The California College of the Arts, a 119-year-old Bay Area institution that helped shape generations of artists and designers, will close after the 2026-27 academic year under an agreement that transfers its San Francisco campus to Vanderbilt University.

On Tuesday, in an email to staff and students, the California College of the Arts announced it will close after more than a century. Nashville’s Vanderbilt University is buying the last independent art school in the Bay Area, and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie called it “a big day for the city.” 

I wholeheartedly disagree. 

What made Lurie’s announcement so tone-deaf was that it revealed how little he understood about art and culture and how deeply ingrained the college was in the fabric of the city. 

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California College of the Arts has operated for 119 years. During that time, the San Francisco Art Institute, which closed in 2022, opened before Montana became a state. Thanks to those two institutions, artists played a critical role in developing the city’s cultural ethos.

Perhaps our elected officials aren’t concerned with the loss of those artistic incubators because their students and faculty were invisible to them. Perhaps they are deafened by the drumbeat of tech innovation and the goal of expanding the corporate tax base at any cost. But they would do........

© San Francisco Chronicle