Dear MCA Community:
As I am sure you have heard and read, Saint Mary’s University announced future changes to its academic portfolio. I say future as I understand they announced the phasing-out of a number of majors over the next several years. Among the majors that will be phased out over time are music, theater and visual art.
I have heard questions about what this means for the MCA. The answer is very little. As I shared last week, MCA’s programs and operations were not directly impacted by these changes and, for the next year, we will continue on as normal. We are an affiliate program of the university, and while we do work closely with academic departments, we operate largely independently from them. So, the curricular changes may impact the enrollments in certain MCA courses in future years, but there will also be an opportunity to further engage Saint Mary’s students and our community students in new extracurricular activities, yet to be determined. We will continue our focus and our work and will continue to partner with other Saint Mary’s departments to serve our students and our broader community.
As for future plans, work will begin this summer to determine how best to serve students wanting to participate in the arts and how arts will be expressed on and off campus. MCA will be engaged in this planning process, and we will continue, as we have done, to work closely with university leadership.
If you have any questions about our ongoing work at MCA, please feel free to reach out to me (bplunger@smumn.edu). If you have questions regarding the changes to academic programs, I recommend you contact Dr. Matthew Gerlach at mgerlach@smumn.edu. He is the interim provost beginning June 1, 2022.
Sincerely,
Brady Plunger
Managing Director
Minnesota Conservatory for the Arts, an affiliate program of Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota