Acknowledging poor music facilities in the College of Fine Arts, Boston University officials and faculty said the college is planning renovations.
“Our facilities are known by everyone to be quite inadequate,” said CFA dean ad interim Walt Meissner. “[They’re] not sufficient for the level of work that we do.”
Meissner said CFA does not have enough practice rooms, and the approximately 70 rooms that are available are not soundproof.
It is well-known by faculty within CFA that music rooms are in need of repair and maintenance, said BU Music Organizations Director Chris Parks.
“Imagine your frustration if you were a music major, and that’s all you had to work with,” he said. “Those rooms that aren’t soundproof, they’re just not appropriate.”
Other on-campus music groups face limited practice space, Parks said. Larger ensembles like the BU Pep Band share small practice space on a Babcock Street garage with ROTC at the allocated time.
“We can’t make any noise, because we’re sharing it with classroom space,” Parks said. “It’s not fair for the band kids or for the ROTC kids.
“We need long-range visions, but I think there is a lot of things [the university] could do immediately to address these issues that students have,” he continued. “I want to make it so any kid on campus can make music.”
Many CFA music students, recognizing the limited practice space, are asking for an increase, Meissner said. Working with President Robert Brown, Meissner is in the initial stages of planning facilities renovation.
“Our new facilities plan is to produce roughly 125 soundproofed teaching and practice spaces,” he said. “We’re trying to essentially double our teaching and practice space in the near future.”
Meissner said he has also spoken to Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore about strategically putting music rooms around campus so non-CFA students have greater access to music facilities.
“We really do want to have a more open and music-friendly community,” Meissner said.
He recommended the university support any future plans to add CFA-maintained music rooms in other on-campus locations, including the George Sherman Union and residence halls.
There are less than two dozen on-campus music rooms, said Office of Residence Life Director David Zamojski.
“Access to the music practice rooms is on a first-come-first-serve basis,” he said.
While Zamojski said ORL does not receive many complaints about practice room shortages, some students said there are not enough residence hall music rooms, and those that are available are poorly maintained.
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences sophomore Jon Suen, a violinist for 12 years, said the music room in his South Campus building is “not [the] proper environment for practicing.”
Warren Towers resident Ashlie Anctil, a pianist for 11 years and current piano tutor, said she has difficulties reserving the music rooms.
“It’s frustrating when you go down to the music room and it’s reserved,” the College of Communication freshman said. “And it seems like it’s always reserved.”
Warren Towers policy states music room reservations may only be made during regular ORL office hours and can be reserved in one-hour time slots.
Meissner said because a typical CFA student practices four to six hours a day, the college is not satisfied with the current music room situation on the BU campus.
“It’s been an ongoing problem for a number of years, and it’s getting worse as we have more students who express interest in . . . using our facilities,” he said.