Grace Cavanaugh, Staff Writer~
Every year, students across the United States come to the University of Lynchburg to further their education and challenge their academic thought. This year, Lynchburg College changed its name to the University of Lynchburg, and along with that change came a variety of new areas of study. New majors and minors include: psychological science, pop culture, and forestry and wildlife. Furthermore, the University of Lynchburg broadened their schools. Each of the University’s majors and minors are divided into separate schools. For example, the School of Science includes majors and minors of chemistry, biology and physics, and the School of Humanities include majors and minors of English, foreign language, and religion.
Similarly, the University of Lynchburg is also divided into colleges. Some of these colleges include the Westover Honors College and the College of Business. When considering the different colleges, art and science are grouped, and together form the Lynchburg College of Arts and Sciences. This year marks the beginning of a new school: the School of Visual and Performing Arts. This new school recently separated from the School of Communications.
According to Dr. Delane Karalow, an art professor here at the University of Lynchburg, “there won’t be anything different, really, besides more of a focus on the arts rather than splitting between the arts and communication studies.”
As of yet, there has been no official announcement, and, according to Elizabeth Martin, a sophomore English and Theater double major, “I didn’t know it was a thing. Like, they didn’t do any announcements or anything. Ask any theater major, and they’ll probably say the same.”
“It could be because not everything has been worked out,” as Dr. Karalow chimes in, that “everything’s being reorganized and things haven’t been quite worked out yet.”
Ashani Parker is a self-designed Anthropology major, mixing pieces of sociology and art history as well as museum studies and anthropology. With her self-designed major comes a lot of meetings with different people to work out all the classes that are required of her. Parker says, “My new chair, I set up a meeting with her, and she’s in the Psychology department right now, so like everyone got kind of, like, switched around in their roles…now we have a bit more, I guess, leeway, a lot of people have less work they have to do so we have more focus on, like, majors.”
Dr. Karalow reminds the student body that there are different events going on within the different areas of the School of Visual and Performing Arts, like the theater’s production of “Peter and the Starcatcher” that will start rehearsals soon, but Dr. Karalow also states that there will be no formal, official opening or announcement of the new school. There are different attributes now associated with the school, including scholarships that only pertain to the arts. Personally, Dr. Karalow likes that the arts have their own school now, because she didn’t think communication studies was the best fit and now they are a little smaller and a little more focused on just the visual and performing arts. “We’re the fun school,” added Dr. Karalow.
