The graduate Collaborative Piano program at the University of Maine will be cut, according to an article in the Maine Campus. The downsizing is part of a university-wide belt-tightening. Also on the chopping block are graduate programs in conducting and Women's Studies, as well as numerous undergraduate programs, subject to the approval of the University of Maine board of trustees.
What the article doesn't mention is that, after the current students in the collaborative piano program graduate, the music students left in the program may need to fork over a lot more money to pay for local freelance pianists to play for their lessons, rehearsals, recitals, and juries. Unfortunate indeed.
What's even more serious, not just for the collaborative piano students, but for all the students who will graduate from programs facing elimination, is the question of just what an eliminated degree will be worth in an already tight job market.
They're also cutting german and latin (and, to my dismay, the women's volleyball team).The University of Maine has been an all-around bloodbath for the past few years. They went from seven to five colleges last year, and this year there's talk of cutting that down to three (I have a friend who's a student in the engineering department there). I hadn't heard anything about the music program, though the news doesn't surprise me. It's been painful to hear about.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about that, Kate. What's odd in the article is the fact that UMaine is in fact adding a Division of Health and Biomedical Sciences, which must be rather expensive coming at a time of fiscal restraint. It looks like they're cutting staple degrees to create a program-du-jour that may garner sponsors.
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