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The University of Louisville is home to a wide variety of cultural and entertainment venues. Students have the opportunity to see and experience jazz concerts, Shakespearian plays and contemporary art. Film festivals, like the Dissent! series, and writing workshops, like the Anne and William Axton Reading Series, enrich the collegiate environment and primarily benefit students, who gain a well-rounded education outside the classroom from many of these experiences.
“Art is what separates us from the animals,” said Korin Kormick, U of L School of Music Publications and Media Relations Director, and there are many opportunities available to students entirely free of cost.
“As students we’re lucky to have access to unique, hard-to-find films like [those featured in film festivals on campus],” said sophomore Remington Smith, a student film committee member.
Events held on campus, however, are often sparsely taken advantage of by U of L students. Attendance at plays and concerts sometimes become required of students taking courses like music and theatre appreciation.
“Students get credit for going to shows,” said James Cronin, U of L Studio Theatre Coordinator, “as soon as there is no longer credit, there is no attendance.”
Requiring students to attend theatre and music performances is one way to ensure exposure to the arts, but as college students, paying for our education should mean we want to get the very most out of it. This mindset must be taught early, however, and too often the window of opportunity has been missed.
Emphasis on the arts in education from kindergarten through college has drastically dwindled in the last twenty years.
A 1995 National Center for Education Statistics survey reported that only eight percent of public elementary schools and 43 percent of public secondary schools offer any instruction in theatre, with dance and creative writing also infrequently taught. “Students don’t value their imaginations,” said Cronin, “they don’t value their ability to explore [the world] with their own ideas and mind. The appeal of the arts is lost on them.”
Independent thinking and innovations are often the result of artistic expression. The arts not only serve to enhance the world we inhabit, but make it livable. The houses we live in, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, the things we say and do are all products of artistic expression.
Moreover, the arts are an integral part of our cultural history. The ways in which we remember historical and political events are through artistic expressions of them. The Vietnam War gave us Bob Dylan’s protest songs, the Depression gave us John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath,” and the Revolutionary War gave us Betsy Ross’ American Flag. Our history and lives are shaped by these events, and the ways in which we come to know and understand them is through the arts.
Perhaps the arts really are what separate us from the animals after all. And with many events in the community so easily accessible to students, because of proximity to the university or free admission, there’s almost no excuse for not taking advantage of all the local art scene has to offer.
