Have you heard? EFSC Melbourne campus’s art education facilities are set to be demolished. The Believe mural on the art building is to be removed by August 2017 if it is to be saved. But nothing will replace it.
Instead, art classes are going to be downsized and forced into the Cocoa campus, where the facilities do not allow students to study adult art techniques due to safety restrictions (no vents for aerosol glues and paint, turpentine for oil painting, and many printmaking techniques). Instead, EFSC’s students will be forced to work on only high-school level projects, lowering the chances for EFSC students to create competitive portfolios for entry into the commercial art world.
Is this because those who run the school don’t believe that arts education gives anything to the community? Why else would they remove art education in this way?
Eastern Florida State College is the only affordable accredited college in Brevard that provides transferable art education credits that students use to continue on to art schools and other universities. However, some people believe that the arts are “only electives,” that the credits cannot be transferred, and that they aren’t worth investing in.
This is certainly not true.
While EFSC creates grand plans to expand its campus and programs through 2019, it has no such plans for art education. Funny, how EFSC uses art to visually communicate its expansion plans, and yet doesn’t actually have plans to expand art.
This is an opportunity for EFSC to embrace the fact that arts education is a great investment, that it is worthwhile for the community, that art is an entrepreneurial pursuit. This is an exciting opportunity for EFSC to upgrade its facilities to create a new incredibly competitive art education program, giving its students a leg up in an already dead competitive industry.
But instead, they are shoving art into a corner, as if it were an unwanted child that it just has to deal with.
If you care about the arts in Brevard county, for the future as well as the present, please let your voice be heard.
To do so, please share your stories in the comments on this blog page. (https://savebrevardart.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/featured-content/)
Also, please e-mail the president of EFSC and the other members who run the school, and let them know that art education is important to you.
President James Richey:
e-mail: richeyj@easternflorida.edu
Phone: (321) 433-7000
Executive Assistant Gina Cline:
clineg@easternflorida.edu
The links used on this page:
Berman, D., and Kowarski, I. (2016). EFSC gets $9.5M from state for student union building. Retrieved from http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/education/2016/04/04/efsc-gets-millions-from-state-student-union-building/82531274/
Berman, D. (2014). Brevard college rolls out massive expansion plan. Retrieved from http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/education/2014/08/18/efsc-rolls-out-expansion-plan/14232423/
EFSC. (N/A). Eastern Florida plans major expansion of Melbourne Campus. Retrieved from http://www.easternflorida.edu/news-events/news-releases/2014/08-18-trustees-melbourne-expansion.cfm
EFSC. (2016). Mapping the future. Retrieved from http://www.easternflorida.edu/administration-departments/documents/efsc-strategic-plan-2016-19.pdf
Pacheco, C. (2016). How arts education fuels the creative economy. Retrieved from https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/how-arts-education-fuels-the-creative-economy
Valentin, C. (2012). Arts fuel the economy. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/05/01/how-to-fund-the-arts-in-america/arts-fuel-the-economy
Bacharach, S. (2015). Artists are the ultimate entrepreneurs. That’s why a trip to a museum is so inspiring for founders. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/samuel-bacharach/art-and-entrepreneurship.html
Save Brevard's Art Education 
