Fr. Garanzini's Response

Fr. Garanzini addressed the email compiled by students of Visual Communications III with the following:

Thank you and your class for your letter. I appreciate your frustration and concern. The fine arts program is truly one of our wonderful assets at Loyola and perhaps you are not aware of all the improvements and additions that have been made to it over the past few years. In addition, your teachers may not have relayed some of the particulars of this decision to close the Crown Center Gallery as a gallery. If I can, I would like to relay a few of the changes and stresses we are dealing with.

Three years ago we opened up the Arnold Center, near Regis Hall. This effectively doubled the space that fine and performing arts had for several of the arts programs, and added a gallery that was sought by faculty to replace the Gallery in Crown which we knew would not be available once the entire department moved to Mundelein Center and Arnold. With the move to a remodeled Mundelein, Fine and Performing Arts effectively tripled the amount of space it has available to students. As faculty and classroom spaces were moved from Crown where the department existed, the space there was promised to the other six departments in the humanities which effectively have received no additional space. Thus, Theology, Philosophy, Modern Languages, Classics, History and English now have a bit more breathing room. However, recent growth in the faculties in those departments have necessitated the use of former classrooms and seminar rooms for additional faculty offices. Thus, these departments have lost several seminar and classroom spaces.

Over the past three years, I have suggested, without much luck, that faculty in fine and performing arts think creatively about using other spaces for displaying student work. For instance, Sullivan Center has more traffic than Crown and could be used. The cafe and the green house in Mundelein could be used, Terry Student Center's third floor reading room, the libraries, the Gallery in Arnold---all these are spaces where students go and where the displays will be seen.

So, while I sympathize that this space will no longer be available, it really belongs to other departments in Crown, and Fine and Performing Arts has its own terrific new space in Arnold and Mundelein Center. And, more space will become available for Fine and performing Arts in the years ahead as we continue to renovate that building ($56 million of investment thus far.) I wish we had more room but sadly we do not. Again, however, I appreciate your disappointment with losing the space. I'm not sure what else I can do accommodate all the growing programs.

Sincerely,

Fr. Garanzini, S.J