Interior Secretary James Watt announced today that the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) at Santa Fe, New Mexico will be moved for the 1981-82 school year to the nearby campus of the College of Santa Fe.
Watt said he approved a one-year Bureau of Indian Affairs contract with the College of Santa Fe to allow IAIA to use facilities on the campus of the 1,200-student liberal arts college.
IAIA will retain its own staff, programs and academic identity. Under the contract, it will have its own dormitory, classroom and administrative facilities and will share other College of Santa Fe facilities, such as the gym, cafeteria and library. There will also be a special section of the library building provided for the IAIA library collection.
Ken Smith, Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, said he was pleased with the agreement worked out with the College of Santa Fe. He said that the move from "sharing a campus with high school students at its present location to a college campus should provide a more suitable academic atmosphere for the IAIA students." Smith added that he planned to seek the advice of knowledgeable artists, education administrators, tribal leaders and others to determine the long-term future of the school.
IAIA was founded in 1962 as a high school with a special emphasis on the fine arts, including a post-secondary art program. The high school program, however, was phased out in the mid-1970s and efforts made to gain college accreditation. In 1979, when the IAIA enrollment was less than half of capacity, the senior high programs (10th, 11th and 12th grades) of the Albuquerque Indian School were transferred to the IAIA campus in Santa Fe.
The College of Santa Fe is an independent, four-year college founded in 1947 by the Christian Brothers, a Catholic Church religious-educational community. The Board of Trustees of the college announced its approval of the IAIA agreement last week.
