Creative arts staff have been left “exhausted” by their huge workload, according to a damning new report on the school, while some of its facilities are in need of “urgent attention”.
The quality review, obtained by The University Times, was prepared by external reviewers from various universities around the world, including Harvard University and the University of Glasgow. It aims to address the “challenging context” faced by Trinity’s School of Creative Arts – comprised of music, film, and drama – and recommends a variety of measures in order to improve the running of the school.
The review describes the music facilities in House Five as requiring “urgent attention”, stating that the department is “currently operating in a space that cannot be addressed by minor changes”. Many of the rooms in House Five are not properly soundproofed and the review notes that “the quirks of the space pose insuperable challenges to the basic functioning of the department”.
As a consequence of this, the review recommends that the department be relocated to the Samuel Beckett Centre, where it would be co-located with the Drama and Theatre Studies Department.
The review also recommends that many creative arts classes move to the Arts Technology Research Lab, located on Pearse St. The lab is mainly used for postgraduate study in the creative arts and features a multi-use performance space, video systems, and audio and video workstations.
The review, which describes this facility as “under-used”, recommends the relocation as a medium-term response to space constraints and poor facilities on campus, noting that a building manager will be necessary for “helping to erase students’ oft-articulated sense that the ATRL is an unpopulated moon in some distant outer orbit from the main campus”.
In response to the huge workload faced by creative arts staff, the review recommends that the curriculum for creative arts subjects be extensively revised. Staff, it says, “report being exhausted, with little capacity to envisage and then deliver new initiatives”. The review advises the school to implement modules that can be taken by all creative arts students, and says the number of modules offered should be reduced.
Beyond this, the review recommends smaller changes, such as the implementation of annual school research planning days, the appointment of a temporary Development Officer, and the relocation of the offices of the Head of School and School Manager, so that they are closer to at least one of the school’s departments.
In a letter in response to this quality review, obtained by The University Times, the Head of the School of Creative Arts, Prof Matthew Causey, said that the school “will endeavour to undertake a thorough curriculum-mapping exercise”.
Causey said “College leadership and planning” would be required if the music facilities were to move to the Samuel Beckett Centre. He also said the school will start timetabling more classes in the Arts Technology Research Lab, but warned of the “inevitable loss of ATRL’s current building in the near future as the Grand Canal Innovation District (GCID) evolves”.
The quality review comes amid reports that College is considering relocating the creative arts department as a whole to its proposed Technology and Enterprise Campus (TTEC). In his letter, Causey said the school was “enthusiastic” about the potential move.
Speaking to The University Times, the Head of the Department of Film Studies, Dr Ruth Barton, said the move was “very, very likely”. However, she said College has not made creative arts staff aware of its plans for the school. Any potential move, she said, is “really quite far down the line”.
In 2016, the School of Drama, Film and Music rebranded as the School of Creative Arts, in order to “help to communicate” to the College community the school’s “developing research agenda in creative arts practices and their critical studies”.
At the time, in an email sent to students, Causey said the name change would help the school to seek funding and support. He said it would improve the “student experience” as well as helping the school attract new students.
He said the change would have no effect on degrees, course options, modules, assessments, the degree designation or a student’s affiliation with a particular department.
The school boasts an impressive list of famous alumni including Tom Vaughan Lawlor, Ruth Negga, and Aaron Heffernan, stars of the hit RTÉ series Love/ Hate, Allen Leech of Downton Abbey and Dominic West, best known for his role in The Wire.
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson, who is best known as the director of Room, Frank and What Richard Did, is the filmmaker in residence for the film studies course in the Department of Film, and is closely associated with the school.
Neasa Hardiman, a Bafta winner in 2010, is also a graduate of the school. Composers such as Donnacha Dennehy and Garrett Sholdice, who are graduates from the school, have had works performed by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and in the National Concert Hall, as well as around the globe.
