BY HEIDI ULRICHSEN
The suspension of the Huntington University music program is not only bad for students, but for Sudbury, says Huntington music instructor Allan Walsh.
Students and faculty were attending a music recital Wednesday evening when they learned the federated university?s board of regents had voted to suspend the program.
The board met earlier that day to discuss the program?s future. Students asked to attend the meeting after rumours the program was under review and could be cancelled circulated for several weeks. Their request was turned down.
"This is really, really, really bad for music in Sudbury, and for the arts in general...Over 60 percent of music teachers in northeastern Ontario went to Huntington. Now our young musicians won?t be staying here," says Walsh.
He has been a part-time woodwinds instructor at Huntington since 1989.
Chair Andrew Vujnovich says the board of regents were forced to suspend the program because it has been losing money for the past 11 years.
Since the program?s inception, it has been highly specialized and had a lower enrolment.
"It becomes a question of dollars and cents," he says. "We've given the gift of music to this community for 25 years, and we can't afford to do it anymore."
The board will do everything in its power to make sure current music students finish up their three and four-year music degrees, says Vujnovich.
New students will not be admitted into the program in 2005.
But faculty and students still have a lot of unanswered questions about their futures.
They also learned Wednesday that the music program has been under review for the past 18 months.
"I'm very upset about the cloak and dagger effect," says Walsh. "Doug (Huntington president Douglas Joblin) said it was just a normal review...A student got up and said that her father called and asked point blank if the program was going to be axed, and he said, 'no.' Somebody is lying somewhere here."
Vujnovich denies that the review was a covert process.
"That's just an opinion," he says. "When things don't go somebody's way, they find the best evil spin they can. When we have decisions involving personnel and salaries, we have in-camera meetings."
There were a lot of tears at the recital, which was supposed to be a happy time, says Walsh.
"We don't know what is going to happen. And these kinds of things always seem to come just before Christmas..."
There has been talk among faculty and students about approaching Laurentian University to keep the music program going, says Walsh.