To the editor,
Re: Vancouver Island University may cut the music due to budget troubles, March 8.
As an alumnus of Malaspina College, I strongly urge the VIU administration to reconsider cutting the institution’s music programs, surely the institution’s greatest potential marketing tool.
The central Island is known literally the world over for the calibre and quality of musicians and music teachers it has generated for decades.
While the News Bulletin article expresses concern over the loss to the local music scene, ending the small VIU program really equals throwing away its national and international credibility. Malaspina University-College, and then Vancouver Island University, have produced superstar recording artists, a number of them women.
The article quotes a brilliant young music teacher schooled here, and dozens more teachers and hundreds of professional performers are scattered throughout North America.
Despite a COVID-19 slump in music program enrolment, surely some trimming around the edges of numerous VIU faculties would be a much wiser means of addressing budget shortfalls than the outright hacking of possibly this institution’s most widely known and respected program.
Garry Gaudet, Lantzville
READ ALSO: Vancouver Island University may cut the music due to budget troubles
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