Surface pattern design, a program in Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, will no longer be offered as a major, said Marion Dorfer, an associate professor in the program.

A required meeting for SPD students and faculty will be held today at 11:30 a.m. in Room 232 of the Shaffer Art Building. Ann Clarke, dean of VPA, Lucinda Havenhand, department of design chair and Arthur Jensen, associate dean of VPA will attend, according to students who received an e-mail about the meeting.

Dorfer said the school will continue to offer SPD courses as electives. The curriculum will be taught for the next two years, allowing current juniors and seniors to receive their bachelor’s of fine arts degree in surface pattern design.

Clarke and Havenhand did not return calls and e-mails for comment Tuesday.

SU’s surface pattern design program is more than 70 years old. Students in the major design any sort of product that has repeated patterns, including printed and woven fabrics, dinnerware, linens, tile and wallpaper.

Miranda Shilati, a senior in the program, said she heard over the weekend that the major was being cut. VPA’s Web site no longer lists SPD as a program. The two professors in the program were moved to different departments.

Dorfer was moved to fashion design and Eileen Gosson, assistant professor in VPA, was moved to interior design.

Shilati said SPD students received an e-mail requiring them to attend today’s meeting. They weren’t told what the meeting was about, she said.

‘Girls were joking around in our class saying, ‘What? Are we not a major anymore?’ And our professor’s reaction to that, you could just tell they weren’t expecting her to say that. And we knew that was what was about to happen,’ she said. ‘We could tell it was something they were trying to keep quiet.’

Shilati said that in 2007, the program had three studio spaces. Last year, VPA cut design space to one studio in Shaffer. Shilati said about 40 girls were ‘cramped into one small studio space.’

Students in the program have fought for space for a while now. Students had tried contacting the administration frequently about space issues, only to get no response, according to an October 2007 article in The Daily Orange.

Shilati is an SPD peer advisor and said one of her freshman students was interested in the program.

‘It just kind of sucks that the university is taking 40 something thousand dollars of her money, to take away a program she was hoping to be a part of and now doesn’t have the option to anymore,’ she said.

‘I know a lot of people are saying it won’t really affect the seniors,’ she said. ‘But for us we feel like we’re getting screwed over and ignored – once again.’

In an e-mail obtained Tuesday night by The Daily Orange, April Knotek, an SPD alumna, expressed her concern over the program termination to Dean Clarke.

Clarke forwarded the e-mail to Havenhand, asking her to respond. Havenhand responded saying the current economic downturn compelled the university to take a hard look at its facilities and finances.

‘Small programs like SPD that will only have 12-15 students total after this current senior class graduates, are being heavily scrutinized and are in danger of being cancelled all together because of low enrollments,’ Havenhand said in the e-mail. She added that before VPA could cancel these programs, they attempted to ‘save’ surface pattern – an important and viable design discipline – by integrating it with other larger disciplines.

Havenhand said students will be able to take SPD electives, as well as a concentration in SPD as part of the fashion, interiors and new B.S. degree in design.

Amanda Williams, a 2008 SPD alumna, sent an e-mail of concerns to Chancellor Nancy Cantor, Dean Clarke and the two SPD professors, Dorfer and Gosson.

‘The College of VPA often and easily overlooked the small program that no one understood,’ Williams said. ‘Despite our unwavering confidence in the importance of our major and what we did, the school found it easy to dismiss us as insignificant.’

Gosson and Dorfer wrote e-mails, made appointments and talked to other professors, Williams said, asking the administration to visit classrooms so they could understand that it was not possible for SPD students to work in one studio space. No one seemed concerned, she said.

An inadequate computer lab, small studio, broken light tables and erratic copy machines contributed to students’ frustration, Williams said.

‘Mostly, we were ignored or blown off,’ she said. ‘Maybe no one had the time for us, but unfortunately, it was much more simple and obvious than that. No one cared. We paid $40,000 a year to attend this school and we could not find one person outside of our own professors, who cared about what we did or was willing to help us.’

The students took the matter into their own hands, Williams said, attempting to start a club to raise money and awareness for the program, with professors’ support. When they approached the school to recognize the club as a campus group, they were told to join the fashion club because ‘the programs were pretty much the same thing anyway,’ Williams said.

She said SPD students had similar reactions to the program cut. ‘Furiously angry, slightly sickened, yet unsurprised,’ Williams said.

‘We are color forecasters, we are art directors, we oversee production in China we are presidents of our own companies,’ Williams said. ‘We are the ones behind the design of your shower curtain, your carpet, your dishes, your dress shirts, your wrapping paper and the blankets that you sleep under every night. We are a strong representation of Syracuse, we are everywhere, and we are damn good at what we do.’

blbump@syr.edu

Published on March 3, 2009 at 12:00 pm