Vince Pitelka on mon 21 jul 97
Dear Clayarters -
After the heroic effort so many of you put forth in our fight to save the
Appalachian Center for Crafts, I certainly owe you an update on the
situation. Currently, it is certainly not hopeless, but it is damned
frustrating. The stodgy administration at Tennessee Tech simply will not
take a stand one way or the other. It is very obvious by now that they want
to get out of the Craft Center business, but they will not present a plan to
the state legislature to save the Center by some other means, because they
think it will detract from other things they are presenting to the
legislature. And the legislators themselves tell us it is very hard for
them to stand behind us when the TTU administration will not. It is a
catch-22 of the worse kind, and at this point I have absolutely no idea how
it will turn out.
The three non-tenured faculty at the Center, including myself, have all been
given notice that we will be on contract only through the 97-98 school year.
President Volpe says that if funding is found to support the Center, then
our contracts will certainly be extended, but he is doing nothing to find
funding. It is an appalling situation, because, as I have explained before,
we have done everything right at our end - excellent facility well
maintained, growing student numbers, active workshop program, growing
national visibility, etc. What is happening to us has absolutely nothing to
do with us, except for the shady history of the place during the 1980s. The
TTU administration has played upon that history, and many of the legislators
are aware of that history, and as a result they tend to give TTU more
credibility than they accord us. As many of us know, our facility is
located 20 miles away from the main TTU campus, on a beautiful wilderness
tract far away from all population centers. The isolation is a wonderful
aspect of our facility, but in this case, the politicians who could so
easily help us instead can so easily ignore us.
At this point, I would say that our survival depends most critically upon
our ability to impact the Governor of Tennessee and the State Legislature
before the 1998 legislative session. We have many strategies in the works,
but sometime later in the year I may ask for another round of letters and
email - just want to warn you in advance. Your help is so greatly
appreciated, and the fact that this thing is not yet entirely a done deal is
largely due to the efforts of all of you. What an extraordinary bunch of
clay folks.
If you have questions or comments concerning this message, please send them
to me, but I may not respond right away, as I leave on Wednesday morning for
the West Coast for a month to conduct workshops and visit friends/family. I
would be interested in any suggestions or feedback any of you have. Hope
the remainder of the summer rewards you with much good fun and good work.
- Vince
Vince Pitelka - vpitelka@DeKalb.net
Home 615/597-5376, work 615/597-6801, fax 615/597-6803
Appalachian Center for Crafts
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
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