The Rhode Island School of Design will not close its Office of Public Engagement as it had originally proposed, President John Maeda announced in May.
The office, the design school's equivalent of the Swearer Center for Public Service, organizes the school's public outreach program.
When RISD proposed cutting the office last spring, students objected vehemently to the choice through letters, meetings with the administration and, of course, Facebook. On one Facebook page, "Questioning RISD's commitment: Community Engagement and Diversity," students protested what they perceived as the school's resistance to establishing a sense of community.
"We believe the current state of discourse at RISD disengages us from each other; the proposed elimination of the Office of Public Engagement disengages us from our community; and the marginalization of issues concerning diversity overall disengages us from our world," the Facebook page reads.
Sarah Kern, who graduated from RISD in the spring and worked in the office, was "heavily involved" in the fight to keep the office open, she wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. She said that her choice to work in the office in the first place was due to her sense that "community engagement was discouraged by RISD's intensive studio practice." She added, "This feeling was made a reality … when the administration attempted to close the office at the end of the school year."
RISD's administration "doesn't see the physical office and programming as necessary, and (thinks it) can exist as an add-on to various other offices," she wrote. "However, without a comprehensive and centralized program in public work, I do not see how students can be effectively supported in their work to engage the public and work hand-in-hand with the city of Providence."
The students' outcry provoked the Rhode Island Foundation to provide some funding for the office for the 2010–11 school year. The foundation's grant was then matched by the design school's board of trustees, according to Assistant Provost for Academic Affairs David Bogen.
"It is my hope that through strategic planning we will find a sustainable and integrated model to bring public engagement … to our core," Maeda said in a statement released in May.
"Of course I'm absolutely delighted that RISD has made the decision and enabled the continuation of the office," said Peter Hocking, the office's interim director. "I think that this is a really important program for RISD, which is why I've been doing this work for the last three years."
The design school faced financial challenges last year as the recession battered its endowment. But spokeswoman Jaime Marland wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that the school is "solidly positioned for this coming year," a result of budget cuts made last year and the gradual recovery of the school's endowment.
RISD has also raised its tuition by 4.5 percent this year, giving the school a slightly larger budget to work with.
"I think that the support from the Rhode Island Foundation, as well as the support from our trustees, for public engagement generally is a very positive thing," Bogen said. "RISD is now involved in a process of strategic planning and we look forward to the emergence of a full understanding and vision of the future of public engagement through that process."
