Large chalk messages were drawn in front of McEachran Hall, Dixon Hall and Cowles Music Center expressing support for the recent music faculty whose positions were affected by the recent faculty cuts. The chalk art was planned by Melissa Jones and Neveah Gariepy, two music students hoping to inform the campus of the situation.  

“We’d like to bring some attention to the university and raise awareness about what we do here in the music department,” said Gariepy. These messages included phrases such as “We love our Profs” and “Keep the ‘Arts’ in ‘Liberal Arts.'”  

The music students claim that the removal of these faculty members could strike a huge blow to the department, especially for Whitworth University in the long run. They said that while some full-time faculty will be replaced with part-time adjunct faculty, the overall quality will still suffer. For instance, cutting Dr. Priscila Navarro, director of keyboard studies, would mean there would be no piano course at Whitworth, which would be “borderline laughable,” according to Gariepy. “I would never recommend a student to a music department that doesn’t have a piano class,” said Gariepy.

The loss of such key faculty would create a worry for future prospective students as well, according to Jones and Gariepy.

“It puts the public image of the music department as [if] we’re really bleeding and it’s already [shown] that it is not good for recruitment,” said Jones. “Eventually, we’re going to see this carryover as a sort of domino effect,” added Gariepy.

“There was a student that auditioned at Whitworth and got their financial aid package, but he told Dr. Hall, our jazz professor, that he’s not coming to Whitworth because he’s worried about the music department taking future hits,” said Jones.

According to Gariepy, some of the music professors have been sending letters to the administration expressing the need to keep the music faculty. 

“We just want the administration to know that we are not going to let them treat our department like this. We’re delivering physical letters, but people have been getting the response [of], ‘don’t worry, we’re going to make sure your quality of education doesn’t go down,’” said Jones.  

To read more information about events surrounding the faculty cuts, check out the Faculty Cuts 2024 section of our website.