Fine arts building still distant vision
by Michael Skib
With regard to Earlham’s long-wished for fine arts building, it seems that there is a will — but not yet a way. The new building’s design has been completed, and an estimated price of about $17 million has been established, but less than $1 million has been raised for the project so far. Fundraising for a new science building, of equal cost, has been equally unsuccessful. However, the “Campaign for Earlham,” which partially funds the buildings, has fared much better, collecting so far $46 million out of their $60 million goal.
Earlham music professor Forrest Tobey says that there is definitely a necessity for the new fine arts building. The third highest number of majors every graduating class is in the visual arts. In addition, approximately one-third of the students at Earlham are in a music ensemble. Despite this, Earlham has no art building.
Tobey commented, “We joke that the high school has better art facilities than we do. And they do.” He added, “If you were to come here and just look at the campus, you would have no sense that art and music happens here. There’s no place where it happens; it’s all in closets and condemned buildings and behind the scenes.”
Alex Arnold, senior music major, agrees with this assessment, saying that it is “definitely not the emphasis” of the school. “A lot of people who come to Earlham have an artistic side that doesn’t get fostered,” Arnold said.
Money remains a key issue. “It [fundraising] has not been going great,” said James McKey, Earlham’s vice president of Institutional Advancement. There are plenty of reasons for this, according to McKey. Along with the recession, which has resulted in a decrease of the number of large donations, McKey admits that raising money for buildings is certainly harder than general fundraising.
“A lot of people would rather see their money go toward people,” he said. What the school hasn’t had yet for either the new art or science building is one large donation to propel the fundraising forward and get many other donors on board.
“The board believes that both are really essential to the student experience at Earlham, because what you have now is not as good as it should be,” McKey said.
The new fine arts building will include, among many other things, a 480-seat performance and rehearsal venue, separate studio spaces for each branch of the visual arts and the renovation of the Hancock room into a black box theater studio. For $5 million, you can have the entire arts building named after you, $2.5 million for either the music or studio art wing, and $1 million for the new performance space. The fine arts building would connect to the south wing of Runyan Center, and jut in an “L” shape into what is now the parking lot adjacent to the Warren-Mills-Wilson complex.
The plan to build these two new buildings was initially made when Earlham did strategic planning in 2002. “They looked at the whole campus and said, ‘If these two buildings are the most important buildings, where would we put them’ … you never want to build a big building that then gets in the way of a building 20 years from now,” said McKey.
After the master plan was completed, a committee consisting of teaching and administrative faculty, as well as students, was formed for each of the building projects to talk about the specific details of the projects, what the school aims to accomplish. Then, after meeting with BOORA architects, a Portland, Ore. firm, the estimated cost of construction for each building was found to be $17 million. However, McKey said, “You never really know what a cost of construction is going to be until the day that you put it out for bid and a contractor says ‘based on all these plans, it’s going to cost you $19 million, or it’s going to cost you $15 million.’”
For this reason, it is unclear when the building will be built, but it is highly unlikely that any current Earlham students will get to see it.
There is definitely a will to make this project happen among the faculty. The entire arts faculty, as well as a large percentage of the faculty in general, is giving money to the project through salary reductions. In addition, Findlay Cockrell, retired music professor and professional pianist, will be playing with the Earlham orchestra in December. The husband of an Earlham alumna, he is interested in supporting the art department on some capacity.
For reasons such as these, Tobey is still hopeful about the prospect of a fine arts building for Earlham. “Every time I walk into work, I walk past what’s going to be the arts building, and I just imagine it there. Positive things will manifest if you think positively,” he said.
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