By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

Maybe it sounded so good because it all seemed so familiar.

In conversation with a local cultural leader, an intriguing idea wormed its way to the surface. She lamented local dispersion of resources and the subsequent effect on the area’s artistic population. It seems her discipline of expertise is in short supply at the trio of four-year colleges in town and kids were taking their talent elsewhere to matriculate.

In short, we’re losing our talent. However, she had an idea to amend the situation.

Taking a cue from a quintuplet of colleges in the Northeast, she thought the opportunity ripe for a cooperative effort from all of Mobile’s local institutions, whereby small departments could pool resources with similar programs at other schools to fashion a better curriculum for those with few choices.

She had access to facilities downtown that would accommodate her particular plan. In her mind, the location was central.

It sparked my mind. I recalled the less-than-modest facilities supplied the visual arts department at the University of South Alabama when I was enrolled decades ago. To call a lot of it an afterthought might have been kind in some ways. Classes were scattered around the campus in buildings that seemed scavenged from around town. But the faculty, determined as they were, made it work.

I also wondered what it must have been like for students and faculty with similar interests at Spring Hill College and then-Mobile College? Certainly their art departments were smaller and even more pressed for space or even the existence of some classes we enjoyed. What if the potential artistic interests of their students were met via cooperation with South? Could they pool resources and enrich opportunity?

My conversant’s idea also stirred remembrance of a soured dream from the Mobile County School Board, an idea to put an arts school on Bienville Square. The scenarios that sprang from the vision all seemed positive. Schools keep young people in an area and they in turn supply vitality and energy to sidewalks and shops.

But that dream wafted away as do so many hopes surrounding Barton Academy.

I pondered. Could the kernel of that scheme could be grabbed again? What if the various artistic departments at Mobile’s big three schools utilized downtown facilities to establish something akin to a satellite campus with focus on the arts? What if the more esoteric artistic interests from the schools were joined to form classes of reasonable size and the credits were applicable toward their degrees from their respective colleges?

If you factored in the presence of junior colleges Faulkner State and Bishop State, it could make such a program even more robust.

The concept of satellite facilities is certainly nothing new around here, U.S.A. has them at Brookley and in Fairhope. Bishop State has them on Dauphin Island Parkway.

While some departments-like South’s Music Department-might not desire other facilities due to their already-comfortable digs, other disciplines like Dance-which is so small at South it is folded into Drama-could benefit.

South Alabama, the largest of the schools in discussion already has such an overwhelming portion of their enrollment commuting from off-campus residences, it wouldn’t seem to matter as much that they had to travel downtown. I knew students who traveled to classes at Brookley and downtown is certainly no less convenient.

There are presently players on the local scene already dedicated to similar tasks and they would have the heft to make new ventures happen. They have the forces and skills at play downtown, in various capacities, to set wheels in motion.

If the directors of the Sybil Smith trust wanted to leave a lasting mark on the world, using their considerable reputation for philanthropic pursuit to this means would undoubtedly be a step in that direction.

Sure, the Centre for the Living Arts has long-range plans for classes and tutorials but that would seem to bolster the idea of conglomerating arts classes into spaces already in existence, studios and rehearsal halls in proximity to more renown rooms of exhibition and pressure.

Space 301 has been an incredible boost for Mobile and promises to grow yet. But nothing has to stop there. Momentum can’t be squandered.

Inertia should be fostered, tended and cultivated into something multi-generational that springs anew with energy, a perennial phoenix of fresh perspective.

A school regenerates in a way that mere showplaces don’t. It’s alive in a different kind of way, stoking the zeitgeist, shaping the future.

So, maybe it sounded so good because it sounded so familiar.

Or maybe it sounded so familiar because it sounds too good.

Are we still the “City of Perpetual Potential” about which Mike Dow lamented? Or are we finally active enough to seize opportunity?

The question won’t remain unanswered forever.

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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