The San Francisco Art Institute and the University of San Francisco announced today a plan to “integrate operations and academic programs.” USF, a private Jesuit university with a student body of just over 10,000, will pay an undisclosed amount for the sale of the 151-year-old art school.
The sale will include SFAI’s historical buildings, art and film collections, and assets. A program called SFAI@USF will begin in the fall semester, offering continuing SFAI students access to USF’s “academic and co-curricular services, opportunities, and support.”
Today’s announcement is the first official mention of long-rumored merger negotiations between the two schools. In 2020, SFAI explained that talks stalled with an unnamed larger institution when the coronavirus pandemic hit.
The announcement follows a similar move at Mills College, which will soon merge with Northeastern University to become “Mills College at Northeastern University.” That partnership will take effect around July 2022.
SFAI’s future has been in question since March 2020. Facing budget shortfalls and decreased enrollment, SFAI announced that it would not be enrolling new students for the fall 2020 semester. The art school began encouraging students who could not complete their degrees before May to transfer elsewhere, preparing their staff and faculty for mass layoffs.
In the nearly two years since, SFAI has remained open in a limited capacity, offering classes to a greatly reduced student body each semester.
In October 2020, the University of California Regents saved SFAI from foreclosure by buying SFAI’s $19.7 million debt from a private bank. Per that agreement, the UC Regents are currently the landlords for the art school’s Chestnut Street campus. If the sale to USF proceeds as planned, USF will assume responsibility for the Chestnut Street campus and its assets, including the Diego Rivera mural, which the Board of Supervisors voted to bestow landmark designation upon in January 2021.
It is unclear if the tenant agreement with the UC Regents will continue after the sale.
SFAI also holds a 60-year lease on a Fort Mason campus, a space that has been rented out since the pandemic to other nonprofit organizations, including the Hamlin School, and used for temporary exhibitions by the Svane Family Foundation and Gallery Wendi Norris. Today’s announcement does not mention plans for this site.
SFAI Board Chair Lonnie Graham is quoted in the announcement saying, “This union would create an innovative confluence of the arts and academics to advance a curriculum that reinforces the value of the arts in changing the world.”
This story is being updated.