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From www.savevca.org

THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE IS ATTEMPTING TO DISSOLVE THE VICTORIAN COLLEGE OF ARTS

The Victorian College of Arts (V.C.A.) was established in 1972. Incorporating schools of Dance, Drama, Film and Television, Music, Production and the Visual Arts, it is Australia’s only multi-discilpine practical arts school and a cultural institution of national importance with a prestige and reputation that is recognised across the globe.

Together the schools have trained and nurtured the talents of several successful, world-class artist alumni (a list of but a few can be found at the bottom of this page) and each year the school receives thousands of applications from across Australia and from around the world. As one of the few Australian educational institutions still admitting students solely on the basis of their talent and potential, the V.C.A. offers a unique and important training ground for specialised practical education in the arts.

Sadly now the V.C.A. is in the process of being reduced to a colonised annex of the University of Melbourne and without immediate action the V.C.A. as we know it will cease to exist.

WHAT IS HAPPENING

As part of the University of Melbourne’s 2010 Business Plan, the Schools of Dance, Drama and Production will be condensed into the “School of Performance” while the Schools of Film and Television and Visual Arts will be diluted into the “School of Exhibition”. (The School of Music has already been amalgamated with the University’s music department as reflected in the College’s recent rebranding as the V.C.A.M.)

The University of Melbourne has begun this process by retrenching many of the V.C.A.’s invaluable sessional, technical and administrative staff, all of whom have been integral to the function, curriculum and success of the school for decades.

Without immediate action the implementation of the “Melbourne Model” will see the V.C.A. ultimately dissolved into a broader, conventional fine arts degree. Limited specialisation will exist only for full fee-paying post-graduate students, in much larger numbers and in courses of reduced quality and length.

What the V.C.A. currently offers is invaluable and unique, and its schools should be preserved, not debased to compete with academic arts degrees already available at other Australian universities.

HOW DID THIS START

In 2003, under the Higher Education Support Act 2003, the Federal Government’s reforms to higher education introduced a new model of ‘consistent’ funding for academic clusters. This reform was inclusive only of institutions of a certain number of students and above, excluding many quality, specialised colleges such as the V.C.A. who did not qualify due to their relatively small intake. Financially vulnerable, the V.C.A. aligned itself with the larger University of Melbourne, who in return promised to preserve the integrity and structure of the college. This has since proven to be a falsity.

In its desperate attempt to recapture a declining market and to fill in the black hole of its own economic mismanagement, the University of Melbourne has now become the piranha fish of tertiary institutions. Only last year (2008) it attempted to absorb the similarly structured Australian National Academy of Music (A.N.A.M.) and now it is seemingly the turn of the V.C.A. whose unique combination of academic standards and practical arts workshops surely disturbs and challenge the University’s limited economic rationalist horizon.

THE V.C.A. SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AN INVESTMENT IN OUR CULTURAL FUTURE

The Victorian College of the Arts should function as a not-for-profit public arts education and training institution and not be held accountable to the economic rationalism of a multi-national business-cum-university.

It is an investment in our country’s cultural future, not a fundraising arm for the University of Melbourne. The unique schools, curriculum and standards of quality are central to this investment and should not be bastardised or streamlined to fit into a broader academic syllabus or business model that satisfies only the University of Melbourne’s bottom line.

The V.C.A. stands for excellence in the world of arts, while the University of Melbourne stands for nothing, and in swallowing the V.C.A. for its own suspect means it is not only limiting opportunities for future students, but it is also destroying its legacy for students past.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

We would like to alert all artists and cultural organizations around the country who have drawn on bright young talent from V.C.A. graduate alumni for decades to the imminent destruction of Australia’s premiere arts education institute and to publicly withdraw our support from the University of Melbourne and its clerks who are destroying it.

WE, THE STUDENTS OF THE V.C.A. IMPLORE THE FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS TO SUPPORT OUR ARTS INDUSTRY BY ADEQUATELY FUNDING THE V.C.A. AS AN AUTONOMOUS CULTURAL INSTITUTION AND TO FREE IT FROM ITS AMALGAMATION WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE.

You can help save the V.C.A. by copying and pasting the above and sending it to the following people:

The Hon. Peter Garrett AM MP

Federal Minister for the Arts
Contact via website form

The Hon. Julia Gillard MP

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education
Julia.Gillard.MP@aph.gov.au

The Hon. Lynne Kosky, MP

Victorian Minister for the Arts
lynne.kosky@parliament.vic.gov.au

The Hon. Bronwyn Pike MP

Victorian Minister for Education
Contact via website form

We can and will save the V.C.A.!

savevca@savevca.org

Alumni of the V.C.A.

School of Dance

• Phillip Adams - Artistic Director of Balletlab
• Kate Denborough - Co-Artistic Director of Kage Physical Theatre
• Rebecca Hilton - choreographer
• Prue Lang - dancer with Ballet Frankfurt
• Jo Lloyd - dancer and choreographer
• Elissa Meyer-Thomas - choreographer
• Sandra Parker - former Dance Works Artistic Director
• Hellen Sky - choreographer
• Gerard van Dyck - Co-Artistic Director of Kage Physical Theatre

School of Drama:

• Sibylla Budd
• Vince Colosimo
• Angus Grant
• Alice McConnell
• Jonny Pasvolsky
• Stephen Phillips
• Hannie Rayson, actor and playwright
• Ashley Zuckerman

School of Film and Television

(including graduates of the former Swinburne Film School)

• Gillian Armstrong (director My Brilliant Career, Oscar and Lucinda, Charlotte Gray)
• Jamie Blanks (director Urban Legend, Storm Warning)
• Andrew Dominik (director/writer Chopper, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)
• Adam Elliot (Academy Award Winner for Harvie Krumpet, director/writer Mary and Max)
• Mark Hartley (director Not Quite Hollywood)
• Richard Lowenstein (writer/director Dogs In Space, He Died With a Felafel in His Hand)
• Robert Luketic (director Legally Blonde, Monster-in-law, 21)
• Stuart McDonald (director Summer Heights High)
• Matthew Saville (director Noise)
• Sarah Watt (director/writer Look Both Ways, My Year Without Sex)
• Geoffrey Wright (director/writer Romper Stomper)

School of Music

• Caroline Almonte - pianist
• Cheryl Barker - opera singer
• Michael Barker
• Shannon Burchell
• Members of The Cat Empire
• Natalie Christie - opera singer
• Peter Coleman-Wright - opera singer
• Steve Davislim - opera singer
• Diana Doherty - Oboe soloist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra
• Julian Gavin - opera singer
• John Haddock - opera composer
• Members of the John Butler Trio
• Liza Lim - composer
• Christopher Lincoln - opera singer
• Patrick Savage - Principal First Violin with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and film composer
• John Wegner - opera singer
• Angus Woods - opera singer
• Nicole Youl - opera singer

School of Visual Arts

• Steve Cox - painter and watercolourist
• Martin Grant - fashion designer
• Bill Henson - photographer and artist
• Pamela Irving - artist and educator
• Nicholas Jones - book sculptor
• Paul Knight - 2007 Samstag scholarship recipient
• Nick Managan - 2007 Samstag scholarship recipient
• Azlan McLennan - artist and activist
• Lewis Miller - painter, Archibald Prize winner
• Callum Morton - 2007 Venice Biennale representative
• Susan Norrie - 2007 Venice Biennale representative
• Patricia Piccinini - 2003 Venice Biennale representative
• Ricky Swallow - 2005 Venice Biennale representative
• Marcus Wills - painter, Archibald Prize winner

savevca@savevca.org