The Art + Design Department will split into two new departments this fall, forming the Art & Art History and Design departments.

Plans for these new departments began when John Green, interim dean of the School of Fine & Performing Arts, sent a proposal to Stan Wearden, senior vice president and provost. 

Staff and faculty in the Art + Design Department who support design-related programs will separate and form the new Design Department, according to a Feb. 3 collegewide email from Green. The remaining staff and faculty who support art and art history-related programs will merge with the Interdisciplinary Arts faculty and staff, creating the new Art & Art History Department, the email stated. These changes will be effective for the Fall 2015 Semester.

The college hosted a Feb. 6 forum in which Green, Wearden, Kelli Connell, interim associate dean of the School of Fine & Performing Arts, Tim Cozzens, interim chair of the Art + Design Department, and Niki Nolin, interim chair of the Interdisciplinary Arts Department, explained the changes to the affected departments to staff and faculty.

“[Merging departments] gives us the opportunity to really imagine what the future of fine art provision can be, both for us as an institution and for us in relationship to the industry,” Green said. 

Students’ paths to graduation will not be affected by this change, but curricular changes could occur in the future, Green said. 

National searches for new department chairs will begin over the next two semesters. The search for the new chair of Design will begin during the spring semester, while the search for the new chair of Art & Art History will commence in the fall, Connell said.

The new Art & Art History Department will be home to the newly created Center for Book, Paper & Print Arts, consisting of the School of Fine & Performing Arts’ Anchor Graphics, the college’s nonprofit fine arts press, and the Center for Book and Paper Arts, the college’s book and hand papermaking program, according to Robin Bargar, dean of the School of Media Arts.

The Center for Book and Paper Arts—part of the Interdisciplinary Arts program—was previously housed within the School of Media Arts, but by transferring to the Art & Art History Department, it will now be part of the School of Fine & Performing Arts, Bargar said.

By merging into the new Art & Art History Department, the college’s Interdisciplinary Arts Department will now switch from the School of Media Arts to the School of Fine & Performing Arts, according to Bargar.

Bargar said this switch could benefit both the Interdisciplinary Arts program and the School of Fine & Performing Arts by introducing the Interdisciplinary Arts Department to a related undergraduate program and introducing new graduate studies to the School of Fine & Performing Arts.

“It looked to me like a lot of undergraduates that study in art + design might benefit from having some closer relationship to faculty that were really well-known artists in that area,” Bargar said.

Similarly, Jeff Abell, the master’s program director, said students will benefit from the merger.

“An interdisciplinary approach is the real forward-looking approach to the fine arts,” Abell said. 

Despite a three-year discussion of merging departments, Abell said the change, while long overdue, is positive for staff and faculty as well as students. 

“There was always a certain amount of conflict between the folks who wanted to take the department in a fine arts direction and the folks who wanted it to be a design-oriented look at the practical part of art making,” Abell said. “I’m hoping this new idea of getting design its own department and the fine arts area its own departments will help to resolve some of the conflicts that have existed in the past.”