You may have seen articles in The Daily Collegian or posts on Facebook about What the FAC?, and maybe you’ve seen some of the pictures about their #WhattheFAC picture series, but still some people don’t grasp what it is all about. However, if you examine the cause behind this organization, you might start wondering why this group wasn’t founded years ago.
What the FAC is an arts advocacy group founded by Emma June Ayres, and it was started to fight for better facilities for the arts majors on campus such as theater majors, fine arts majors, music majors, or any other course of study that requires use of facilities in the Fine Arts Center. Over Ayres’ tenure as a theater major, she became aware and increasingly critical of the discrepancy of the accommodations afforded to arts majors and STEM majors in terms of space, accessibility, and funding.
The FAC was designed by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo in the early 1970s, constructed from 1972 to 1974, and opened in 1975. However, the University has not invested in this space or any of the other arts spaces as much as the STEM or Social and Behavioral Sciences buildings, even to accommodate the growing need for space in the department. The theater department has only one rehearsal lab for a major of over 200 people, which makes it nearly impossible to put on productions.
The University removed storage space from the UMass Theater Guild, a student organization on campus since 1907 and one of the premier theater groups in Western Massachusetts. The Theater Guild has also been granted zero accommodation for rehearsal space, leaving members to practice in Herter, Bartlett, and similar classroom buildings. The dance studio in Totman has a roof that leaks and the dancers have had to dance around the buckets that collect rainwater. These are just a few examples of how the University is neglective and downright dismissive of its Fine Arts Students. This is especially true of its handicapped arts students, as the FAC is not ADA compliant.
While the roofs leak, the spaces are crowded, and the facilities are dilapidated and woefully under equipped in the arts spaces, that would be a little more understandable if the University was going through lean financial times. However, new buildings and developments spring up on this campus more often than riots in Southwest. For the University to build the $20 million Blue Wall, the Integrated Learning Center, the Integrated Sciences Building, and the Commonwealth Honors College, while neglecting students who do equally important, amazing work on this campus, it is difficult not to question administrative discrimination toward the arts students.
The organization’s campaign to improve arts facilities and get better arts funding is not only an ax to grind for them and other arts majors, it relates to everyone on campus who engages in any artistic outlet. You can see What the FAC?’s reasons for spreading awareness when you hear bands practicing at night in the drafty rooms of Herter, when you see plays or concerts staged in Bowker Auditorium, or when you see the relative opulence of the ISB and the ILC in contrast to the Roche’s dingy concrete monstrosity looming over campus. The other students of UMass are left out in the cold when it comes to performing arts opportunities and rehearsal space because there isn’t even enough for the performing arts majors.
Members of What the FAC? plan to meet with University officials such as Chancellor Subbaswamy, Enku Gelaye, and SGA members who can help meet them their goals to obtain more funding for the arts and a reallocation of available funds. One of their goals is for students to have a hand in drafting the University budgets. What the FAC? has been holding meetings since its inception and writing letters to the University brass. It is in the midst of a swath of meetings that could make or break their mission.
On 11/7 the group met with department heads from the music, theater, and dance departments, as well as other inter-departmental supporters. On 11/10 they will be meeting with the SGA to present their case for a proposal in hopes of passing an official resolution to entreat the administration to work with What the FAC? on their mission and demands. On 11/14, they will be hosting a teach-in with CEPA, and then later in the day will be meeting with HFA dean Julie Hayes. Check out their Facebook page to keep updated on their progress.