The Fine Arts Department left St. Louis U. High Monday to discuss their goals and the future of the department. The meeting was a part of the multi-year, school-wide curriculum review taking place for each department.

The meeting was held at Jesuit Hall on St. Louis University’s campus. Department chair Kevin McKernan set the agenda for the day, and helped his colleagues on their course-level work.

“Our whole discussion was are we serving the students the best we can when it comes to Fine Arts?” said choir teacher Addie Akin. “The whole purpose of this curriculum review is to see what’s working, what isn’t, and just to see what’s best for the students.”

“We had some work to do on our goals for our department. We have a lot of sub-departments: music, theater and visual arts.” said McKernan. “Some of our conversations have been centered on what we all have in common among the different sub-departments, so that no matter what direction you go in, there is always an artistic process. So for example, even if you’re doing visual arts or theater, we think of the things we teach you as being based on a process. You have to revise things, polish things, get incrementally better at things.”

In addition to the artistic process, another key topic discussed by the department was artistic expression.

“Artistic expression is teaching students how to express themselves through whichever artform that might be,” said Akin.

They also discussed the Freshman Fine Arts survey course.

“We talked about some goals of our freshman survey course. What do we want kids to get out of our survey course?” said McKernan.

The department spent the morning eating breakfast and talking as a larger group. After that, the sub-departments of music, theater, and visual arts all split up into their smaller groups to discuss ways to better implement some of the goals they came up with.

The choir department had a few specific goals of their own: they hope they can allow students to develop both their love and understanding of music.

“I want kids to come to my class and sing and have fun, but I also want them to know how to read music,” Akin stated.

She suggested every day sight reading or written music theory quizzes to develop more knowledge of the class.

Overall, the choir courses are hoping for a deeper understanding of the art and value it brings to this school.

The main goal of the meeting was to develop an appreciation amongst the students about the fine arts courses offered.

“I think right now as it stands, it’s just an appreciation for what we teach,” said McKernan. “Hopefully (the students) start to get a sense of the technical skill that’s involved with each course, and also (learn) that art is a process.”