Draft 2020: Musician’s Resources

Dear CalArts Faculty & Staff:

Many of you have undoubtedly seen the sad news about our sister institution to the north, the San Francisco Art Institute. An email from their President and Board Chair is below. Many of you have connections to SFAI, as former faculty, staff, or alum, or you know friends in these groups. For all of us, it is a sad day to see an institution with such a strong history struggle in a globally difficult moment.

The economic strain being put upon us today – a consequence of the restrictions required to manage this new coronavirus – highlights the precarity of artists and the institutions for which they work. This moment can have existential consequences for both, as it has for SFAI.

We are doing what we can as a school to work with our colleagues in San Francisco to help support their student artists. I know many of you are involved with this, despite this challenging time for us all; thank you for that.

This will likely be the most difficult year in our history. In the weeks and months to come, we will be required to work together in ways we may never have before. We will have to look out for each other, take care of each other, and take care of our students. While there will be difficult decisions to make, the bonds of our community will be our strength.

I know we will emerge from this crisis, because I trust each of you to help make that possible. I cannot imagine navigating these unchartered waters with a better set of colleagues, or within a better community.

Please continue to be healthy and safe, and check-in on one another, as we move forward together, but physically apart.

In solidarity,

Ravi

March 23, 2020 Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, and Supporters, Over the past many months, the leadership of SFAI has been aggressively pursuing a number of strategies that would ensure long-term financial sustainability for our school, in hopes of setting the stage for a new era of growth as we approached our 150th anniversary. Foremost among the options we considered was the possibility of merging or collaborating with another larger educational institution with the scale and resources necessary to help us survive, prosper and grow in today’s hypercompetitive landscape. Our goal was to find a partner that would share our values and vision, as well as honor, support and advance our long-standing commitment to the teaching of art and artists. We identified several potential partners, and that process led to formal and very promising negotiations with two of the Bay Area’s finest institutions of higher learning. We regret to say that those talks reached an impasse this past week, in no small measure due to the unanticipated hardships and uncertainty wrought by the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic, as each partner turned its undivided attention to the immediate and still unknown future impacts on their campus communities. This development raised immediate concerns about our ability to reach a deal during the initial timeline that was contemplated. As a result, SFAI’s leadership has no clear path to admit a class of new students for the fall of 2020. Given our current financial situation, and what we expect to be a precipitous decline in enrollment due to the pandemic, we are now considering the suspension of our regular courses and degree programs starting immediately after graduation in May of this year. At this time, it is unclear when instruction will resume, and in what form, pending our efforts to secure additional funding and potentially resume our talks with educational partners.   What does this mean for our current students? Remote and virtual instruction at SFAI will continue through the end of the Spring 2020 semester, so that all students have an opportunity to earn appropriate credits for their work.  Graduating BFA, MFA, and MA students should expect to receive their degrees in May as scheduled. All other provisions in place to address COVID-19 remain in effect, including the cancellation of BFA/MFA exhibitions and commencement.  We are in negotiations with our faculty and staff unions now about the feasibility of continuing classes and degree programs in Summer/Fall 2020, hoping to have a final resolution as soon as we can. Given where we are in the admissions cycle, we understand that the prospect of class suspension just months away presents a formidable timing challenge for our current students who had planned to continue their education SFAI uninterrupted, but in the interest of shared governance we are committed to working with our staff and faculty to make the right decision for all. In the meantime, continuing students may choose to pursue placement at another school with our help, starting immediately and we encourage you to do so. Staff is available to work one-on-one with each of you over the coming days and weeks to smooth the transition beyond SFAI, resolving issues related to tuition, student aid, housing, graduation and transferring credits to other programs so that your education in the arts can continue as seamlessly as possible.  What does this mean for our faculty and staff? In the next few days all faculty and staff will receive notifications that layoffs are planned for end of this semester, as required by state law and in light of the current financial crisis and still-unknown impacts of COVID-19. SFAI leadership is already in discussions with our unions about the timing and terms of any layoffs, and more information will be forthcoming shortly. Over the coming days and weeks our leadership team will also be convening unit-level conference calls and virtual meetings with employees to discuss and coordinate completion of this semester’s activities, and establish a virtual “one stop shop” for employees to understand their options and access to benefits. What does this mean for SFAI moving forward? In our long history, SFAI has survived countless calamitous events – none more dramatic than the 1906 earthquake that destroyed our first home on Nob Hill. Out of that disaster we emerged stronger than ever, establishing a world-class art institution that has since reinvented itself time and time again, endeavoring always to be at the forefront of new genres, new media, new means and modes of expression, always willing to take chances and risk failure in the passionate pursuit of art making.   Today we as an institution are facing a new set of challenges that will force us to evolve, and in the months and years ahead our goal will be to reinvent ourselves once again, perhaps taking a new form for a new era, but unwavering in the commitment to art and artists we have sustained over the past 149 years. While we remain hopeful there is a strategic partnership that will allow this commitment to continue, we are realistic that this will not happen any time soon in the face of an unprecedented global pandemic.     Sincerely,               Gordon Knox                                                    Pam Rorke Levy President                                                         Chair, Board of Trustees

Dear Staff:

Many of you have inquired about setting up direct deposit to receive your payroll checks. As a result of the current stay at home order, we have developed new procedures to enable you to sign up for direct deposit while providing security for your personal information. If you would like to sign up for direct deposit, please follow the procedures listed below. 

Staff/student bi-weekly payroll:

Payroll must receive your banking information before/on Monday, March 30 by 2:00 pm for the direct deposit to begin on the April 3 payday.

New Direct Deposit Procedures:

• Please send an email to payroll@calarts.edu requesting a Direct Deposit Authorization form (“DDA”); 
• A Payroll team member will email you the DDA form via DocuSign. For your safety and security, we will send the DDA to your CalArts email address only. 
• You must return the required documents via Docusign; 
• Please provide a callback phone number on the DDA so that Payroll can call to verify your account and routing numbers; 
• Again for your safety and security, Payroll will not be able to process your DDA request if they cannot verify your banking information. 

When completing the DDA, please include the ‘routing and account numbers”. The image below details where this information is located on a check. If you do not have personal checks, please go to your banking institution’s ebranch and search for “Routing & Account #” to retrieve this information.

Our goal is to serve you as best we can during this difficult time. Please feel free to email payroll@calarts.edu if you have any questions or need further assistance.

Regards,

Charmagne Shearrill

Associate Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer

Sabrina Morales

Payroll Manager