SILA Budget Freeze Another Hit to Art Students
By Meghan Hall
Published April 13, 2026
A School of Integrated Liberal Arts, as a term broadly, has floated around rather vaguely for about a year. Now in its inaugural semester, SILA has taken form into something more substantial this year, but not without hiccups. Less than a month into the semester, SILA announced a freeze to its goods and services budget, a move that has concerned students and faculty and that SILA leadership says was a consequence of mid-year restructuring. The goods and services budget funds certain discretionary spending but not ‘big-ticket’ items like professors’ salaries.
According to PSU’s official School of Integrated Liberal Arts website, SILA aims to “encourage students’ creative spirit as they perfect their technique under the guidance of master performers and teachers. The integrated and collaborative programs give students of every discipline a chance to shine.”
One of six schools now forming Plymouth State, SILA encompasses a wide range of programs, faculty, and staff, including English, Communications and Media Studies, History, Art and Design, Interdisciplinary Studies, Music, Theater, and Dance majors. It is also the home for key campus spaces like the Silver Center and the Draper & Maynard building, and represents the voices of some Lamson Library staff, such as the CoLab.
SILA leadership decided to freeze the goods and services budget after they discovered in late January that what remained in the budget was much less than what they had anticipated, said SILA Director John Krueckeberg in an email.
When SILA formed, it merged together the smaller “academic units” that formerly housed programs, each AU with their own spending and–sometimes poor–record-keeping habits. SILA Director Jason Charrette explained that AU budgets were merged during that process as well, which was likely the cause of SILA’s overspending. “It was easy to lose track of what happened” through the mid-year restructuring, Charrette said.
The SILA goods and services budget is also funded in part by student course fees. “There’ll be a class, and there are course fees attached to the class. That’s often allocated for the goods and services budget,” Charrette said. “If you’ve got a lot of courses with course fees, you get a really big goods and services budget.”
Many PSU courses require lab fees to fund the material needs of the class. Lab fees are common in art classes, where the regular purchase of supplies is essential to student learning. Examples include the purchase of clay for ceramics courses or access to canvas, frames, and gesso for painting classes. Without course fees and professors buying items at cheaper, wholesale costs, art classes become less accessible to students who lack expendable income.
One faculty member told The Clock via email under the condition of anonymity that he was “only able to spend 10% of lab fees paid by students for the Spring 2026 semester before the unscheduled budget freeze.”
For art students, the consequences of this are immediate and tangible. With budgets frozen, professors are unable to fully access these funds, which leaves students in a difficult position: paying for resources they believe they have already paid for in their course fee or having to use the limited supplies left around D&M.
Though many students may believe their course fees go directly into the budget for a given class, the reality is a little more complicated. “What [Finance] does is they average together, they go, ‘what were the course fees in these areas over the last three years?’ And then we end up getting a percentage of that.” Charrette explained. Even if a professor set the course fee higher for the following semester, “it wouldn’t actually change the budget for several years, because it’s a moving average,” he said.
At the same time, reduced access to physical spaces has only worsened student frustration. The Draper & Maynard building, which used to be available to students every day of the week, has tightened its schedule to weekdays, during set hours. According to SILA professors—and confirmed by Charrette—this was due to safety concerns as opposed to budgetary constraints, as students would have otherwise had unfettered access to potentially dangerous equipment and chemicals.
Due to the safety concerns, all studio spaces are locked if a professor is not actively present, meaning that student access to D&M does not always align with the demands of student artists, who often require long, flexible working hours outside of scheduled class time.
“We don’t have materials like a kiln, clay mixer, or glaze materials […] available to us in our dorms,” Art and Design student Rosella Rentas-Ubeda told The Clock via email.
For seniors working on their capstone projects in Graphic Design, Art Education, and Studio Art, the situation is especially frustrating. While seniors technically have their own studio space in D&M, limited building access forces many to work elsewhere, often in spaces that are not equipped or appropriate for large-scale or material-intensive projects.
Ariana Hopewell, a Studio Art senior, explained, “I am scheduled to work afternoons and nights during the week, so most of my free time comes on weekends. … With the building closed, my time to work on my art is greatly limited.” For Hopewell, working at home isn’t realistic. “Frequently moving large canvases from the studio to my room isn’t sustainable, especially when my living space does not have the room and equipment for me to effectively create. I had also planned to include printmaking in my capstone, but … I feel like these changes have stunted my access to achieving a capstone and portfolio that reflects my far-reaching creativity.”
Students also point to the closure of the Museum of the White Mountains as a symbolic loss, connected to the same struggles we see in D&M cut hours and the SILA budget freeze. Thomas Fifield, an Art and Design Senior who was previously employed by the Museum of the White Mountains, explained via email, “Every day [art students] get some fresh hell thrown our way.” He continued, “The vibes right now are ‘abandon all hope, ye who enter here.'”
Traditionally, Studio Art majors presented their senior year capstone in the Museum of the White Mountains, allowing them to get real-world, professional experience in exhibition work. Now, all senior capstones, including all Graphic Design, Art Ed, and Studio Art, have been consolidated in the Silver Center, meaning there is literally less room for student work.
“It sometimes feels like the school administration doesn’t fully understand some of their own programs and resources. No one seems to listen to why art students need D&M access for a lot of their work, what role the museum played in our program, the importance of art history,” said Natalie Morris, an Arts and Design major and a former employee of the Museum of the White Mountain. “There is a disconnect between what defines the BFA program, on paper, and what value it is actually bringing to students. Sure, the school could offer an all-in-one humanities degree, but is that actually what students want?”
Beyond logistics, these changes lead to a noticeable decline in morale, particularly within arts and humanities programs. Where there was once resistance to cuts and restructuring through protest, there is now a quieter sense of resignation reigning over the SILA department. Many students remain unaware of the full scope of changes, except for the changes that directly affect them.
Ultimately, the issue is not just about budgets, but cultural value. What does Plymouth State prioritize? What is our cultural identity now, and what do we want it to become? What kind of academic and creative environment do we want to sustain? For many students, especially those in the arts, the answer feels uncertain. “I think what the campus needs to see is a series of wins. Not just cutting, not just slashing, not just things getting worse, but things improving,” Charrette told The Clock. “To show that the structure can actually deliver on what we said it could.”