by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

Claremont Graduate University’s art and music departments have spent the bulk of the new school year moving to new digs across campus. The school’s music department is now in Stauffer Hall, its art department in the basement of Harper Hall.

The moves follows the March 2024 sale to Scripps College the art and music departments’ former home at 150 E. 10^thStreet, with the upheaval causing some consternation among CGU students.

At the time of the sale, CGU signed a lease that stipulated its arts and music programs would continue to occupy the building through spring 2026. But Scripps recently asked CGU to terminate the lease so that it could “begin preparations for their own centennial celebrations in 2026,” according to CGU spokesperson John Tucker.

Tucker said CGU accepted the proposal, “as it was advantageous for CGU and a gesture of goodwill and collaboration between our institutions.”

Students learned of the move in early July.

“We were promised that building and that’s why we came,” said Sara Ajami, a second-year CGU art student. “And what [CGU’s] CFO and the administration keep saying is that we’re all going through this. People are losing their office spaces. And so, we ask them, do professors come here and tour the office spaces and then decide if they want the job?”

Other complaints from art students include claims that the Harper Hall is less inviting than their former studio space, with lower ceilings, smaller studios, lack of windows and natural light, and the absence of a freight elevator to transport large works.

“CGU acknowledges that change can be difficult,” CGU spokesperson Tim Lynch wrote in an email. “Harper Hall was selected after a thorough assessment of potential options, also taking into account other moves this semester to maximize available space and reduce costs. The university is working diligently to create a studio space in Harper Hall that is conducive to creativity and adheres to the needs of the art students and their instruction.”

In an effort to assuage students’ concerns, CGU has begun offering incentives to its art and music students. “To compensate for the inconvenience of the early move and the inability to plan for it, CGU is providing continuing students a $1,000 stipend for materials,” Lynch wrote.

CGU art theory and history professor David Pagel stressed the positive aspects of the move.

“We wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t think we could have excellent studios and excellent facilities there,” Pagel said. “If you just read about it and if you have a picture of Harper Hall from the front where it’s all foregrounding the president’s office and the senior administers office, it does look like we’re in the basement. But if you look at it from the back, which is really going to be where we hang out as art makers, it’s ground floor and they’re good spaces. To me, it works.”

Tucker said the move may be temporary, as work to fine a new home for CGU’s School of Arts and Humanities is ongoing.

“In February 2022, CGU announced a $42 million gift from the Patrick F. Cadigan Family Foundation for the construction of a building that would become the new home for the School of Arts & Humanities, some Drucker School of Management faculty and students, and a hub for creativity and entrepreneurship,” Lynch wrote in an email. “The project has been put on hold pending CGU’s current process to identify potential partnerships to ensure future sustainability and growth. The outcome of that process, which is ongoing, could inform the status of the Cadigan gift and its use.”

For now, CGU art students will begin to exhibit their work later this month on the first floor of Stauffer Hall, at the former McManus conference room next to Stauffer, in university’s main quad and Hagelbarger space.