Editor:
    As a GSU faculty member of the Betty Foy Sanders Art Department, who was awarded Professor Emeritus status in 2004, I must reply to the news that our Art Department will not coordinate future Youth Arts Festivals or “ArtsFest” for GSU and the southeast Georgia region. Statesboro friends clipped the recent announcement article from the Statesboro Herald (January 21) and forwarded it to me, in N.C., because I was instrumental in establishing the decades-old event. I and other members of past festival planning teams are most disappointed to read of this decision.
    Georgia Southern presented the first Youth Arts Festival in the spring of 1983, during my first year as Chair of the Art Department. The event was never designed simply to “support the art education program.” Rather, the Youth Arts Festival was established as a community outreach effort with a specific mission: to engage our talented faculty members and students with the youth of our community. Our Art Department faculty and other members of Southern’s Music, Theater, and PE departments, as well as GSC/U’s Administrators recognized that a basic tenant of receiving a college education was the concept of sharing your talents with your community.
    How sad to think that such a successful outreach event would cease to exist in Statesboro! I and other dedicated university faculty, administrators, and community members were able to spearhead fundraising efforts which “endowed” a similar effort, now in its second decade of existence, at East Carolina University. A similar belief in the value of the arts for community outreach stimulated Western Carolina University to establish and fund a similar ongoing community event. In my experiences, these events have provided great goodwill and educational experiences for all attendees!
    How to proceed? The Statesboro Youth Arts Festival/ArtsFest was established as a college-sponsored event. The current GSU College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences has the resources of the Music, Theater and Art Departments. Following a model depicted in the Herald article, surely an “assistant coach” from the CLASS Dean’s office could rally the resources necessary to continue this worthwhile event. As with East Carolina, funding could be established through an endowment provided by Southern supporters. Fundraising is complex, but this clearly could be a popular option for many community members who contribute to Day for Southern and other GSU fundraising efforts!
    There is something very special about how naturally children use creative experiences to become aware of their world and personal talents. Universities are challenged to continually engage with their communities and to share their resources which can stimulate these revelations for both children and adults. GSU has been privileged to witness these transformations on many occasions, for generations, and especially during one annual day of creative fun and adventure: the annual Youth Arts Festival/Arts Fest. Please find those faculties, families, and funding sources in order to stage the 33rd festival this spring and to establish a permanent place for this community outreach in the GSU calendar!
    Richard Tichich
    Art Professor Emeritus
    Chair of the Art Department 1982-2003