Because the budget situation has “softened,” the Division of Film is not relocating to the Scripps College, says Margaret Kennedy-Dygas, dean of the College of Fine Arts
Margaret Kennedy-Dygas, dean of the College of Fine Arts, sat with The Post in her office in Jennings House before winter break to discuss the recent happenings within the college. Mid-sentence, the PA system kicked on, drowning out the question with a roar similar to that of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
“One thing I can say is living in Jennings House, nobody can really claim the College of Fine Arts is overrun with funds,” Kennedy-Dygas said laughing.
It’s a joke that is all too real a situation in CoFA.
In the final months of the Fall Semester, CoFA was considering relocating its film program due to budget gaps that caused concern for the future of both the college and the program. But near the start of winter break, the budget was reevaluated, showing the projections for 2015-16 weren’t as dire as they first appeared, Kennedy-Dygas said.
The total projected budget gap for CoFA in Fiscal Year ’16 is $7,364,430. Subvention funds from the university would cover $6,308,515, leaving an additional $1,055,915 for CoFA to figure out how to cover.
Budget planning for the Fiscal Year ’16, which designates the 2015-16 school year, began in the beginning of Fall Semester and was based on previous information and assumptions for state subsidies, said John Day, associate provost for academic budgeting, in a statement.
“The initial fall revenue projections were intended to be very preliminary estimates of revenues just like projections of salary increases, health care cost inflation and capital projects were intended to provide very preliminary estimates of expenses,” Day said in the statement.
This ongoing delay for concrete numbers doesn’t support the advanced planning required to get out of the deficit.
“The university’s budget preparation cycle is about six months later than what the colleges need it to be,” Kennedy-Dygas said. “That’s the problem. Here we are trying to plan what next year is going to look like and we don’t know what it will be, so we have to walk on faith.”
Katie Quaranta, communications specialist with University Communications and Marketing, said the budget process would not be finalized until the end of June.
Pam Benoit, executive vice president and provost, has guaranteed to give the college bridge funding, a one-time investment from Ohio University’s central funds, for Fiscal Year ’16.
“Investing in the college now will allow time for strategic planning efforts to continue to take shape with the goal of fostering an excellent learning environment and a vibrant arts community,” Benoit said in a statement.
Academic partnerships will be able to help out in some ways financially. For example, graduate film students possibly teaching lower-level production courses in the School of Media Arts and Studies, Kennedy-Dygas said. In that case, Scripps would be responsible for paying the graduate stipend, not CoFA.
“If the partnerships begin to close that gap, then it’s less important to relocate film as a solution for our funding issues,” Kennedy-Dygas said. “Relocating a program is something you only do kind of as a last resort. … The fact that we’re at a somewhat different place but with the same goals is fine with me.”
But Drew McDaniel, director of the School of Media Arts and Studies, is worried about the partnership now that the film program won’t be within the same college as the media program. McDaniel was director of the international studies program 10 years ago, and said he experienced great difficulty in getting support for interdisciplinary programs.
“Let’s benefit our own program and to hell with them — that’s just the climate we live in,” he said. “It’s probably unavoidable to some extent if you don’t build incentives into the system to encourage collaboration across boundaries. … It’s particularly troubling in this case because the resource issues in fine arts are really so vexing.”
Kennedy-Dygas said the reevaluation and the bridge funding has given the college time to strategize.
“We’ve essentially gained a year,” she said. “It’s a year for people to make some changes and then for us to see the data and figure out where to go at that point.”
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