‘Stand up, fight back’: UArts students and faculty mark the abrupt end of a 150-year-old Philly institution

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Philadelphia police temporarily shut down the southbound lanes of Broad Street Friday afternoon so that around 1,000 students, faculty and alumni of the University of the Arts could take a final group photo on the day their school closed for good.

But first, there were speeches. The rally was organized by the faculty union and included elected officials and national union figures who proclaimed the death of UArts would not go unpunished.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers with which the UArts faculty union is affiliated, said the board of directors is at fault.

“They take an oath, a fiduciary obligation to this University and to you, and they totally completely abrogated it and every single way,” she said.

University leadership gave no forewarning to students or faculty when they announced a week ago that the 150-year-old institute would shutter in just seven days. Since then it has given few details about the financial crisis that caused it, and its president Kerry Walk has resigned. At least two lawsuits from faculty and students are pending.

Several schools have offered to take on UArts students and their credits, schools as close as the Parkway and as far as Florida, Georgia and Illinois.

State Rep. Ben Waxman, who has worked with Uarts to secure state grants in the past, said the university did not seek assistance for its financial straits.

“At no time did this administration ever so much as even mention the idea that the school had financial problems that could lead it to close in a week,” Waxman said.

UArts cited low enrollment and declining revenue as one of its financial burdens. Those factors have led to other schools closing, including locally the Delaware College of Art and Design and Cabrini University, and also led to the end of the degree program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts.

State Sen. Nikil Saval told the rally crowd that the crisis in higher education is a manufactured one.

“This is not some inevitable drift of history,” he said. “There are people behind this, and those people need to be held accountable.”

UArts alumnus and associate professor of sculpture Laura Frazure laid the blame on former president David Yagar, who retired last year. During his tenure, Yagar expanded the school, including building a new student lounge in Gershman Hall, acquiring and renovating the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and launching an Immersive Media Center.

“David Yager should have been conservative, protecting our university from the effects of COVID and other external challenges,” said Frazure. “Instead, he pursued ego-driven, resume-building capital investments.”

Frazure paused briefly during her remarks at the rally to catch her emotions. That sentiment was shared by Kylie Price, a sophomore dance student who wept at the demise of her school.

“It’s really important for us to encapsulate what this university has done for the city for so many years,” she said. “What we’re trying to do, as best as we can, is prove that this shouldn’t be taken away.”