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Every year at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating students in both the MFA and BFA programs exhibit their work at Gallery 2, located at 847 W. Jackson. While the Master of Fine Arts show is a required thesis/exhibition in order for students to earn their degree, the Bachelor of Fine Arts show for undergraduates is an optional show. Not all graduating BFA students choose to participate. In the past, the MFA show has been in April and the BFA show has been in May, coinciding with graduation. But this year, SAIC has made a switch.

After a year and a half of discussion and planning, this spring, the BFA exhibition will be held from April 1-14, with an opening night reception on April 1. Subsequently, the MFA show has been moved to run from May 6-19, also with a reception on opening night. With this change comes a domino effect of complaints and praise from both graduate and undergraduate students and faculty alike.

Graduate Division Chair Lisa Norton feels that the switch is a positive one for graduate students. She points out that the new dates of the show coincide with the dates of Art Chicago 2000 , the international exhibition at Navy Pier. SAIC is considering running a shuttle between Art Chicago 2000 and Gallery 2, that way, according to Norton, SAIC's graduate students may be able to "put a foot in the door" of the established art world, helping them to be "recognized for new career experiences." And logistically speaking, giving more time to the MFA students who are required to present work in the show seems more fair than giving more time to the BFA students who are not obligated to participate. In fact, only one-third to one-half of the BFA students actually exhibit in the BFA show. In addition, Norton argues, MFA students are pursuing a higher degree on which they need to focus. These students have only 60 credit hours during which to complete the necessary requirements, whereas the average BFA student has 4+ years and can afford to exhibit earlier because of that lengthened stay.

In response, Undergraduate Division Chair Lisa Wainwright feels, "That's a bogus argument. Many undergraduates are finding their voice and need to discover their own way of art making." In Wainwright's opinion, it is only in the final year that many undergraduates find their own style. To compare the undergraduates' 4-year program, a program in which students are busy learning and exploring a wide range of all-around experiences, to the graduate students' 2 years, which presupposes a set of pre-developed ideas and a limited field of interest, is, in Wainwright's viewpoint, ridiculous. However, Wainwright recognizes that the switch has great potential and is open to the change.

"How the BFA show will be affected remains to be seen," says Wainwright. "And it is an experiment. Experiments in art schools are good things. They are useful and students are creatively flexible." However, she points out, if this year's trial run of switching the dates for the MFA and BFA shows proves to be a disaster, SAIC will immediately change it back to the old way of dealing with the programs.

For the BFA students, Wainwright feels the switch can be quite beneficial. If students time things right, undergraduates may be able to wrap up other odds and ends such as exams and papers without the stress of the end-of-the-year exhibit. Another primary advantage for undergraduates, she asserts, is that students will have more time to work more closely with faculty. With the extra time, BFA students should be able to prepare slides and other materials, post-production artist statements and portfolios while they still have the guidance of their mentors.

The switch also allows for a certain distance, which Wainwright believes one needs in order to ascertain the success of a project. Now BFA students have a few weeks look back and critique their presentations with their peers and instructors. Wainwright says, "This is an important exercise but not more important than the activity in a classroom of four years. [The BFA show] is an exercise of how to pull together an installation. And ideally students will be able to keep the momentum of this activity and creativity going, now and after they graduate." Her primary regret, however, is that parents visiting for graduation, will not be able to view their children's work in a formal show. "This is a shame," she feels, especially since the BFA show is usually tied to graduation as a culmination of time and effort.

As for MFA students, there has been concern the switch might adversely affect their sense of closure. Critique week -- this semester taking place in April -- will no longer finish out the year. As compensation, the committee is offering students another optional critique at the end of the school year. In addition, the new dates lengthen the MFA program. So when the MFA show fell in the first week of April, it meant that by mid-January graduate students needed to have a good idea about their thesis show within the context of a four-semester program. This essentially nullified their final semester. But now, graduate students are able to fine-tune their exhibition; they can spend more time with their advisors. It gives them an early critique which acts as a dry run for their thesis/exhibition in May. Ultimately, this could strengthen the final show.

Many people wish that the MFA and BFA shows could happen simultaneously, but expenses need to be considered. Both shows would have to share the expenses of this larger event. They would also have to share the square footage which, according to Lisa Norton, "would be exorbitant if shows happened simultaneously at the end of the year." This idea has been ruled out because it would simply be too difficult to coordinate.

This spring is the trial run of the switch. Both Graduate and Undergraduate Division Chairs are collecting feedback from students considering the alteration of the dates for this year.

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YOU CAN'T HAVE THIS MEETING:
A Student's Look at The Art Institute's Union Drive

AIC/SAIC workers are trying to organize a union. The organizing drive went public in early December when 75 Art Institute employees, union activists and community supporters, rallied by the lions carrying signs that read, "All the Art Institute cares about is more Monet." The complaints ranged from having no voice in the workplace to a lack of respect shown the mostly minority janitorial staff. They also pointed to the fact that the vast majority of AIC/SAIC workers are "at-will" employees, meaning workers can be fired at any time for any reason without redress -- reason enough for having a union.

While the joint museum and school corporation has done quite well over the past few years, the wealth hasn't been shared anywhere near equally between all 1,200 employees. The corporation holds substantial assets in the form of stocks, bonds and trusts that have increased over the 1996-1998 fiscal years to exceed a half-billion dollars. Still, the Institute has tightened its purse strings when it comes to paying its workers. Recently one group of employees even lost their sick leave, a meager three days. Ron, an AIC employee who chose not to disclose his last name, said, "I've been here ten years, never for the money, but then they started taking the benefits."

Since December, students have been organizing with the workers' committee and SEIU-Local 46 (Service Employees International Union). On February 8 a meeting was held with four of the organizing workers, at which about 20 students and other union activists heard first hand why AIC workers need a union, despite the management's best efforts to keep the meeting from happening.

"Carl Williams [Vice-President of Human Resources, AIC] told me the student meeting couldn't occur," said an organizing AIC worker. Williams claimed such a student/worker exchange would violate the National Labor Relations Act because it was to be held on corporate property (the Champlain building), and therefore the workers could accuse management of "veiled surveillance." As this was not a union meeting, but rather one initiated by students and a registered student group, it was entirely legal. Of course management's goal was never legality but to nip student solidarity in the bud and to avoid building momentum for the union drive.

Workers aren't surprised by tactics used by the management thus far. According to one art installer at the museum, "They've conducted a campaign of misinformation, including mailings to our homes accusing the union of lying." While using their large pool of money to counter the union, management has destroyed pro-union inter-office mail, though personal inter-office mail is supposedly allowed. According to workers, they've also held "strongly encouraged" but not "required" employee meetings condemning the union as "nothing but lawyers" and have even threatened workers' health insurance -- though in a veiled way, in order to avoid irking the National Labor Relations Board. The administration also held mandatory anti-union meetings for supervisors, to weed out sympathetic sections of management. They aren't just limiting themselves to busting the union through threats and properly meted out intimidation; management is trying to buy off a handful of workers now, to beat systematic gains in the long run. A section of AIC employees recently received retroactive raises, something generally unheard of before the union "threat." Instead of paying all the workers a decent wage the corporation has hired high-priced union-busting lawyers.

The key to this organizing drive is solidarity, between all employees and students of the Art Institute. To get involved, call (773) 506-8462 or contact [email protected].