SUNY Oneonta's Music Program Lives On

BY Patrick Flood - Oneonta, NY

If you were to walk around SUNY Oneonta's campus, where do you think you'd find the most expressive and creative students? Well, if you guessed the Fine Arts Building, located in the main quad, You'd be right! The Fine Arts Building is home to the school's Music Department, Theater Department, and Art Department.

Oneonta's Fine Arts Building. Courtesy of Google. 

Kat Ricigliano, a Theater Major at SUNY Oneonta, believes the Fine Arts Building provides a different experience than other buildings. "In the Fine Arts Building, we're a community and I think when the Music Major went through the things that they werer going through, I think we all kind of banded together and thought how is this happening?" The "This" that Kat is referring to was a recent meeting of the department heads, in which the idea of cutting the school's Music program was being discussed.

                                           Students in the Fine Arts Building.(Google Images)


The proposed idea was met with swift and deliberate backlash from other department heads, including the Theater and Art department. Even though Oneonta's Music program remains safe for now, many other artistic programs across the country, at both the college and high school levels, haven't been so lucky. 

Associate Theater Professor, Andrew Kahl gave his take on the matter by stating, "It's (artistic programs) been diminished because we see education as memorizing fact, rather than changing the way we think or interacting in the world around us." He hits the issue right on the head, or in this case note, because college has become a business where heads of universities need to see a direct correlation between money spent and money earned. If a program's graduates aren't giving enough money back to the college, than maybe they're next on the chopping block.

                                                           An Art Gallery in the Fine Arts Building (Google Images). 

Oneonta's music program is far from being cut at this point. However, considering the idea is already on the minds of some college department heads, it's something to keep an eye on. Especially when a growing number of school's across the country are dealing with the same issue.


Link to Video Package: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIMsQL1eusQ