I had my heart set on RISD. I got in there. But UArts gave me a full scholarship. And so in August 1996, I moved into the 1501 Pine dorm and pretty much haven’t left ever since.
That was almost 28 years ago, and yesterday the Inquirer broke the news of the school’s sudden closure—before its immediate community of students, faculty, and staff even found out.
Talking about my years as a student there are always difficult. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I was never really cut out to be an artist. I spent the bulk of my time there, on the constant verge of failing out, far more interested in music, online culture, and the city around me. Looking back at my transcript, I am amused by the A I received in a poetry class bookended by a stream of D’s.
In retrospect, I know my floundering had more to do with not being given good guidance about what to study during my high school years. Anyone with a pair of eyes could have seen how much I fascinated by the internet and would have encouraged me to study communications, computer science, etc. But because I seemed to enjoy my art classes the most—it was where we could sit with our Walkmans on and share music—that the adults in my life pushed me toward.
As former classmate of mine put it, I was part of a cohort that institutions didn’t know what to do with. They weren’t prepped for the oncoming transformation of culture, even though students like me were. To sum it up: When I arrived in 1996, UArts didn’t even have student email, and when I left in 2001, it was only available for staff1.
It was at UArts that I learned I was a mediocre artist, but had good technical skills and was trained well. Critiques were always a dreaded experience for me. When it was my turn, it wasn’t that peers would trash or praise my work, there would be little to no discussion, and people would move on. I learned quickly that silence was a creative death sentence.
I also learned that having those skills made me much more employable, if not remarkable. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have a career, and I think that was the value of attending there. When I went back to grad school, I was surprised by how much UArts did prepare me for it—a lot of course materials and concepts were things I had encountered as an undergrad. Of course, this time around I actually got to spend time with those ideas instead of finding time in between other things to wrangle with them.
Because of places like UArts, my peers and I might be the last generation of “middle class creatives”. Which is a wild thing to say because I don’t think any one of us feels a sense of comfort in our own situations, or in the world surrounding us. And then throw in the fact that every other post on LinkedIn appears to be someone telling us to “get over and accept” AI as part of our practices OR that we need to do better to resist these efforts.2
There’s a lot to be said about how art schools are part of the first wave of efforts by the right to devalue intellectual growth (which also includes the closure of liberal arts/humanities schools and programs across other institutions), in addition to the so-called “enrollment cliff”. But I also think what’s being left unsaid and underreported is how much dysfunction exists in the upper levels of leadership and trustee boards.
Right now, that’s where my anger is being directed toward—only because of lived experience. I watched PAFA leadership and trustees screw up numerous times3, now the Middle States report confirms that UArts had a level of dysfunction that made it impossible for them to satisfy even the most basic of requirements. That’s perhaps the most shocking revelation of the Inquirer story to me, as a person who has worked almost 2 decades in higher ed. Middle States accreditation is a multi-year evaluation process, which means these systemic failures fall on its previous president, and I call into question the Trustees who provided him counsel.
I can only hope that whatever reporters are working this story dig deep, because I think it is owed to its current community, in addition to its alumni and colleagues. There’s no other way to explain how institutions that have been around for over 100 years can suddenly go POOF. What heartbreaking news, even for someone who doesn’t look back fondly on their time at the school.
- I could be wrong on this, but that’s what my memory tells me. I definitely still had a netcom email address back then! ↩︎
- Just so we’re clear, I am Team Fuck AI. ↩︎
- For the sake of my sanity and yours, I’m going to refrain from talking about PAFA’s failures, but for those reading this, I can tell you that their closure wasn’t a surprise, given how much they misled the public and their constituents. Anyway, y’all can DM me if you want more tea on that. ↩︎