Closing darkrooms?
The biggest bummer about all this is that here is a school closing its darkroom.
I agree. At my school (two year college) we've managed to retain our darkroom. The president is behind us; his wife used to teach photography in a high school, and they understand what's at issue.
However, I recall when the discussion about remodeling the art building was going on a few years back, the fellow in charge of facilities (non academic, but on the level of a dean) was heard to say "Why do we even need a darkroom? They make digital cameras, don't they?"
Enrollment in the program is lower than it was; it was full with waiting lists, but now it is just sufficient to be reasonably confident that the course will go. The students who sign up simply can't understand how anyone could even think of closing a darkroom. They understand it very well.
I wonder how many colleges that have closed their darkrooms still teach printmaking (intaglio, relief, lithography). I'm sure that there will be a lot of regrets later on. It seems strange how eager administrators are to make decisions without thinking it through. I can't even begin to describe what horrors I've seen over the years. It didn't start with digital. One of the colleges in our system trashed a wonderful program heavy in portraiture, to go with the "wave of the future". They bought a lot of mini lab equipment and hired the guy who sold them on it. He didn't tell them that all is going to be needed in most of that industry was one person who could handle the controls (who comes from RIT, no doubt) and a bunch of unskilled operators.
