On May 31, the University of the Arts, commonly called UArts, informed its approximately 1,100 students and 700 staffers of the imminent closure. Confusion and outrage immediately erupted, as students scrambled for a means to salvage their in-progress degrees. UArts leadership has promised to provide its students a “pathway” to other Philadelphia schools, such as Temple University or Drexel University, while staffers have grown litigious: Only days after the announcement, nine employees filed a class action lawsuit that accuses management of violating a 1988 law that requires most employers with at least 100 employees to provide a 60-day notice of mass closings or layoffs. 

The United Academics of Philadelphia, the union representing UArts professors, has called the decision to close the school “cruel”.

The Philadelphia City Council passed a resolution on June 6 to conduct hearings about the closure. A day later, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and state lawmakers announced that they were investigating the circumstances of the closure, as well as “any transfer or loss of assets.” 

“We are looking into holding a hearing and seeing what broader investigative powers we can use in the state legislative committees to investigate,” state senator Nikil Saval said in a statement. “It should wake many of us up to the fragility of the arts infrastructure in Philadelphia, which is extraordinary given how little support it gets.”

UArts is a nearly 150-year-old institution with a formerly respected standing in the Philadelphia art community; its storied alumni roster includes Irving Penn, Alex Da Corte, and Jonathan Lyndon Chase. On May 31, however, the university revealed that it had lost accreditation with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and that it would not offer classes in the fall. Several days later, UArts’s president, Kerry Walk, resigned.

 UArts leadership has cited low enrollment and a dire financial situation as the cause of the closure, stating, “With a cash position that has steadily weakened, we could not cover significant, unanticipated expenses. The situation came to light very suddenly.” The school has not disclosed the details of its finances, but the Philadelphia Inquirer has quoted a board trustee who said at least $40 million was needed to bail UArts out of its crisis.

THE HEADLINES

CLOSED FOR BUSINESS. More details are emerging about the sudden closure of Philadelphia’s University of the Arts (UArts), whose last day of operation was on June 8. Students and faculty only learned of the shuttering days one week prior. Local publications report that 600 staffers were laid off during a conference call that Friday, with some given the option to work until the end of the month. UArts management, which said low enrollment and an unsalvageable financial situation contributed to the school’s decision to shutter, has since been hit with a class action lawsuit by nine of its employees, who have accused leadership of withholding wages for hours worked and unused vacation time. That same week, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and state lawmakers announced an investigation into the circumstances of the closures, as well as “any transfer or loss of assets.” Even the governor has weighed in, saying he was “angry and disappointed” about the closure, which has left roughly 1,000 students to an uncertain fate.

UNION DRIVE. After weeks of contentious campaigning, workers at Glenstone, a private art museum founded by billionaire collectors Mitchell and Emily Wei Rales, have voted to form a union. A group of 89 hourly-wage workers will begin the bargaining process with museum management. Elizabeth Shaw, a union organizer employed as a grounds and visitor experience liaison, told the Washington Post that Glenstone workers are willing to move past the weeks of “animosity and hurt” prior to the election as they sit down at the bargaining table. With this action, Glenstone joins a host of museums to see successful union drives in recent years. The same week as the Glenstone vote, employees of the American Folk Art Museum in New York voted unanimously to join UAW Local 2110, which represents some of the nation’s leading art institutions.

THE DIGEST

The Financial Times took the temperature on Neuroaesthetics, a relatively new field of science (the term was coined in 1999) that studies cognitive responses to aesthetic stimuli. According to the science, our brains innately crave beauty, though researchers are still seeking the an answer to why. [Financial Times]

A metal detectorist has unearthed a 1,000-year-old silver ingot from the Viking Age on the Isle of Man. Like an upstanding citizen, he promptly relinquished it to local heritage authority, which dubbed the discovery a “treasure.” [Live Science]

