northern today 5 News northern Additional seating will allow the university to attract major touring companies in dance, music and theater to make the university a stopping point on their national tours. In the early 1970s, Northern State University opened the Johnson Fine Arts Center, and the building was a jewel of NSU, Aberdeen and northeastern South Dakota. Over the years, and especially in the last 10, the School of Fine Arts has grown. This growth has yielded a great challenge for NSU: the need for additional space. Now, NSU is embarking on an ambitious renovation and addition of the JFAC. The NSU Foundation – in conjunction with NSU President Dr. James Smith and NSU Dean of the School of Fine Arts Dr. Alan LaFave – is launching a capital campaign to raise the necessary funds to complete the JFAC project. NSU has recognized that as the 21st century unfolds, support is needed so that the School of Fine Arts can continue to lead the curve in providing a world-class educational experience for its students. This future expansion and renovation of the JFAC will help meet the growing needs for the School of Fine Arts as administrators plan for continued enrollment growth and increased quality in the program. “The Johnson Fine Arts Center has served the university and community well for the past 40 years. This renovation and expansion will help meet the programming needs of the university, School of Fine Arts and entire community for the next era of students and patrons, and will solidify NSU as the cultural hub of the region,” said Alan LaFave, dean of the School of Fine Arts. “The renovation will include a completely redesigned main theater space, expanded lobby, art gallery, black box theater, ticket office, new classrooms, rehearsal space, music faculty teaching studios and additional student practice rooms.” The stage facilities will include high-quality sound systems and advanced lighting systems. A new shell system would accompany the stage improvements. This will create an acoustically superior environment and will give the appearance of an elegant, permanent structure. Additional seating will allow the university to attract major touring companies in dance, music and theater to make the university a stopping point on their national tours. Also, the extra seating will make it possible to host South Dakota All-State Band and other high school fine arts events. LaFave said the current facility was designed for a program much smaller in size and scope than the current needs.The number of fine arts majors has doubled tomore than 250 students with nearly 600 students participating in fine arts activities and ensembles. “We are confident and excited that this renovation will provide state-of-the-art facilities for our current and future students and will provide room for continued growth of all of the fine arts programs. The support of our patrons, community and region will be critical to the successful completion of the project.” The overall cost of the project will be around $10 million. The source of the funds will be $5 million from the South Dakota Board of Regents, with the remaining $5 million to be raised through the previously mentioned capital campaign. Additionally, the School of Fine Arts provides approximately $100,000 in scholarship assistance through a combination of endowed and annual scholarships. While the dollar total given and total number of scholarships available have risen dramatically over the past few years, the cost of education and the pure number of students interested in studying the fine arts have surpassed the available scholarship dollars. This creates the need to increase the number of endowed scholarships. An added goal of this campaign is to amplify the total endowment by $1 million, which would yield approximately an additional $40,000 per year in scholarships. If you are interested in supporting this capital campaign, please contact Todd Jordre at the NSU Foundation at 605-626-2550 or todd.jordre@northern.edu. Capital campaign to support School of Fine Arts, renovation of the Johnson Fine Arts Center
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