By Miharu Sugie, News Staff

College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD) dean Xavier Costa proposed in a letter addressed to the CAMD faculty and students on Oct. 3 the potential changes to the college, like merging the music and theatre departments and School of Journalism and communication studies department.

The proposal was presented to students in a meeting on Oct. 21, conducted by a committee that Costa appointed. Associate dean and CAMD College Structure Committee Chair Peter Wiederspahn said that the committee, made of eight faculty representatives from each CAMD academic unit, will not decide CAMD’s fate. The committee will create a report that summarizes the pros and cons of the proposal by early November for further discussion.

“We are not talking about making changes in the degrees or curriculum,” Costa said. “Better structure can translate into better use of resources.”

Costa said during the meeting that he hopes to make administrative operations more efficient while maintaining the college’s academic integrity, and promoting more interdisciplinary education and research.

With the emergence of more digital media and other developments of the industries related to CAMD, Costa wrote that the college needs to transform now. Although this was not explicitly said in the meetings, there is a large administrative and operational cost disproportionate to the small size of CAMD, according to Costa’s letter to CAMD faculty and students.

The declining enrollment in the departments and the cost of facilitating smaller colleges can be efficient if “redundant” facilities are shared, according to the letter.

Costa and the CAMD College Structure Committee proposed three options: model CAMD after the D’Amore-McKim School of Business and turn CAMD into a group of disciplines; combine journalism and communication studies, and music and theatre; or keep the original structure of CAMD. Deans, directors and chairs have also suggested developing a common core curriculum and CAMD-wide degree programs, hiring joint faculty, encouraging cross-CAMD research and revamping the academic units.

Part of Costa’s plan is aimed at enhancing the interdisciplinary education within CAMD. Sophomore music industry major Melissa Flaxman, who also minors in business and Spanish, said that the college needs to allow more flexibility for music industry majors to do half, minor or double majors without overwhelming the student, but this plan would not necessarily do that.

Students like Amanda Ostuni, a senior majoring in journalism, said that journalism students fear that the brand name of the School of Journalism will be taken away, along with the students’ pride in their small school.

The 3-year-old CAMD is the smallest college at Northeastern and while others like the College of Engineering only have four departments, CAMD has many independent departments like music and architecture that tend to not overlap.

“The dean seems very concerned about building the brand of CAMD and really, the brand of CAMD is the fact that we are comprised of a bunch of departments that are brought together by their independence,” journalism professor Charles Fountain said. “What we have in common is our individuality and to try and take that individuality away in pursuit of some abstract collaboration or identity for the college seems to me to be ultimately hurting the college.”

In response to the dean’s proposal, 173 Northeastern journalism students wrote a petition opposing the departments’ merge. About 22 journalism students met with Costa, Wiederspahn, journalism professor and committee member Alan Schroeder and School of Journalism director Stephen Burgard on Monday.

Although journalism students voiced their opinions to the committee and Costa at the meeting, “nothing really got answered,” Ostuni said.

“[Costa] was painting this picture of perfection. It’s too good to be true,” Ostuni said. “He wants us to believe that you know, there’s no other motive than to better our majors, and that everything is going to stay the same and only get better. It’s hard to accept that.”

When pressed by journalism students who asked for what exactly administrative efficiency meant and how exactly their faculty and curriculum will change, Costa said that the change will only affect the college at the administrative level. Costa could not be reached for an interview and Wiederspahn was unable to be interviewed. Communication studies chair Dale Herbeck and music department chair Anthony De Ritis could not be reached for comment. Theatre department chair Nancy Kindelan said that more information is needed to determine the impact assess the changes’ impact on the students and faculty.

“To say there are no changes, there may be no changes in the coming September 2014, but in September 2024, it will be a completely different department and that’s what we’re talking about,” Fountain said.

Ostuni said the change will affect the prestige of the four departments, as many students apply to and enroll in Northeastern because they identify with the specific department.

“It’s great that the dean is talking to us, people are worried that it doesn’t matter but I believe they wouldn’t be giving us a chance if it didn’t matter,” Ostuni said. “So, hopefully if enough people come forward and we have our voice heard, that it’ll resolve to what we want it resolved in.”

There will be another meeting for students and the committee today from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. in Curry Student Center 346.