Welcome to the Art Center Community Forum, a virtual meeting place for Art
Center students, faculty, alumni, staff, administration and friends.
We believe that open exchanges are essential for maintaining a healthy
learning environment. This forum has been created as a resource for you to
learn more about the College, its activities, policies, commitments and
future direction.
Check out the FAQ below, where we’ve compiled answers to frequently asked
questions. We’ve also organized content by topic in our Discussion section.
If you have a question about something not answered in the FAQ, please post
your question in the Discussion section under the appropriate subject
heading and we’ll find the answer for you.
We’d like to ask the Art Center community to help us preserve the integrity of this site as a source of real and accurate information about the College. Due to the fact that we have received numerous comments from anonymous individuals that lack integrity and contain personal attacks, from this point forward we will only post and respond to comments from individuals who use their real names. Many members of the Art Center community—including the education leaders, senior staff, students and alumni—are participating this way in the spirit of open and honest engagement, and we encourage everyone to do so as well.
Answers to questions and comments will be answered during the week. Please
understand that we won’t be posting late at night or on weekends.
In addition, we’ve noticed that a lot of you are posting the same questions
in different ways. If you don’t see a post in response to your question,
it’s probably been answered someplace else, whether it’s in a chart, an FAQ,
or a post. Wherever we can, we’ll direct you to the answers you’re looking
for.
Thank you again for your participation. We hope that this forum sheds light
on many of the issues facing the Art Center community.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Where does my tuition go?
- What is being done to maintain the Ellwood Building?
- How is the College mangaing issues of Educational Leadership during the search for a Chief Academic Officer?
- Why does the College spend money on conferences and events?
- Why isn’t South Campus being used for more Art Center studios and classes?
- What is an endowment, and does Art Center have one?
- Has Art Center’s endowment grown under the leadership of Richard Koshalek?
- Are there plans to increase the current endowment?
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Is it easier to gain admission to Art Center than to other top design schools?
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How have the members o the Educational Task Forces been chosen?
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Why is Art Center building student housing now?
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How have decisions been made on the design of the new housing?
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Why is South Campus a good place for student housing?
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Do you consider the building of South Campus a success?
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What have you learned from the building of
Sinclaire Pavilion?
- How does Art Center allocate funds for scholarships? Is tuition money used to fund scholarships?
- Is Art Center allocating a disproportionate amount of capital to Administration over Education, and if so why?
- How much money has been allocated to scholarships for the past ten years?
- The tuition for Art Center keeps increasing. Are you doing anything to possibly reduce tuition or have more scholarships?
- What percentage of the College’s operating budget is used to award scholarships?
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Do students still receive the same amount of attention and crits in a 20+ student class as in the promised 15-student class?
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Can Chairs, Directors or staff create projects/classes that serve as an incentive to network between majors?
1. Where does my tuition go?
Tuition monies are applied directly to the College’s strategic objectives, including recruitment and retention of top students and faculty, increases in institutional aid and scholarships, classroom improvements and upgrades in technology. Campus development, including the proposed Design Research Center and the Raymond Building, Student Housing and Power Plant at South Campus are built without tuition dollars.
2. What is being done to maintain the Ellwood Building?
Art Center was awarded a $75,000 Architectural Conservation Grant from the Getty Foundation to develop a conceptual and physical plan to upgrade the Hillside Campus to current codes and energy standards while maintaining its architectural integrity. Implementing the plan will begin with relocating Graduate Studies to South Campus. Classes and offices located in the Annex will have space to occupy in the main building, and the College’s Educational Planning office can then address new use of space at the Hillside Campus and begin taking steps toward updating the building to ADA and energy standards. (The City of Pasadena requires Art Center to remove the Annex building by Fall 2009.)
3. How is the College mangaing issues of Educational Leadership during the search for a Chief Academic Officer?
As the College undertakes the search for a new academic leader, an interim leadership structure has been created to bring the College community together in a collaborative way and achieve results that will benefit our students, faculty and educational agenda by focusing on four key areas: Enrollment, Education, Technology and Leadership.
4. Why does the College spend money on conferences and events?
High profile events hosted by the College—including the Art Center Design Conference, Art Center Summit, Car Classic and Global Dialogues—increase awareness of the College outside the fields of art and design, This increased awareness often results in new partnerships, enhanced curricula, internship opportunities and additional financial support for students. Our alumni benefit from this increased awareness as well. The student and faculty experience is always considered in planning institutional events, resulting in opportunities to attend, volunteer, participate in workshops, execute classroom projects and otherwise get engaged. Major events are funded through sponsorship, in-kind donations and registration fees.
