Heather Roman, an undergraduate student from Lenexa, works on a piece of her art. Kansas University is dismantling its School of Fine Arts, and will move various departments into other schools. A new School of Music and School of the Arts would be created, and other programs including interior design and industrial design would go to the School of Architecture and Urban Planning.

Madison Rhea, 21, a painting major from Dallas, prepares a canvas. Under a reorganization plan, art and sculpture programs would be in a new School of the Arts in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Kansas University is working to make an upcoming reorganization of its School of Fine Arts as seamless as possible for students and staff.

The plan, approved by the Kansas Board of Regents this year, would eliminate the existing School of Fine Arts, and organize its various functions into new and existing schools on campus.

For example, the current department of music and dance would be separated out into a new School of Music and a department of dance under a new School of the Arts in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

The new School of the Arts would also take existing art and sculpture programs, among others.

Other programs — including industrial design, interior design and visual communication — are headed to the School of Architecture and Urban Planning.

The reorganization is scheduled to go into effect July 1, and many issues are still being decided.

The new School of Music will have an interim dean before a permanent one is hopefully in place before July 1, 2010, said Mary Lee Hummert, vice provost for faculty development, who is heading one of the transition teams for the reorganization.

Nominees for the interim dean have been submitted, and Provost Richard Lariviere will be interviewing candidates for the interim post next month, Hummert said. No specific search process has been put in place for the post, she said.

KU is working to ensure a trouble-free transition for students, Hummert said. Degree requirements will remain the same for current students, and the tuition rates should remain constant for fine arts classes, she said.

Each school at KU offers a slightly different per-credit-hour differential tuition rate, but for current fine arts students, the differential rate they pay now will be the same after the transition, Hummert said.

“The whole idea is that the change will be transparent for the students,” she said. “They shouldn’t really notice anything different.”

Other issues, like which school will appear on the diploma for current students graduating after July 1, have yet to be finalized, Hummert said.

For faculty and staff, too, attempts are being made to keep changes to a minimum. Every department will be staying in the same geographic location on campus, Hummert said.

On the second floor of the Robinson Center, Mandy Shriwise, a senior from Overland Park majoring in dance and economics, said she was happy with the restructuring so far.

“If it had to happen, I think it’s been done extremely well,” she said. “I do wish that my degree was coming from a School of Fine Arts.”

Shriwise was a student on the search committee for a dean of fine arts that failed to produce any viable candidates. One reason for that, she said, was that there were so many areas of expertise to oversee. One person had to be responsible for interior design, sculpting and ballet, leading different sections of the school to support different candidates.

For current faculty also, the organization could be unwieldy. James Barnes, professor and division director of music theory and music composition, who supports the changes, says music faculty have tried to push for a separate school of music for decades.

As a composer and conductor, he would occasionally be called upon to sit on tenure and promotion committees for other people in the design department.

“I have no idea what I’m looking at,” when it comes to many of the departments inside the school, Barnes said. “That would be like somebody in chemistry evaluating somebody’s dossiers in medieval English.”

Other students wondered what the impact would be for potential employers, if any, with a fine arts degree coming from a different school.

Laura Cook is a freshman from Olathe pursuing a degree in graphic design, a program that will be shifted to the architecture school. “I think the reputation at KU is well-enough known that it won’t affect us,” she said. “Hopefully.”