Considered adding up to  80 acres of Coconino National Forest land adjacent the Center; Zachary Gordon Independent film  program overflowing with  a two-year student waiting list; However, film school training collapses following  2011 dust up between Institute Director and Community College president over curriculum and control with Independent Film Institute fleeing to a private university

The Yavapai Community College Sedona Center had been open only one year when in June 2001 the Administration began looking to purchase up to 80 acres of land of the Coconino National Forest adjacent the Center. The purpose was to expand the facility to meet the unexpected huge number of students seeking admission to the Film Institute.

The Red Rock News of June 13, 2001 reported that when Keith Harwood of the special projects office of the Community College president’s office was interviewed about the lack of space to accommodate applicants to the film program, he said, “we’re bursting at the seams.  In the short term, we expected to have 100 in our Sedona multimedia program and we have 500.”  The 20,000 square foot Center had only six classrooms.

The Red Rock News also reported that the “success of film-making and other programs has shocked school officials.“  It indicated that the Administration was in the process of putting  together a report supporting its decision to seek the additional land. 

However, the Community College  never succeeded in its efforts to purchase additional land from the Forest Service.

The Sedona Center as a film school was a smashing success from 2000 to 2011.  Here is how Helen Stephenson, currently the  Managing Director, Yavapai College Performing Arts Center Operations & Director, YC Film & Media Arts Program, described the Sedona program in a December 2007 article in the Prescott News.

“People from Thailand, Japan, Brazil, Canada, England, and all over the U.S.” come to the school. Typically, “Half of the class is usually from out of state.” Hawkes says, students range in age from 17 to 65 years old. The older students bring great stories with them and the younger students generally have the advantage with technology. On the other hand he says that a person’s age in no way stands in the way of them learning the technology. “We’ve had people who’ve never turned on a computer but they’ve become the best editors we’ve ever had.” The one thing the students have in common is a passion to learn the latest technology in the digital filmmaking world and put that knowledge immediately into practice.”

The film school received national and international recognition and honors. It flourished. However, in the summer of 2011 the Community College administration and the  main supporter of the Zaki Gordon Institute for Film Making got into a very public “dust up.”  Following their strong disagreements, Mr. Dan Gordon, the president of the Institute,  moved the Institute out of the Sedona Center  to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.  Gordon charged in a subsequent newspaper editorial that:

“. . . [T]he current director of the school and the President of Yavapai College violated their contract with the Institute by unilaterally changing course content.

“As president of the Institute, I cancelled their right to use our name or our copyright-protected methodology and I ceased providing my services, which were offered gratis for twelve years, as lead instructor. The result speaks for itself. Their enrollment dropped 44 percent and the college is dropping the program. When you cut the heart and soul out of something, you cannot expect the body to survive.”

Many months later, during a radio interview on KAZM in Sedona, Dr. Penelope Wills provided the Community College’s side of the dispute with Dan Gordon. She said: “[H]e wanted to go ahead and evaluate faculty and run the entire program.  It was not a partnership. . . . the advisory committee was very upset with what he was dictating and he wasn’t working as a peer with that advisory (committee).”

The Community College Director of Marketing and Communications, Mike Lange, was quoted on August 9, 2012  in the Sedona RedRock News as  stating:  “The Yavapai College film program is continuing and is being enhanced. It is not being dissolved.” 

In December the College said it was “expanding [its] relationship with the renowned Sedona International Film Festival (SIFF) and planning for a special series of technical workshops during the 2013 Festival.”  It also stated that it had “launched a significant recruiting campaign and doubled its enrollment this year! In these tough economic times, that is a significant achievement. . . . The community truly banded together this past year to show support for the Film School and make a unanimous statement that ‘We love our film school’ and want to keep it in Sedona.’”

But the Community College film school without the Institute may have been  staggering to survive. Or, was it?  No one knows for certain given the public statements issued by the Community College regarding its bright future in Sedona and increased student enrollment.

Then the biggest surprise of ever came in  October 2013 on the Verde campus in Clarkdale. At a public meeting the administration, led by then president Dr. Penelope Wills, announced a new $103 million  ten-year capital development plan it had decided to implement pending Governing Board approval. (It was approved.)  Residents from Sedona and the Verde Valley were aghast as Dr.  Wills’ outlined to them the sudden  decision to close  the Film School by the end of 2014.  Wills’ said that  the Community College’s ten-year $103 million development plan (with over 95% dedicated to west county improvement) contemplated  closing the Sedona facility for good and putting it up for sale. Once the Sedona Center was shuttered and sold,  Wills  promised to lease other facilities in the area for OLLI and any other programs. 

