MU Student Union Online

If you love the Arts, and value its cultural contribution, read on, and join us in SAVING THE VCA.

The University of Melbourne is planning to implement the Melbourne Model at the VCA in 2011. The VCA has produced some of the most recognized and celebrated artists ever to have been found on Australian shores. The Melbourne Model, as it stands, can only lead to a dilution of arts training at the VCA. No more dancers, actors, singers, designers, painters, sculptors, stage managers, film makers, musicians and puppeteers; only arts academics.

The Arts Culture in Melbourne, the nation’s Arts Capital, hangs in the balance, and we’re set on saving it.

The Problem: The courses offered at the Victorian College of the Arts are not academic, they are practical. This is what sets the college apart. Melbourne prides itself on being the Arts Capital of Australia, with an Arts community that is vibrant, contemporary, innovative and well supported by an enthusiastic public. This exciting environment is fed largely by the graduates of the VCA – actors, singers, musicians, dancers, film makers, visual artists, stage managers and technicians – who are the foundation of Melbourne’s artistic culture. As the impact of the changes becomes all to clear, students who normally would have enthusiastically looked to the VCA for their training and become the next generation of Melbourne’s cherished artists will look elsewhere.

What you can do: Show the University, the government and the people of Melbourne that you support the VCA remaining a high-quality institution that offers vocational undergraduate courses in the Arts. Show them that you care about the Arts and that the VCA is integral to the Arts community in Melbourne and Australia at large.