ARTS DEAN RESIGNS HIS POST AT UCI

Robert Garfias, a noted ethnomusicologist and recent appointee to the National Arts Council, has resigned as UC Irvine’s dean of fine arts, a position he had held since 1982.

Garfias’ unexpected resignation became effective July 1, but he has agreed to remain until Jan. 1 heading the School of Fine Arts, which has a full-time staff of 60, William Lillyman, executive vice chancellor, confirmed Wednesday.

Lillyman said that during Garfias’ five years, he “contributed to the community as well as to the school. Deanships are demanding jobs, and we respect his decision to return to the good life of teaching and research.”

Bernard Gilmore, an associate dean of fine arts, has been acting dean since Garfias left for a working vacation during the last week of June. Gilmore declined to detail the reasons for the resignation, and Garfias could not be reached for comment.

“It is an extremely wearying job and very time consuming, and those in administration are expected to carry on administrative work and do research, and it amounts to quite a bit of pressure,” Gilmore said.

“But, yes, this was basically a surprise. It was not expected. I prefer to let him talk about it.”

Chancellor Jack Peltason announced the resignation to School of Fine Arts faculty members in a memo this week. The memo gave no reasons for the resignation, except that Garfias had asked to be relieved of his post to return to teaching and research.

Peltason was not available for comment at press time.

In the memo, Peltason said recruitment has begun for a successor to Garfias, whose appointment five years ago made him just the third Latino to hold a high post at the university.

In May, Garfias was appointed to the National Council on the Arts, a 26-member policy-setting body of the National Endowment for the Arts. Garfias’ appointment was significant because it was the first time that folk arts have been formally represented on the council.

Garfias was also named last year as vice chairman of a 12-member folk arts advisory panel to the California Arts Council.

“In folk art, it is not the unique and original creativity of an individual artist that is emphasized but the overall customs and tradition of a group of people,” Garfias told The Times in December.

“In Orange County, for example, we have a large Korean population, a Vietnamese poulation and many Hispanics. They have their own art forms and traditions. The continuity of those traditions is very important to me.”

Garfias, 54, is an ethnomusicologist who specializes in the study of music as ethnic expression and has a broad interest in folk arts. He has written on such subjects as the influence of Turkish classical music on Romanian Gypsy music, links between African musical traditions and the marimba music of Latin America.

Before becoming dean of the School of Fine Arts, he was vice provost at the University of Washington.

Garfias is president of the Orange County Arts Alliance, an umbrella organization for county arts groups, and a member of the state’s advisory board on folk art.