For the first time, Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhône has returned to Arles, the French city where the famous painting was made in 1888. The work is on loan from Paris’s Musée d’Orsay for the exhibition “Van Gogh and the Stars,” which features some 78 historical and contemporary artists and runs through September 8. [Design Boom]

The Italian government is at work on a new “mega museum” that will purportedly be “the biggest cultural infrastructure in Europe.” The museum will be housed in the renovated Albergo dei Poveri in Naples, one of Europe’s most sprawling historic buildings, which has gone mostly disused in recent years. Renovation work started in April and is due to be finished by mid-2026. [The Art Newspaper] 

A woman has been charged for dousing more than a dozen displays at the Milwaukee Public Museum with olive oil. Among the eclectic objects targeted was a vintage Harley Davidson and a rhinoceros skeleton. [WISN]

Last week, dozens of anti-Zionist artists withdrew their works from an exhibition from Contemporary Jewish Museum’s first-ever open call in protest of the war in Gaza. One artist, Vanessa Thill, took the protest farther, breaking her sculpture Cleave-To (His Cheeks Were Beds of Spices, from 2023, in view of museumgoers. [Hyperallergic]

THE KICKER

EDGE OF GLORY. The speedo-clad man dipped a toe off the museum’s roof. With a slight bend of his knees, he leapt into the sky, cutting an arrow’s arc into the brisk Boston harbor below. This was no performance art, but it was an artful performance. On Saturday, the city’s Institute of Contemporary Art played stage to a cliff diving competition that drew elite athletes from around Australia, Romania, England, and beyond. Participants plunged from a protruding platform down some seven stories through the air, twisting and somersaulting under the keen gaze of the judges—and some 45,000 spectators. According to local media, the art museum had only praise for the divers, calling their aerial maneuvers “visually stunning.” Based on photographs of the event published by Boston.com, we’d agree. Check out the images here, and stay tuned for round two.  

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The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the city’s federal court and accuses the school, commonly called UArts, of violating the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act), a 1988 law that requires most employers with at least 100 employees to provide a 60-day notice of mass closings or layoffs. The plaintiffs also accuse the college leadership of withholding wages for hours worked and unused vacation time, a violation of the Pennsylvania Wage Payment Collection Law.

The United Academics of Philadelphia, the union representing UArts professors, called the decision of the UArts board and management “cruel,” and has demanded the board pay staff for all hours worked and provide a severance package.

“This situation reflects a complete failure of leadership,” Eric Lechtzin, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, told Philadelphia Magazine. “It is incomprehensible how they could announce the closing of the university within seven days, with no prior warning to anyone. In fact, I’ve heard from people who recently left tenured positions at other schools to join the faculty and staff of UArts, only to learn mere weeks or months into their new position that UArts is closing.”

On June 7, the school’s last day of operation, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and state lawmakers announced that they were investigating the circumstances of the closures, as well as “any transfer or loss of assets,” according to the New York Times. 

“We are looking into holding a hearing and seeing what broader investigative powers we can use in the state legislative committees to investigate,” senator Nikil Saval said in a statement. “It should wake many of us up to the fragility of the arts infrastructure in Philadelphia, which is extraordinary given how little support it gets.”

The Philadelphia City Council passed a resolution on June 6 to conduct hearings about the closure.

UArts, a nearly 150-year-old institution with a storied alumni roster that includes Irving Penn, Alex Da Corte, and Jonathan Lyndon Chase, announced its closure on May 31, to the shock of approximately 700 faculty and 1,100 students. In a statement released that day, the university revealed that it had lost accreditation with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and that it would not offer classes in the fall. A few days later, UArts’s president, Kerry Walk, resigned.

The school has promised to provide its students a “pathway” to other Philadelphia schools, such as Temple University, Drexel University, and Moore College of Art and Design.

On June 2, the school announced that trustees had approved the closure the day prior and that the school would not reopen. Its final day of operation was June 7. The school cited low enrollment and its financial situation as the cause, saying, “With a cash position that has steadily weakened, we could not cover significant, unanticipated expenses. The situation came to light very suddenly.” 

