Vanderbilt University - Commodore Yearbook (Nashville, TN)

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study and dissemination center for the arts. Beyond the strong history department curricu- lum and Vanderbilt's ability to raise money, the University would have the Contini-Volterra ar- chives as an asset to the developing NUC co-or- dination. The archives is a unique collection of over 55,000 photographs of Italian Renaissance materi- als that would go a long way toward making grad- uate work here valuable and attractive. Hazelhurstis confident of the advancement of the arts at Vanderbilt in the future, and he points to the rapid growth of the history curriculum as an indication of the possibilities. If anyone had come here 10 years before I did they wouldn't have been able to accomplish anything . . . now our classes are overflowing. The beginning that we have had in this field has inspired students to take an interest in the studio courses at the Art House, where Don Evans has stirred up a great deal of enthusiasm himself. I'm glad I came, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. We have succeeded in getting a most congenial group together famong the facultyj, he continued. We have a great time. I've known many depart- ments that have omnipresent undercurrents of pol- itics and intrigue, but there is nothing like that here. I think that we have been very lucky. Perhaps the greatest recent change in the situa- tion of the arts at Vanderbilt came with the acqui- sition of the Old Science building to house studios two years ago. Hazelhurst pointed out that this move alleviated the serious space problem that had confronted the department in the past while pro- viding the campus with a creative focal point of artistic expression. Don Evans, the well-known and rather flamboyant head of the Art House fwhich has gone under assorted aliases since its creation, most recently that of Media Experimentation and Co-ordination Center for the Arts, or MECCAJ is as pleased with the facility as Hazelhurst, though he has some strong misgivings about how long he will be able to maintain it. This building, if given a few minor renovations, is perfect for our purposes. It has space, volume, high ceilings, and windows-all of which are great for a studio. Though it wouldn't do for a normal classroom activities anymore, I believe that it would serve us better than anything we might find THE ARTS 17

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VANDERBILT AND THE ARTS By Dan Bischoff It took Vanderbilt ninety years to come up with a Fine Arts Department. Eleven years ago, in 1963, the field of the visual arts here was as bare as a Michelangesque land- scape. There were few-very few-art history courses being taught by the resident painter and sculptor, Puryear Mims, but he was entirely alone on campus. Perhaps 300 students were being reached by those courses, and only four were art majors. That was the year Hamilton Hazelhurst was brought to Vanderbilt to found and chair a Fine Arts Department. Now there are eight faculty members feight and a half, according to Hazlehurst, counting the arrangement with Peabody that maintains one of their staff here on campus with Vanderbilt fundsl, teaching an estimated 1700 stu- dents in art history. There are 70 students who are majoring in art history with the option of going on to a four-year-old masters program. I cannot tell you how much I enjoy every aspect of this, Hazelhurst said, smiling. The enthusiasm of the students has been marvelous, as has been the support of the administration. There isn't any place I would rather be. Not to suggest that that satisfaction isn't tem- pered with the challenge of a need for improvement. Vanderbilt has yet to establish a doctoral pro- gram-though Hazelhurst hopes to have one soon-and the present facilities fail to provide an adequate art reference library and study center. Although the theater arts are rather solidly repre- sented by the Vanderbilt University Theater, the idea of a music curriculum on campus seems to have gone a bit flat. Expansion in these and other areas-notably art studio courses-must be cautious, however, for Ha- zelhurst hopes to develop a greater co-ordination between the art departments and facilities of the Nashville University Center schools to provide a diverse and comprehensive curriculum. If we hope to bring these departments, say at Fisk and Peabody, into closer work with us, we must be careful to avoid duplication . . . music has never been important because of a lack of money. B THE PLONI NILKX Now it would be a duplication of the services Pea- body offers. Steps have already been taken that forecast the proposed interchange, such as the presence of six Peabody faculty members who teach at least one course here on Vanderbilt salaries, and Hazelhurst continues to press for a final unification. But that time seems to be somewhere in the distant future, and Vanderbilt has its own problems right now. We need a constant and readily availa- ble library reference system, especially in the picto- rial category to which We must constantly refer fthe Joint University Library Art Room is pre- sently stocked with general circulation booksl, and I would like to see this new library equipped with a modern study hall, perhaps in a building adjoining this one fthe Fine Arts Building, housed in the Old Gyml. We would want a computerized slide system so that the students could come here and view the material as they can now only do in class . . . and we would also like to have an adequate facility for the housing of our permanent collection. The permanent collection, which is now only five years old, is basically a study collection with ar- tifacts from all ages. Over 890,000 has been obtained for the collection fund through gifts and through the Art Association Lecture Series, to which faculty members have contributed their time. But for a really significant endowment to grow alumni con- tributions are necessary, and they come few and far between. Vanderbilt has been slow to support the arts because it came in contact with them relatively late. The alumni are mostly ignorant of the fine arts, when they were here they received little training in them. The connection between this uni- versity and the arts is not made in the minds of most people. But when this group of students, your group, graduates, I expect they will give most gen- erouslyf' Hazelhurst hopes that the unification of the NUC will help in this area too. Not only would it establish a stronger curriculum for the student body, but it would also establish a truly impressive department, one which would attract more con- tributions. And the amalgamation of the various permanent collections would create an excellent

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Him Y ' ' as-:I af- '2 . i Y, ix g A . 5 ,Sn f ad Q V E I Xe here ever would-but they still intend to tear it down, sometime in the near future. Evans feels that the success and activity of the MECCA program over the past year has gone a long way toward reinforcing the possibilities of making it a permanent or near-permanent facility, but University planning is still toying with ideas to eliminate it and use the grounds for some new construction. The Art House was originally designed to provide students with ready access to the tools and materi- als necessary to create art, but it has flowered into something more than that recently. Evans feels that art should call attention to itself and to its activities and he has done so with his students at MECCA-in dozens of ways. This year he has de- veloped the music studio to be a blaring center of electronic amplification at all hours, he has also seen to it that the plaster constructions-some re- sembling tarantulas and some resembling people and some resembling both-made in art classes have been set out on campus grounds. He has, in short, lived up to his own injunction to become visible. 8 THE SECOND CENTURY But there are fruitflies in the oatmeal. Evans has some dissatisfaction with the general type of student Vanderbilt attracts-the academic nature of the students. The creative individual isn't drawn to the Uni- versity, he complains. When they do come, they find that Vanderbilt lacks a core of creative stu- dents, and they either leave or bide their time till they graduate . . . You cannot attract creative individuals without promising them a core of other creative individuals to interact with. And until Vanderbilt does provide that core, it won't draw creative students . . . Yes, it's caught in a Catch- 22. Evans sees three possible routes that the Art House might take in the future. One possibility is that the destruction of the building will force it to disintergrate into the other departments and no longer exist as a separate entity. More optimis- tically, it could become an arts and science com- munications center, supplying an interested stu- dent body With all the resources it might need in whatever media it is interested. Or, as Evans him- self prefers, it would become a media experi- mentation center, an expanded version of its present self, and live up to its new oiiicial title. I would like to drag Vanderbilt, Evans says, chuckling, into the 21st century Qkicking and screaming if I have tok and not just catch up with the 18th or 19th. 1 .gf- X