The School of Art will host an event at 2 p.m. Friday at all of its current locations to show the need for a unified building for the school.

“One of the biggest problems that we’ve had for some time is that the program is spread out so far,” said Thomas Mahon, lead IT user support analyst for the School of Art.

The school is housed in Van Deusen Hall (metals and printmaking classes), the Art Building (art history, art education and fine art classes), Olson Hall (textile classes), the Michael Schwartz Center (glass classes), the Art Annex (sculpture classes) and the Ceramics Lab.

Part of the event will include a neon pink ball of string that will be unraveled to each of the art department buildings in an effort to show their distance and emphasize the need for a combined building.

The goal of the event is to raise public awareness of the need for one combined building in order to operate the program more easily.

President Lester Lefton included plans for a new art building in the $210 million bonds for campus renovations, but the Ohio Board of Regents and Kent State failed to compromise and the bond fell through.

The plan was to tear down Van Deusen Hall and the Art Building to build a new facility linked to the Art Annex that would house all of the departments.

Contact Kasey Fahey at [email protected].