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by Kyle Sherard
UNCA boots Center for Craft, Creativity and Design from the budget
The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design recently awarded $95,000 in grants from its annual Craft Research Fund. On a quieter note, the center also reported its formal separation, via a budget cut, from the University of North Carolina school system, which oversees 15 other state-operated universities, including UNCA. “After many months of discussion, research and legal counsel, it was confirmed on Tuesday [Aug. 27] that Chancellor Anne Ponder in effect closed the UNC Center,” Stephanie Moore, CCCD’s executive director, told Xpress. The CCCD, which was previously located at UNCA’s Kellogg Center, tucked five miles west of Hendersonville, recently purchased a building at 67 Broadway St. in downtown Asheville. The center will continue operating as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The resolution, handed down by the UNC General Assembly, stems from a July 11 budget cut issued by UNCA. That cut initially severed the center from UNCA. But it would also spell out the end for the center’s 16-year run as a state-operated organization. Attempts to partner with Western Carolina University were nullified by the General Assembly’s recognition of the cut as systemwide. The CCCD’s state funding was initially set up and assigned by UNC’s Board of Governors and General Assembly in May of 1996. In 2009 the UNC school system began eliminating or fusing interinstitutional organizations, which included CCCD, with university partners. The CCCD was slated for partnership with Appalachian State University, according to Moore. That changed when UNCA took on a partnership with the center. Whereas the CCCD was previ-
ously a UNC system center, after 2009 it officially became a UNCA center, says Joni Worthington, UNC General Assembly’s vice president of communications. That partnership came three years after UNCA received a $2 million promissory grant from Windgate Charitable Foundation, an Arkansas-based trust and lontime CCCD partner and benefactor. The organization, known for its enthusiastic support WNC craftspeople, pledged the funds toward the development of a crafts campus, slated for construction at the former Buncombe County landfill, located north of Woodfin. However, plans for the campus began to dissipate as expenses increased and the economic landscape dimmed. Windgate rescinded that pledge in 2011, shortly after the addition was removed from UNCA’s capital campaign. Those funds resurfaced this March when Warren Wilson College received a $2.1 million grant for the development of new programs and the enrichment of existing crafts infrastructure. The center’s annual budget was created by the state and set up in partnership with Windgate. But with each year came an annual decrease in funding. From 2010 to 2013, the state’s funding dropped from $201,890 to $182,402, and most recently to $178,957. Windgate’s support rose in response to each drop. “UNC Asheville received a $592,000 cut from the state in the current academic year,” said UNCA’s Provost and Vice Chancellor Jane Fernandes, adding that this was “after absorbing cuts totaling over $10 million since 2009.” “After Chancellor Anne Ponder had conversations with Michael Sherrill of CCCD and John Brown of the Windgate Charitable Foundation, we concluded it would be best to close CCCD as a UNCA Center and allow it to become an independent entity,” said Fernandes. The separation is largely one of financial reasoning. Fernandes
SEPTEMBER 11 - SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
mountainx.com
[Editor’s note: This is the third in an ongoing series of articles about the Center for Craft Creativity and Design (CCCD), a WNC-based craft research organization.]
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Board member and wood sculptor Stoney Lamar inside the CCCD’s new space, the Lark Books building on Broadway. Photo by Max Cooper.
told Xpress that it will ultimately “protect core undergraduate academic programs, which would have suffered from budget reductions otherwise.” In a July 24 statement, Ed Katz, UNCA’s associate provost and dean of university programs, also cited CCCD’s “desire to become an organization that includes many public and private collaborators,” the “expectation of continued budget cuts to the university” and the CCCD’s “lack of significant involvement in undergraduate education.” CCCD’s Henderson County locale led to little student-body interaction and did little to help bolster growth for the organization’s identity in the university system and Asheville. In severing the partnership with the CCCD, a valuable connection with Windgate, whose contributions to WNC craft organizations increase each year, has been damaged. So far, 2013 contributions to area artists and arts organizations, including CCCD, Warren Wilson College and Penland School of Crafts, total more than $7 million. John Brown, WCF’s executive direc-
tor, told Xpress that the University’s decision does not affect Windgate’s dedication to craft in N.C. or regionally in WNC. “We’re disappointed with the university system,” said Brown, “but our interests in the field of art and craft are undiminished.” “We’re not focussed on ill feelings, we’re just trying to support the board for the center,” he added. As of press time, no one from UNCA or the university system had called to alert Brown of the cut, he said. In some ways, Brown said, being away from the public umbrella will allow CCCD to broaden its fundraising efforts and expand its regional goals. It will also allow for partnerships with other independent crafts organizations and institutes. “The Center’s cut was inevitable given both the political and economic climate in Raleigh,” says Moore. “We are ultimately liberated from the whims of the state with this change, and may now stay on point/mission which is where our head space needs to be.” X