Meg Banks
News Reporter

A Humber program that produces successful grads is having trouble keeping afloat said dean of creative and performing arts, Joe Kertes.
Despite a high graduation and employment rate, the full-time Arts Administration program was cancelled after last school year.
The two-year, continuing education program of the same name is expected to last only through this term, said former program co-ordinator Anne Frost.
“We’re in trouble even with the continuing education program,” said Kertes.
The programs train students in the finer points of managing an artistic venue, such as art shows or theatre production with an emphasis on business and management, Frost said.
But Kertes said the programs are closing because, while successful and popular, they don’t make enough money with only 30 grads, and expanding the program would flood the job market.
“It was losing money – and it couldn’t support even a co-ordinator, let alone any full-time faculty,” said Kertes.
Frost said she knows why the program isn’t thriving.
“Humber isn’t supporting the program with any promotion or marketing. It’s not looking to attract new students,” she said.
Some prospective students were left out in the cold by the college’s decision to shut the program down.
University of Liverpool grad Joanne Bowers, 23, moved to Toronto from England in 2008 to take the program.
After arranging to fly over and live with her partner, Bowers saw on the Humber program website “a very casual message saying the program had been delayed a year.”
She got a retail job in Toronto while waiting for the program to re-start.
Bowers is still working there, after finding out in May 2009 that the program was cancelled for good.
“It was a massive disappointment,” she said, “it’s a hugely important program to offer, especially in such an artistically creative city like Toronto.”
While University of Toronto and Fleming College have similar, but longer programs, there is expected to be a gap for small theatre companies and other not-for-profit groups that often benefited most from the skills of Humber’s graduates.
According to the 2007 Humber Grad Report, 94 per cent of the program’s grads found jobs in their field within six months of graduation.