The intake of 2024 for the Bachelor’s degree at the National Institute of Circus Arts was “paused” on the basis of financial viability and “strategic alignment” with Swinburne University, which has sponsored NICA since 1995.
Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington also announced dramatic cuts in its theatre and music program the same week.
These are only the latest blow to a sector in crisis. These are the latest blows to an industry in crisis.
Earlier, the arts were viewed as not rigorous enough and incompatible with university structures. Now, these same concerns are expressed in terms of strategic importance and return on investment.
Regardless of their rationale, these actions show a lack of imagination and creativity when it comes to the administration of universities today.
An independent institution
In December 1956, at a meeting of the University of Melbourne’s Professorial Board, a proposal to create a degree-level actor training program was rejected. The board stated that the proposed course could not meet the “university standards essential to the program’s goals.”
After this rejection, a similar proposal was made by the University of New South Wales with one crucial difference.
This actor training program will be located in the same University and co-located with the School of English, but it will remain separate.
In 1958, the National Institute of Dramatic Art was founded. NIDA began as a physical integration of its sponsoring institution but was academically separate.
NIDA, to paraphrase its long-time director, John Clark, has enjoyed a close relationship with the University throughout its history, but it has also protected its independence.
Intellectual rigor
In the late 1950s, the suggestion that performer training was antithetical to the university mission was based on two factors: the matriculation standards and the availability of qualified staff.
Prospective students and staff were skeptical of the intellectual rigor that artistic practice was expected to be at the institution.
The universities were also concerned that there was not enough funding or space to teach the subjects with a higher level of intensity and longer teaching hours.
The long-running actor’s training at Flinders began in 1971, only five years after Flinders opened its doors in 1966.
Some performers train outside of universities. Some performers entered the profession and learned on the job. Some apprentices were trained through student or youth theatres and then graduated to the professional stage.
Merging Universities
Between 1967 and the early 1990s, many Australian arts courses were taught in Colleges of Advanced Education. These colleges were located between TAFE and universities. They focused on vocational subjects and awarded certificates, diplomas, and degrees.
The Dawkins Reforms, which began in the early 1990s, merged certain technical and vocational providers into universities and gave university status to others. The Dawkins Reforms brought more arts programs to universities.
Edith Cowan University has taken over the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, which was previously housed in the Western Australian CAE since 1980.
The Kelvin Grove campus of the Brisbane CAE, which has been providing actor training since the late 1970s, was merged into the new Queensland University of Technology.
These new universities began to develop an academic identity. They were more willing to maintain arts education because of their historical associations with vocational training.
Some institutions have even created new training programs as part of their commitment. Swinburne founded the National Institute of Circus Arts in 1995. In 2004, the Griffith Film School was established.
The University of Melbourne’s integration of the Victorian College of the Arts into the University in 2006 was the most controversial.
Nearly 50 years after the first rejection, actor training is now part of this University’s business – but not without much consternation and opposition.
Richard Murphet has elegantly documented the painful reorganizations that followed as the university and training institution worked out their differences. Many of these were the same ones identified by the Professorial Board during the 1950s.
The value of arts training
The tension between university and performer education is the result of an apparent opposition between the intellectuals and the manual.
This false binary ignores the fact that knowledge is created and stored in the body and the research-informed cultures of training that have been developed in university-performing art programs since the 90s.
All too often, universities are unable to match the level of creativity and innovation that is reflected in the education they offer. Instead, administrators see overstuffed programs that don’t conform to rigid curriculum structures.
Innovative, agile, and innovative institutions are less willing to maintain the programs that demonstrate these qualities.
Budget bottom lines trump institution values.
Arts training programs are not expensive frills that are incompatible with an institution. They act as a shopfront for universities. These programs engage in public life and promote the University. These programs bring the community to campus and have their students activate campus space.
Maintaining them doesn’t require an inherent commitment to the arts – although that wouldn’t go amiss. Administrators need to be more creative, create new models, and not insist on fitting the old ones. Imagine a better tomorrow.
A program of arts training could be a great way to teach them that.