Rhode Island College student newspaper The Anchor reports that the College plans to drop the Graphic Communications concentration offered by the Communications department:
On Tuesday, Sept. 2, notices were issued in class to Rhode Island College Students declared in the Graphic Communication concentration of the Communication degree. The notice informed those students that their concentration would be phased out beginning in March of 2009.
No new students will be accepted into the program and only students who have declared themselves as Graphic Communications majors and have taken COMM 232 (Intro to Graphic Communication Technology) will be allowed to continue and graduate with the concentration.
The article includes a short interview with Dr. Lenore Collins, the head and advisor for the Graphic Communications concentration until last Fall. Collins is also the Executive Director of Graphic Communications Industry of Rhode Island.
Running a traditional printing program can be expensive. As Collins states in the article, "I believe that the college is attempting to "save money" by cancelling programs and not hiring faculty to replace retired professors."
Discussion
By Dr Joe Webb on Sep 18, 2008
Unfortunately, this is in my backyard. But I must say not everyone is immune. The NYU Graphic Communications program was not always welcome, either, and it now resides in a part of NYU that desires it greatly, in the School of Professional Studies. Moving to that school took many years of political pain, but now it's there and growing.
RI College is a 4-year state college, with state-supported tuition for in-state students. There is a sense in faculty and administration in many schools that graphic communications is really just desktop publishing software and is more appropriate for community colleges or technical schools.
We should not forget, however, that if the program was bursting with students it would not be closing.
I have met Lee Collins quite a few times, and am disappointed in this turn of events. The decline in printers in Rhode Island, a business climate that discourages new investment and entrepreneurship, and encourages graduating students to live elsewhere, did not help. I know it's not the state I moved to almost 20 years ago. All states have their problems, but RI has gotten very good at growing bureaucracy and inertia. This should be a hotbed of new media and publishing with the combination of colleges (Brown University has a world-class computer science department), the legendary Rhode Island School of Design, some interesting print processes (Providence Journal was one of the first adopters of flexography), and its proximity to Boston and New York metro areas, even by train.
Students can learn software anywhere. They can't learn a profession by learning what's in drop down menus from a manual.
By Michael Josefowicz on Sep 19, 2008
I also spent 7 years in a design school and then consulting a year in an inner city high school. To top it off, my son's family lives in Providence.
First, re RI. I thinki Dr Joe has it right.
Regarding colleges, it's important to remember that most colleges are ruled by business rules. They may cloak themselves in noble words, but the sad truth is that most of them are not insulated towers of learning. They are ruled by business.
Harvard, and many of the Ivies can be seen as non profit hedge funds with a school attached.
Many of the other big universities can be seen as REITs with a school attached. The State schools and the community colleges are a little different.
Re the cost situation, Dr Joe describes, wouldn't it be interesting if a printer with all the equipment in place stepped up. Goes to RI and says, if the problem is the equipment and the staff, give us some amount of money to pay for staff. Schedule your classes around our schedule, and we will use the long tail of our installed equipment to keep this program alive.
If it grows, it grows. If it dies, it dies. But it sounds like a win- win to me. Plus maybe there is an opportunity for printers to get in to the education busines.
Given that it's pretty much a protected price fixed business space, the profit margins are quite sustainable. At least until market forces get around to reorganizing that sector. Media, now finance... It's going to be health care or education next.
By Keith Couto on Sep 19, 2008
This is a sad situation. I am a partner with Barrington Printing in Cranston RI and a gratuate of Dr. Collins' program. Dr. Collins has always had support of local printers. We placed a Scitex imagesetter in the lab just 3 years ago when there wasn't enough funding for the one that needed repair. Many equiptment vendors also lended support. Bob Nangle, President of Meridian Printing, was largely involved after Dr. Collins' retirement to form a commitee of RI Printing owners to meet with the Dean and try to come up with a variety of ways to help keep the program alive. My feeling was that President Nazarian gave his instructions to the Dean that he wanted the programs money to be spent in other areas. The college really didn't want to put forth the effort to keep the program alive. Largely because they would have to do the work that was once done by Dr. Collins.