The building of the Fine Arts department, which is home to the university’s music, theater and
fine arts programs, is showing signs of deterioration. Doors in the building are out of place,
restrooms have broken stalls and toilets, and paint has faded or chaffed off.
Longtime UOG Art professor Lewis Rifkowitz expressed his thoughts about the facility’s horrid
appearance.
Rifkowitz, who specializes in three-dimensional art, said when he first set foot at UOG in 1989,
he saw that the facility was already in need of improvements. From Rifkowitz’s view, the
building was too small for its purpose.
Rifkowitz explained, for instance, that the department’s three-dimensional art program offers a
set of classes in sculptures and another set in ceramics. This necessitates two different rooms:
one for sculptures classes and one for ceramics classes. However, both sets of classes all happen
in one room.
“I do it in one classroom and it is virtually insane because materials don’t intermix without
polluting each other, contaminating each other and just causing havoc,” Rifkowitz said. “A
ceramic lab is a ceramic lab. A sculpture lab is something different. It’s more of a central shop
where you can build, manufacture and fabricate and we don’t have that. I can’t offer that to the
students. They’ve been given the short stick for 27 years.”
Professor of Music Steve Benardyzk describes the Fine Arts Building as a functional facility, but
it is at the same time, archaic and dilapidated. Benardyzk noted that the practice rooms in the
building are small and not soundproof. Also, the practice rooms are juxtaposed beside a
classroom for music, and thus the sound from people practicing travels around the entire area.
“If somebody right behind me is practicing with another piano, it is hard to concentrate,”
Benardyzk said. “One of the bigger music issues is the amount of silence and the ability to get
stuff done.”
Benardyzk explained that the restrooms were renovated three or four years ago, but the
renovations done weren’t complete. Stalls from the men’s room were made out of particle board
material, and even after upgrades, plumbing problems continued to occur every few months,.
Despite these issues, however, professors and students are doing the best they can and potential
creativity that is untapped.
“We teach people how to take risks. We teach people how to fail. We teach people how to
grow,” Rifkowitz said. “In order to do that, you have to make work and you have to attempt to
go outside of your comfort zone.”
The UOG Endowment Foundation’s Physical Master Plan proposes the construction of new
facilities on campus and the renovation of some existing ones. According this physical master
plan, the Fine Arts Building is among one of the facilities that will be either renovated or
demolished and constructed entirely new.
With the Endowment’s master plan going into motion, the Fine Arts Building is long overdue for
a complete makeover.
From UOG’s Endowment Foundation, the upcoming Physical Master Plan responds to the
university’s strategic initiatives. The goal is to have brand-new physical facilities that will be
able to provide accommodations for the students both on-campus, off-campus and online by
2025.
According to the pamphlet, the Physical Master Plan tells the university that is the best choice
for Guam and throughout the Pacific Rim; a campus that will create and develop Guam’s culture.
With the help of the UOG Capital Campaign, opportunities are provided to individuals and
businesses that wish to provide financial support for the Physical Master Plan. All funds raised
by the UOG Endowment Foundation for the Capital Campaign will be used to build new
facilities such as the Fine Arts Building.
James Sellman, Ph.D., dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Science, explained that the
Fine Arts building is one of the oldest building from the year 1964 and it is extremely long
overdue.
“We are still nine years out,” Sellman said. “It is number three on the list for renovation for the
2025 Capital Campaign.”