Overview
Built into the fine arts curriculum at GBC is a powerful sense of individual expression in every society, the expressions recording the past, and highlighting the appreciation of the fine arts in all societies. In the courses and activities are strong components that activate personal and cultural awareness. Since the visual language of art is created by all world cultures, it is a subject that appeals to every ethnic group. Northeast Nevada is rich in cultural diversity with the Native Americans, Basques, Hispanics, East Indians, and a few smaller ethnic groups. Art offers students a vehicle to appreciate cultural differences and bridge barriers, and students of every age are engaged in the lifelong search for personal expression offered by GBC’s art courses.

The department has created a cultural center for the region by extending its variety of courses to approximately thirty offerings per year. Artists from the community make this wide range of offerings possible. The department has created strong studio offerings that further the skill and creative expression of degree-bound students, as well as offering lifelong learning to the region’s residents.

The Fine Arts Department supports the GBC mission and goals by providing university transfer courses, core art courses for general education, and a lively community education program.

University transfer courses. Over 90 percent of the art courses are university parallel courses that count as either general education core requirements or as electives toward a two- or four-year degree. While students have transferred these courses over the years to universities, the College has not had, for some time, a formal degree program in the Fine Arts Department. That degree—an Associate of Arts/Fine Arts—is being revamped for the next catalog. This program will provide the lower division requirements for a student to enter a four-year college/university or professional art school at the junior level.

GBC currently has a Certificate Program and an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Computer Office Technology with an emphasis in graphic communications. Six classes are now being offered including basic computer graphics, graphic design, electronic design, digital imagery, online digital photography and multimedia. The COT Department plans to offer a sixth class on three-dimensional design. Graphic communications has been an interdisciplinary effort with two instructors, one in COT and one in Fine Arts.

General education. There are two fine arts courses that may be used for general education: Art 101 Drawing and Art 109 Visual Foundations. Two humanities courses, Art 201 Art Appreciation and Art 260 Survey of Art may also be used for general education requirements. These courses are taught by the two full-time art faculty.

Community education has always been a strong facet of the department. In the last two years, that was enhanced by the Great Basin Festival, Celebrating Our Heritage. The college-based eight-day program included scholars, lectures, films, Chautauqua events, performances, workshops, concerts and booths of artisans from the multicultural diversity of the Great Basin region. A celebration of the music, dance, and visual arts of the Native Americans, Basques, Hispanics, and East Indians was the focal point of the event. Preschool children were photographed and the images were made into an American flag that honored the multicolored faces of the children. A 6' x 10' flag of these children is on permanent display in the Elko Regional Airport, and another smaller flag is on traveling display. The workshops were taught by expert artisans from the region, and the booths were set up by artists from four states. The College became the focus of a destination event that not only showcased the campus to potential students, but brought the community and travelers from as far away as Ohio. Students were involved in planning, promoting, and participating in these special events which turned the campus into an innovative classroom. A multimedia PowerPoint presentation of this event was presented to NISOD in Austin, Texas, in May 2001.

Faculty
The two full-time faculty—Sarah Sweetwater and Patty Fox—both have master’s degrees and have been teaching at GBC for 31 years and 11 years, respectively. They exhibit regionally, produce public and private commissions, and have been awarded honors. Generally, fifteen to twenty adjunct faculty, with either their master’s degree or professional expertise in their fields, teach for Great Basin College. These include nationally recognized jewelry, ceramics, photography, sculpture, and painting instructors. Adjunct faculty, often newcomers to the region, offer special classes in weaving, bookmaking, printing processes and other specialties. The full-time art faculty have experience outside academia, such as studies in Italy, National Fellowships, teaching abroad, and published work.

A significant change that has strengthened the department is the addition of another position so that the two half-time faculty of 1992-1993 were both made full-time in 1999. They rotate the department chair responsibilities every two years. The two full-time faculty have been involved in the design of expanding the offerings from a two-year program to upper-division courses. They have planned the two-year rotational offerings of classes to ensure that classes fit the needs of the students. There is an ongoing dialogue between GBC and those in and out of state to remain on the cutting edge of curriculum content.

Students. The core classes, especially Art 101 Drawing and Art 115 Art Appreciation have strong enrollments. As the student population has developed a younger profile, the retention has decreased slightly, but enrollment in general has increased. There are a higher number of full-time students in the department, reflecting more degree-seeking students. Since 1996, the student enrollment has increased from 35.5 FTE to 54.4.

Resources. The studios for the Fine Arts Department in Elko include a large classroom in Greenhaw Technical Arts building, a photography lab in the STEP building, a ceramics studio located in a building at the west end of campus, and a graphics lab in the High Tech Center. The department has an annual supply budget of $3,000. The department has benefitted from one-shot monies and from extra equipment monies. The enrollment in the photography department has increased significantly since the darkroom was added with equipment there. The ceramic and jewelry classes have also enjoyed added equipment. The part-time faculty in that area have also increased. Without the equipment in studio classes, there is no enrollment. An outbreak of theft of equipment has forced the replacement of expensive items. More space and more equipment in the drawing and sculpture areas are still needed.

