U of I cuts expensive DC-based arts program

[December 03, 2009]  CHAMPAIGN (AP) -- The University of Illinois will drop an arts program based in Washington, D.C., after deciding that it's far too expensive.

Interim Chancellor Robert Easter, the top administrator at the Urbana-Champaign campus, decided Tuesday to cut the $600,000-a-year program at the Phillips Collection modern art museum after a committee examining the expense recommended the move. The program has sent about 45 students to study at the Washington museum since 2006 and has eight signed up for next semester.

"The relative cost per student … is very seriously out of balance," the three-member committee wrote in a report. "We could find no justification for continuing the program at the current level of funding."

Former Chancellor Richard Herman backed the program and paid for it through a fund he controlled. Herman resigned in October following news reports about and a state examination of the influence of political connections on admissions at the Urbana-Champaign campus.

Herman planned for the program to eventually support itself through donations and tuition paid by people in the Washington area who also take the classes. That hasn't happened, the committee found.

Much of the program's cost covered director Jonathan Fineberg's salary, Washington housing, and travel between Champaign and Washington, according to the university. Fineberg, an Illinois art history professor, is paid about $198,000 a year, and the program's travel budget this year is $60,800.

Fineberg said he's disappointed the program will be shut down.

[Associated Press]

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