Staff and lecturers have thrown their support behind Wagga's arts and entertainment scenes after it was revealed Charles Sturt University had drafted plans to move creative courses away from the city.
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In October CSU consulted with Wagga City Council on plans to move the School of Communications and Creative Industries to Bathurst.
But the COVID-19 pandemic forced the decisions to be shelved until at least August.
A lecturer in acting for stage and screen in the faculty of creative industries, Dr Dominique Sweeney said his courses had been consistently downgraded as "unimportant" to society.
"The idea that cultural studies are not needed, it's not academic, that argument doesn't look at what theatre does in society," Dr Sweeney said.
"Theatre preserves history. For example, years ago in Czechoslovakia, there was a risk that the Czech language would be lost entirely. So artists got together to revive the language through the theatre, and now it's still spoken."
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The university's desire to move the faculty has thrown a cloud over the future of the CSU Playhouse, which has recently undergone millions of dollars in refurbishments.
Creative writing lecturer and vice president of the Booranga Writers Centre, Dr Lachlan Brown, pointed to the city's rich history of dramatic and visual arts as a reason to protect the tertiary tradition.
"We've had some excellent talent come through Wagga. Wayne Pygram studied here and he went on to Star Wars and just recently played the prime minister in Rake," Dr Brown said.
Dr Brown said there would be a risk to the diversity of Australian media if a mix of subjects did not exist across regional universities.
"We're producing talented musicians and actors at our schools and we have the resources to give them a world-class education right here in Wagga. We can do it, we have done it," he said.
"Who's going to tell the stories of the Riverina? We need to creatively represent ourselves, nobody else will do it."
Alumnus and co-founder of the Friends of CSU group, Trish Gray called the draft plans "extremely disappointing".
"Each campus can specialise in an area of the arts, Bathurst could be writing, Wagga could be acting," Ms Gray said.
"But it doesn't mean that's all they do. It doesn't mean it all has to be together on one campus and that's it."
If the Wagga campus did not offer a mix of subjects, Ms Gray fears it would lose its appeal for those students who wish to study in their hometown.
"There are so many other options in the city and they're already overcrowded," she said.
"We should be encouraging people to move to the regions, not encouraging them to leave home."