The school has not disclosed the details of its finances, but according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, a board trustee said it would take at least $40 million to salvage the crisis.

Backlash to the announcement was swift, with faculty and students sharing their shocked reactions over the weekend on social media. In one widely shared Reddit post, a user claiming to be a current student alleged that they had received a tuition bill shortly before the closure was made public.

Meanwhile, local media reports stated that Temple University was exploring avenues of aid, including a possible merger with UArts.

“This is a fluid situation,” a Temple spokesperson said. “We are committed to continuing conversations with UArts representatives to explore all options and possible solutions to preserve the arts and the rich legacy of this 150-year old institution.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Kerry Walk left her post as president on Tuesday, just days before the university is set to shutter, leaving the future of many current students uncertain.

Walk had only become president of UArts in April of last year. A UArts spokesperson did not respond to ARTnews’s request for comment on the Inquirer report.

Plans to close UArts were announced last Friday after the school lost accreditation. The university blamed its “weakened” financial state and said it had no option other than to close.

“This sudden resignation, announced via the media, continues the pattern of disregard and cruelty to which the University of Arts has subjected employees and students,” the United Academics of Philadelphia, a union that includes UArts teachers, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The union also said that the president and the board had “behaved disgracefully and irresponsibly” after calling off a town hall about the closure intended for students and faculty.

While it remains unclear what will happen to current UArts sutdents, at least three local schools—Temple University, Drexel University, and Moore College of Art and Design—have said they will bring them on.

The University of the Arts, or UArts as it is known for short, was founded in 1876, and has been considered one of the top art schools in Philadelphia. Its alumni include Harlem Renaissance sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Precisionist painter Charles Sheeler, photographer Irving Penn, video artist Cecelia Condit, filmmaker and sculptor Alex Da Corte, painter and sculptor Jonathan Lyndon Chase, and artist and photography historian Deborah Willis.

On May 31, the university wrote in a statement that it had lost accreditation with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and that it would not offer classes in the fall. It promised to offer students a “pathway” to other local schools, including Temple University, Drexel University, and Moore College of Art and Design.

Then, on June 2, the school announced that trustees had approved the closure the day before and that the shuttering would be permanent.

“Under extraordinary circumstances, we diligently assessed the urgent crisis presented and pathways to keep the institution open,” the school wrote. “Despite our best efforts, we could not ultimately identify a viable path for the institution to remain open and in the service of its mission. With the priority of addressing the impact that our decision will have on the UArts community, as well as our home in the City of Philadelphia, we are committed to supporting our students, faculty, and staff through this heartbreaking transition.”

The school said the swift closure had arisen from its financial situation: “with a cash position that has steadily weakened, we could not cover significant, unanticipated expenses. The situation came to light very suddenly.”

It is the second major Philadelphia art school to shutter this year, after the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which said it would close its degree-granting programs following the 2024–25 school year. That art school, like UArts, is more than a century old. (Previously, UArts had also offered its services to outgoing students from PAFA.)

Other longstanding US art schools have shuttered as well in the past few years. The San Francisco Art Institute, one of the nation’s oldest and most highly esteemed art schools, officially shuttered in 2022.

Meanwhile, the Art Institutes, a for-profit organization that ran eight art schools nationwide, abruptly wound up operations in 2023. President Joe Biden recently said he would forgive $6.1 billion in debt for former students at those schools.

Over the weekend, the UArts closure gained negative attention on social media after many reposted a Reddit comment whose writer claimed to be a current student. That comment alleged that they had received a tuition bill not long before UArts’s closure was announced and said faculty and students were “blindsided” by the news.

“People should probably go to jail for this,” reads one tweet featuring a screenshot of that comment. The tweet currently has 31,000 likes.

A UArts spokesperson did not respond to request for comment regarding how and when students were notified of the closure, and whether tuition bills were sent prior to the announcement of the shuttering.

The statement about the shuttering says that UArts’s final day in operation will be this Friday.