Post-Quake CalArts

* In response to “CalArts: A School Goes to School,” editorial, April 4:

I am sure that everyone in the CalArts community is glad to have some publicity in The Times in the hopes that the larger arts community will come to its aid. Unfortunately, in the meantime, things are not as rosy for the students as has been portrayed.

To suggest that we “have had the rare luck to be enrolled” during all of this is absurd. Perhaps if I were studying carpentry or urban planning this earthquake would have been a lucky educational experience, but I am studying music at CalArts. The experience of not having adequate practice space or access to equipment is in no way going to help me in my education. The hours I spend driving (and sitting in traffic) to get to the seven separate locations (from Hollywood to Rye Canyon) where I have classes would definitely be better spent practicing. That I have no regular access to a library, that the content of courses is often at best 50% of what it ought to be--these things are not going to help me in the music world. Because the school is so fragmented, I no longer have the chance to see other students’ work from the art, theater, film, animation and dance schools. I don’t see about half of my colleagues in the music school. Does this somehow enrich my education?

I do not mean to place blame on anything but the circumstances caused by the earthquake for this. But, I do not want to be patronized. In addresses from our president, Steven Lavine, other administrators and your editorial, we are led to believe that everything is great, perhaps even better since the quake. No one knows better than the students that this is simply not true. I understand and expect that my education is not what it would have been for this semester. The school’s administration is doing what it can to get us through this, and for the most part is doing a good job. However, to tell me I am better off having gone through this is not only angering, but offensive.

ADAM KORMAN

Newhall