5. Why isn’t South Campus being used for more Art Center studios and classes?
South Campus was developed, in part, to house Art Center’s growing Public Programs, which have over 5,000 people enrolled annually in the College’s Art Center at Night, Saturday High, Art Center for Kids, and Design-Based Learning programs. Archetype Press, which was previously housed in a building leased by the College, was provided dedicated space alongside the Printmaking Studio, which grew beyond the space provided at Hillside Campus. Recently, The Agency at Art Center was established at South Campus, which would have not been possible in a typical classroom setting at the Hillside Campus. The Graduate Art program has an entire complex dedicated to studio spaces, workshops and galleries. Beginning in Fall 2008, Graduate Industrial Design and Graduate Media Design will move to the Wind Tunnel at South Campus, which will free up more room in the Ellwood building for undergraduate classes.
6. What is an endowment, and does Art Center have one?
An endowment program simply allocates certain gifts to an investment fund. This fund is invested to earn income each year, and as the principal grows, so does the interest on that income—a portion of which is paid out each year to fund key areas vital to Art Center’s mission. These areas vary according to the wishes of donors in agreement with the College. Art Center’s endowment funds scholarships, professorships, endowed chairs and academic programs like Designmatters.
As of 12/31/07, Art Center’s endowment value was $42.9 million. The Board-approved spending policy is 5% of the net assets, which are applied to the purposes of the endowment as defined by the donor in agreement with the College. Any overage on the returns is reinvested back into the endowment’s principal.
7. Has Art Center’s endowment grown under the leadership of Richard Koshalek?
Yes. Art Center’s total endowment was $16.9m when Richard arrived in 1999. Under Richard’s leadership, the endowment has nearly tripled—growing to $42.9m in less than a decade. In 2005, the College received the largest endowment gift in its history—a $13m endowed gift for scholarships.
8. Are there plans to increase the current endowment?
Yes. The Development Office is working hard to increase the current endowment of $42.9 million by nearly 50 percent over the next five years in order to strengthen the number of student scholarships; provide a permanent source of funding for academic programs; and retain the best art and design faculty through chairs and professorships.
9. Is it easier to gain admission to Art Center than to other top design schools?
No, but Art Center’s admissions policy works differently than that of most design schools. Rather than accepting a general pool of applicants, Art Center asks prospective students to apply to a specific discipline, and to present a specialized portfolio within that discipline. This means that many fewer students are qualified to apply here than to other schools. This also means that a higher percentage of those who do apply to Art Center are qualified for admission and, therefore, are accepted. When Art Center’s acceptance rates are compared to those of other schools, there may be a false impression given that it is easier to get into Art Center than to those other schools. Again, this is only because Art Center so strictly limits the applicants before the admissions process even begins. It is about quality not quantity for our admissions process.
10. How have the members of the Educational Task Forces been chosen?
Richard Koshalek appointed the heads of the five Task Forces based on their proven expertise, creative capacities, inclusive and collaborative records, and demonstrated leadership. Each Task Force head then selected their membership to reflect intellectual diversity, representation from various campus constituencies (faculty, students, staff and alumni) and extensive engagement with Art Center. Members of the Task Forces will be subject to periodic rotation. Each Task Force will also function as an “executive committee” that will consult with the larger educational community at Art Center (deans, chairs, senior staff, students, alumni and trustees) in order to make appropriate decisions.
11. Why is Art Center building student housing now?
The lack of appropriate student housing has been one of Art Center’s longest-standing drawbacks, and with prices in the Pasadena area becoming increasingly unaffordable for students, this need is now greater than ever. The availability of on-campus housing for the first time in Art Center’s history will be an immensely important factor in recruiting and retaining top students, including international students, and will greatly boost our ability to compete with other schools in this respect. Students living at this new facility will be selected based on a combination of factors, including need, merit and maturity. It is also essential to remember that in a landmark agreement, the housing will be built by the developer at absolutely no cost to the College, and that a portion of the rental fees will be returned to the College as scholarship monies.
12. How have decisions been made on the design of the new housing?
The idea to build student housing has been under consideration within the College for at least 15 years. In the last eight years, there have been three separate studies and surveys conducted to determine what the students at Art Center wanted both in terms of type of housing and acceptable rents. What we learned from the various surveys were that Art Center students did not want a “dorm” type of student housing, but preferred to have relatively bare open space with a more “loft-like” feel to them. They didn’t want a living room, they wanted work space—so no sofas, etc. They wanted the project to be sustainable. They rejected a recreation room in favor of an assembly/work space where hand tools, etc. could be used. They wanted some outdoor space, and they tended to gravitate toward single units over multiple shared units.