Significant Changes
• New Courses: Graphic arts has been developing offerings that will lead to a separate certification program. (Eventually, this may lead to a graphics department.) Establishing the College’s image as a regional training center for computer and art design is important to this program. Industry, both local and national, has a need for individuals who are skilled in design and computer technology. A computer instructor and a design instructor team teach the graphics classes, which fosters student understanding of both areas-design and technology. Technically, graphic arts is now part of the COT Department, though the art faculty has taken a leadership role in its development.
• Upper-division courses: have been developed for the new four-year programs. Art 342 Methods of Teaching Art and Integrative Studies 339 have been offered successfully for two years. Other upper-division courses will be added within the next few years. A Nevada endorsement in art is in an early feasibility stage for inclusion in the baccalaureate education degree.
• Cultural hub: The Fine Arts Department has long had a vision of being a significant important part of the culture of the Great Basin region. In order to enhance this image, the visual arts exhibits have been expanded this year. The addition, three years ago, of a part-time curator for the Hallway Gallery in the Greenhaw Technical Arts building added the much-needed attention to art displays. The curator has brought artists’ work from metropolitan areas to rural Nevada. She has also enhanced the student art show through her expertise in designing and hanging the exhibits.
• Tech Prep: The Tech Prep program, which features articulation of high school and community college courses, is now being implemented into art course offerings. This program allows high school students to receive college credit for classes they take in their individual high schools. These classes must meet standards agreed upon by the College and the high school. It is anticipated that high school students who are working on the school’s yearbook would receive college credit for Basic Computer Graphics (GRC 106), a course that introduces two software programs and culminates with the production of a book. Graphic communications and photography are being expanded into the Tech Prep program.

Analysis
Facilities. The recommendations from the 1992-93 Commission on Colleges and Universities accreditation report (Exhibit 2.30) have been partially addressed, but inadequate facilities are a recurring problem. Although the jewelry and sculpture classes were moved out of the larger art room, they were each moved into very small spaces.

The jewelry class is now off campus. Equipment shared in common had to be duplicated, and the number of work stations was not increased. The photography class was reestablished after being inactive for a few years. The department is in the process of acquiring more equipment for the photo lab to promote these popular courses. The ceramics classes were moved across campus, which has created its own set of problems. There is limited space and equipment to teach these growing classes and inadequate kilns to fire the students’ work. The computer graphics facilities have been greatly improved by the relocation to the new High Tech Center.

The facilities are not adequate. They create a logistics problem because they are scattered over the campus and in the downtown area. The room size for ceramics, sculpture, photography, and jewelry (all located in small spaces) limit the number of students in the classroom. Although the department has hired several lab technicians to monitor studio time, the distance between all the studios, the budget, and the limited equipment all create an ongoing challenge. Repairs are not always done in a timely manner. Students have been continually requesting more space and equipment with each course evaluation.

In the past 10 years, the enrollment has more than doubled, but the annual budget remains at $3,000, the same that it has been for twenty years. This budget must serve several sections of drawing, sculpture, painting, photography, ceramics, jewelry, quilting, crafts, Ideas and the Creative Process, Survey of Art, Visual Foundations, and some expenses for graphic arts.

Compressed programs. Art 101, Beginning Drawing, is offered in a compressed version as part of the vocational degrees in our mining programs. Students take this course for three consecutive weeks every day for two hours and forty-five minutes. Although the students follow the same curriculum as the full semester college course (Art 101), it differs in the fact that this class includes more information on mechanical drawing. Although students do work very hard at completing the quantity of classes prescribed, it seems that the quality of time spent could be improved. Progress does not occur at the same rate as the “normal semester” student because there is no “down time” for the student to evaluate the subject being taught.

General education. The Fine Arts Department has taken to heart the value of the art curriculum and the way its learning relates to other disciplines. Art instructors encourage co-curricular activities to reinforce learning. For example, a student may build a model of the Luxor Temple, as studied in Survey of Art, European Civilization, CADD, and 3-D Design. As a result of their increased visual literacy learned in art, students have successful outcomes in other courses: The drawing student reinforces the learned information as he/she draws the frog in science lab, the structure of a crystal in geology, the fractals found in nature, or the “golden section” of an architectural plan.

Assessment of student learning. When the department revised the general education core curriculum, there was an interesting concurrent improvement in the department’s overall offerings: Written assessment of studio classes, in-class critiques and quizzes became more demanding and rigorous. The in-service classes that were offered to the faculty in grading, assessment, course syllabi, etc., raised the instructors’ awareness in “spelling out the requirements in detail” and following through with assessments. The outcome map for the department is located in the supporting documents binder.

STRENGTHS
• Excellent full-time and part-time instructors, artists and educators.
• Enhancement of equipment in the past five years.

CHALLENGES
• The isolation of the various studios from one another and therefore the fragmentation of a collective atmosphere of creative energy.
• A need for one more position—ideally two half time positions split between the photography and the ceramics areas.
• Small sculpture, jewelry, and ceramic studios.
• Limited operational budget.

RECOMMENDATIONS/ACTION ITEMS
• Develop an “Arts Endorsement” for the education majors.
• Develop a permanent curator position and a budget for that position.
• Continue to develop the Graphic Arts Program.
• Expand the upper-division courses that will fulfill the arts endorsement and an emphasis in Fine Art under the Bachelor of Professional Studies.
• Build a Fine Arts Building.