SDSU Film, Art Programs in Jeopardy

The San Diego State University art department will lose half of its teachers, and the film-production program in the telecommunications and film department will go down the tubes if the cuts announced Monday by President Thomas Day take effect.

The university’s two performing arts departments--drama and music--as well as the dance program, which is under the physical education department, have been spared the ax this time around.

But the teaching of art and film production at SDSU will be significantly altered. According to art department chairman Fredrick Orth, about 20 art faculty members will have to go, including two tenure-track positions, two early retirement faculty members still teaching part time, and the director of the university art gallery.

“This will be a real hardship on our interior design program because we are losing our two full-time design teachers as well as all of our part-time teachers (in that area) drawn from professionals in the community,” said Orth, who added that about 125 students are currently majoring in interior and environmental design.

“In the future, design majors will have to take their introductory courses at community colleges. And we are trying to add upper-division courses this summer for the people who desperately need them to graduate.”

Orth explained that the gallery program, which has gained critical recognition for its ambitious shows of international artists, will be down-graded with the loss of director Tina Yapelli.

“We can do next year’s opening exhibit because it is a faculty show, but we’ll have to see what our obligations are with the remainder of the season, which has already been planned. It’s impossible to replace personnel of Yapelli’s caliber with faculty who already have heavy work loads.”

In SDSU’s telecommunications and film department, the loss of tenured professor Gregory Durbin and filmmaker-in-residence Jack Ofield will decimate the film-production department, according to chairman John Witherspoon.

“Jack and Greg had a magic chemistry that built the program into one of the best in Southern California,” said Witherspoon. “The quality of their students’ work is the highlight of the department at this time.”

Of the 250 telecommunications majors, roughly 100 students are closely involved with the film program. With the loss of Durbin and Ofield, as well as three part-time faculty, some telecommunications and film majors will not be able to complete their degrees.

Graduate student Bill Neill credited Durbin and Ofield with giving film students a hands-on, “real world” perspective, one that has opened doors to SDSU graduates in the motion picture industry.

“A few years ago, student film projects were rare; this year 53 films are in production,” Neill said. “Among the growing list of Hollywood executives from SDSU is a group of some 40 alumni who meet monthly in Los Angeles.”

Following Day’s Monday announcement, the mood of SDSU department chairmen is understandably grim.

“We were always of the opinion that we were getting better and better,” Orth said, “but now we are just barely holding on.”