13. Why is South Campus a good place for student housing?
The largest population that has expressed a need for housing has been our international students. Many of them arrive at Art Center with no car, no insurance and no driver’s license. Even though the literature sent to them describes where Art Center is located, the reality of being in Southern California with minimal public transportation doesn’t really register until they arrive here. Housing at the South Campus will allow students to be close to campus with access to the Gold Line, which can get them to downtown Pasadena and downtown L.A. They also will be able to take the shuttle to the Hillside Campus (shuttles will be increased once the housing is in place).
14. Do you consider the building of South Campus a success?
Yes, we consider the South Campus to be a success. The structure is comprised of six buildings, all constructed at different times, with three separate structural systems. Tackling this collective of buildings with the program that was needed and also making it a sustainable building was a very difficult task. Working closely with our architects and contractors, we were able to get it completed at a reasonable cost.
We are currently working on Phase 2 of that project. The second phase includes building out the basement level, adding showers and locker rooms to support a commuter population, building out the Wind Tunnel space for use by the graduate students, and acoustical mitigation not provided for in Phase 1. The building was the first LEED-certified institutional building in Pasadena. It has won several awards for its architecture and for sustainability.
15. What have you learned from the building of
Sinclaire Pavilion?
What we have learned form the Pavilion is that the group of students that had input into the design graduated about the time the building was finished and the incoming students had a different view of what they wanted. The building is too hard and, although it is just a pavilion, the lack of heating limits its usefulness. We have plans to enclose it, add softer finishes and turn it into a more useful presentation/studio space. Heat will be provided by adding photovoltaics to the roof. The conversion is planned for next year, pending funding.
16. How does Art Center allocate funds for scholarships? Is tuition money used to fund scholarships?
It is a common practice for nonprofit, American colleges and universities to dedicate a portion of their total budget for scholarships to students. Colleges and universities differ in how they use these funds; some set aside a significant portion of these scholarship funds for students with financial need, while some may set aside a portion of the scholarships based on quality and merit. These types of scholarship typically help defray the cost of a private college education for students and families; without any scholarship, this kind of education would be unattainable for all but a very few. It is not uncommon for colleges and universities to devote 20 to 36 percent of their total budgets for scholarship. Please bear in mind that most private colleges and universities derive their total budgets from a variety of sources, including tuition, income from the endowment, annual gifts, governmental and private grants, etc.
At Art Center, $5 million has been set aside from the budget for undergraduate scholarships in 2008; that represents about 11 percent of the budget. For graduate students, $1.1 million is set aside from the budget in 2008. An additional $1.2 million is available from donor scholarships and grants. These scholarships and grants are awarded to both new and continuing students each term.
17. Is Art Center allocating a disproportionate amount of capital to Administration over Education, and if so why?
No. In fact, Art Center spends a greater portion of it’s operating budget on direct educational expenses than it’s peer schools in AICAD (Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design). (See chart above right)
18. How much money has been allocated to scholarships for the past ten years?
$37.5 million from the operating budget and $13.9 from donor funds.
19. The tuition for Art Center keeps increasing. Are you doing anything to possibly reduce tuition or have more scholarships?
At the direction of the Board of Trustees, multi-year operating budgets keep tuition increases within the range typical for private colleges across the country. The multi-year budgets also have increases for scholarships every year with the scholarship goal of reaching the AICAD school average of in 5 to 10 years.
20. What percentage of the College’s operating budget is used to award scholarships?
About 10%.
21: Do students still receive the same amount of attention and crits in a 20+ student class as in the promised 15-student class?
Clearly, when class size goes up, time for individual crits goes down. However, it is only in very, very rare instances that class size has gone up to this level. In the Graphic Design Department, we have set the cap on class size at 16 and on average we don’t even reach that cap. The median class size is about 15, which is the ideal class size. In the 80s, class size was up around 20, so class sizes have come down. Again, it’s only in rare instances that it’s up to 20, and only in certain disciplines, and we are looking into rectifying this.
22: Can Chairs, Directors or staff create projects/classes that serve as an incentive to network between majors?
Yes, in fact we’re testing a class right now that serves both Graphic Design and Environmental Design equally, and addresses issues that connect the two majors. This class is about branded environments, where communication and space-making come together. You’d have to go to individual department Chairs to find out about the classes in each department but this is certainly something we do.
