BREAKING NEWS: URI cuts Great Performances, closes galleries

KINGSTON - The University of Rhode Island has eliminated its Great Performances Series and Fine Arts Center Galleries along with its directors and staff as part of a university-wide budget reduction.

Judith Tolnick Champa, director of the Fine Arts Center Galleries, and Roxana Tourigny, director of Great Performances, were told Tuesday that they were being laid off. Winifred Brownell, dean of URI's College of Arts and Sciences, called the decision "heartbreaking" but insisted that it was necessary given that "the university has to face a $17 million reduction in one year."

Brownell said that $12 million in cuts were being earmarked from the division of Academic Affairs, with $2.7 million coming directly out of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Tolnick, who had served as galleries director and curator for 17 years, juggling seasonal calendars for the Main Gallery, Photography Gallery and Corridor Gallery, called the move "shocking." Over the years, the galleries had grown from being strictly focused on student and faculty work to shows that garnered national and international attention. Reached by phone in New York City, she said it was "a major loss for the students and the whole cultural scene in South County."

Tourigny, reached by phone in Connecticut, leaves after 10 years of building the Great Performances Series into a yearlong cultural program that exposed students to world-class performing artists in classical and chamber music, theater, dance, world music and other genres. The program also embraced the southern Rhode Island community, bringing artists into local schools and senior centers.

"My main regret is that the program's dead," Tourigny said. "When we began there were four classical performances, with no 20th-century music, nearly all performed by men over 45, doing literature that was almost all western European. Over the years, we were able to add so much diversity. We branched out from the traditional, old-fashioned way of doing things to a more exciting, energized program that provided a challenge to the audience. One of things I'm proudest of is that when I got there, you were lucky if you saw one person under 21 in the audience, but last year over 50 percent were under 21."

Former students have e-mailed and called administration officials to express their disappointment about the cuts. A Facebook group has been created under the heading "Save the galleries!!" On Tuesday at 4 p.m. in the Fine Arts Center Main Gallery, Wakefield artist and activist Marc Levitt will facilitate a "brainstorming session" on the budget cuts and their impact on the arts in Rhode Island.

For expanded coverage of this story, see Thursday's South County Independent.