To shut down IKM will not only affect the employees, but also the students. A committee from the Faculty of Humanities (HF) has submitted a report with a proposal to divide IKM and spread the pieces among three other institutes. The report appears weak, without a real risk assessment and shows clear signs that the committee has no knowledge of how the professional environment at IKM works. The proposal is to move the study programs Drama and Theater and Film and Video Production to the Department of Music (IMU), Film Studies and Media Studies to the Department of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies (KULT) and Art History to the Department of Historical and Classical Studies (IHK).
Not only will this break up a unique professional environment with a steady practical-theoretical profile, we fear that in the long run it will mean the death of drama and theater at NTNU. Is it appropriate to move resource-intensive subjects such as theater and film to a larger institute like IMU, which is already struggling financially and does not want us? Won’t the chance then be high that it is our subjects that will suffer in the next cut? A large part of the study program is precisely the practical work that gives us professionally relevant experience and contact with Trondheim’s performing arts field. We fear that the practical subjects will fail first. Suddenly, there will no longer be any sought-after theater studies in Trondheim.
What kind of signal are we actually sending? when it is the institute of art that breaks first? We must not forget how important the arts are to society in all forms and shapes, both as entertainment, gathering point and politics. Closure of IKM will have major ripple effects in Trondheim’s performing arts field, of which both the students and the staff are an important part.
It is time for NTNU to start looking after, strengthen and cultivate the arts programs and their professional communities. If life and death IKM has to be moved, at least keep us together!
If you want to show your supportappeared in front of the main building at NTNU Gløshaugen on 3 May at 4 p.m.
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