Outrage from citizens in Sedona and throughout the Verde Valley was immediate and vocal.    After several months,  the Governing Board and Administration eventually backed away from the idea of selling the facility and leasing property for OLLI and any other programs it might develop.  However, by 2015 the Center had only two small courses and was being essentially closed down.

Under enormous pressure from the community, the Community College administrators and Governing Board decided to repurpose the Center into primarily a culinary school.  It would not continue as a film school.  After two years of renovation,  on August  21, 2017, the Sedona Center reopened for the  fall semester. It announced it would feature Culinary Arts Fundamentals certificate classes in two state-of-the-art teaching kitchens. The Center housed a Sedona Culinary Institute and offices for the OLLI program.

Today, the Culinary Institute and OLLI continue in the Sedona Center.  What a difference 20 years makes.

Sources:  Sedona Red Rock News, June 13, 2001, Vol 38, No. 77;  Sedona Red Rock News, June 16, 2021, p. 5A. Original research.

Claim that College “saved” the Sedona Film School fails to comport with reality

The Blog has responded to a recent editorial in the Verde Independent in which the editor claimed the Community College “saved” the Sedona Film school with the handful of media courses it offered this fall on the Verde Valley Campus.    By clicking here, you can read the newspaper editorial.  The following is the Blog’s editor’s letter in response to the Verde Independent editor.

Commentary by Bob Oliphant

Your November 19 editorial, “College decision actually saved film school program,” is long on rhetoric, short on facts, and misleading. It is an understatement to say that it is “embarrassingly wide of the mark.”

First, you ignore the fact that the College made no actual effort to “save“ the 69 credit nine-month nationally recognized Film School program located at the Sedona Campus.  Rather, the closing of the Film School, formally announced October, 2013, was the last step in the calculated decision by Community College President Penelope Wills to remove all courses from the Sedona Campus  so it could be sold  and the money banked to finance construction of a third large campus on the West side of the County.  That campus is an integral part of the College’s published ten-year plan and it needs at least $45 million to get off the ground.  

Second, you ignore the fact that in January, 2014 the Sedona campus had been appraised to establish its market value by an expert in anticipation of a sale. By then, the College was in the process of stripping it of all credit courses. Only because of an avalanche of protest from Verde Valley citizens and Sedona officials in March, 2014 did the District Governing Board retreat from supporting the Wills’ decision to close and sell the Campus.

Third, you misled readers by implying that the current 12 credits of face-to-face media course offerings are comparable to the 69 credits required of the Sedona Film School graduates. They aren’t! For example, using your figures, in 2009 there were 69 students enrolled in the Film School in Sedona. They were required to take a minimum of 66 credits in a nine month intense training program—a total of 4,761 credit hours.

The current media program on the Verde Campus has 51 students with some of them taking all of the 12 credits offered face-to-face and some of them taking the one on-line 3 credit course.  At best, they experience a total of 612 face-to-face credit hours per semester, assuming all 51 students enrolled in all the face-to-face courses.  There is no comparison to a film school curriculum and what is now being offered!

Fourth, you failed to explain to your readers that the low enrollment of 13 by the fall of 2013 was a result of the College’s own internal decisions. Because it was shutting down the Campus in anticipation of selling it, there was no marketing for the Film School. Therefore, 13 students were left to complete their training.  Even so, 13 students accounted for 858 credit hours of training, which is far more than offered today.

Fifth, you ignore the disingenuous statements made by the College in 2012 and 2013 in which it lauded the Film School and its increasing enrollment. For example, in August, 2012, the College stated that “The Yavapai College film program (on the Sedona Campus) is continuing and is being enhanced. It is not being dissolved.” As late as December, 2012  one finds statements in College press releases such as  the College “launched a significant recruiting campaign and doubled its enrollment this year! In these tough economic times, that is a significant achievement.”  Are you oblivious to what the College said about the Film School and what it actually did?

Finally, your claim that Sedona residents are “sore” about moving the program is without substance.  First, a legitimate nationally recognized film school was not moved.  It was closed. Second, the current media course offerings do not make up a film school; there is nothing to be “sore” about.  Third, not a single resident who spoke at the recent Sedona Town Hall meeting indicated any resentment about the media program on the Verde campus.  I speculate that you were attempting to create a false jingoistic divide between Sedona and the remainder of the Verde Valley?  If so, that is shameful.

Bob Oliphant