulnerable example in a national arts education sector facing serious headwinds.

Beyond the challenges of attracting and satisfying students, PAFA cited the difficulty of providing adequate services and complying with regulations for a relatively small school, noting that “it is simply impossible to maintain a college—with admissions, enrollment, Title IX, student support services and other requirements—with a student body of less than 300”. The school noted that these difficulties were only exacerbated by the pandemic, leading to even more pronounced challenges in enrollment and operating costs.

Likely this is a problem for other small arts schools.

Now, UAS's properties are being sold off, and the bankruptcy trustee isn't inclined to keep the properties as arts uses, so potential arts-related bidders compete ("Lead bidder for UArts’ Hamilton Hall plans art gallery, work space for artists, and restaurant"), unequally, with for profit developers ("Mayor Parker can help keep the arts in the Avenue of the Arts — if she acts quickly," Philadelphia Inquirer).

A drawing of David Yager, former president of University of the Arts, is on a column outside Hamilton Hall on their campus in Philadelphia, Wednesday June 5, 2024 as students, staff, and faculty rally before marching to 1500 Market and another rally in front of the former law offices of UArts chair Jud Aaron. (Tom Gralish/The Philadelphia Inquirer)

Philadelphia has a strong philanthropic community still, in particular the Pew Foundation, and if the city had been prepared wrt arts planning in the higher education sector, perhaps these institutions could have been saved, and/or the building portfolio remained in the arts sector.

A great example of this happening was in Detroit, when the Kresge Foundation stepped up to save the Detroit Institute of Arts in the face of the City's bankruptcy.  It turns out that the DIA was run as an agency of the city, so its collection and assets weren't separately protected and were in danger of being sold off ("Foundations Commit $330 Million to Protect DIA Collection," Philanthropy News Digest).

Apparently, UAS enrollment had dropped by more than half since 2009.  If that's not an indicator for a need for extraordinary intervention, I don't know what is.

Art facilities portfolios.  In "Reprinting with a slight update, "Arts, culture districts and revitalization" from 2009" (2019), I recommend that such properties be owned and managed by arts-related community development corporations.  These articles provide some additional examples ("BTMFBA -- London edition (2025), "From BTMFBA to "community right to buy"" (2024)).

A community right to buy codicil is what they need in Philadelphia.

Hard to make difficult decisions without a plan.  But getting the Mayor involved is a long shot.  She has to be convinced.  And without an organized plan it's hard to get elected officials to act let alone act with the alacrity necessary to save a school ("The long, slow death of Birmingham-Southern: What killed an Alabama college with 168-year-old roots?," Birmingham News) or a building portfolio.

Write those elements in community cultural resources master plans.