The University’s School of Music has become so overcrowded, and space for students to practice is in such high demand, that some can be found playing their music in the bathrooms.
The school’s building, built in 1921, was originally intended to comfortably fit 350 students. Now there are 500 students majoring in music, and hundreds more taking music classes.
To compound the problem, the school continually adds faculty and equipment, but does not have any place to put these resources.
“We’re splitting at the seams,” said Joan Gardner, director of development for the School of Music. She added that students had been practicing in any open places, such as bathrooms and elevators.
Ann Tedards, associate dean of graduate students for the school, agreed that space is tight.
“We’ve been overcrowded for years,” she said. “We can’t offer some classes when we want to because we don’t have the room.”
Tedards said the school needs to continually hire faculty to meet an increasing demand from students.
“We have new faculty hires coming in, but we have no place to put them,” she said.
Music technology major Melanie King said the high-quality faculty has been drawing more and more students.
“We do have a really outstanding faculty in so many areas,” she said. “We have good management and programs.”
Gardner said the music school hopes to build a new performance hall that will help to house more students in classes and provide for more space overall.
Tedards said the school’s Beall Concert Hall is one of the most beautiful halls on the West Coast, but that it is often overbooked. Because of this, she said, there is a need for an additional hall for performances and practices.
Most in the music school believe that the addition of a new Neve Capricorn recording console will provide the momentum for University administrators to increase space at the School of Music.
Donated by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the recording console is one of only 125 in the world and when added it will allow students to record their music more professionally, Gardner said.
She said the board “will provide recording capabilities that will be the best for any academic university in the West,” and added that it will open whole new possibilities for music students.
“It will tie in beautifully with the way the school is taking new music,” she said. “It will give us ramifications that we can’t even understand.”
King called it the “Lamborghini of mixing boards” and said having the console, one of only three on the West Coast, would make the school equivalent to Carnegie Hall.
Freshman Erik Zuern said that despite the overcrowding in the school, it is still a good program.
“I think it’s very strong,” he said. “(The faculty) helps with students’ learning processes; I think they’ve done a good job so far.”