For students in the School of Art, Design and Creative Industries, the tools are almost as important as the ability to create art.

Most of the time the students are required to have their own supplies, but it is cost prohibitive for each ceramics student to have their own kiln.

Kilns also require more maintenance and can provide more opportunities than a non-art person may realize. Since the ADCI kilns at Wichita State have experienced normal wear-and-tear from years of use, they have become energy inefficient, unreliable and are becoming costly, said Ted Adler, School of ADCI associate director. Due to these problems, the school is in the process of raising money to buy four new, top-of-the-line Blaauw kilns.

“This kiln purchase makes sense for us financially and for the practical operations of a 21st century arts school,” Adler said. “We want to go above and beyond for our students, and to do this, we need to reach beyond our current budget capabilities.”

Art and Design Advocates, a private WSU donor group for ADCI, has raised $50,000 for the kilns so far. Although that is a large sum of money, the total cost, including transportation, installation and classes on working the kilns, costs around $150,000.

“We are getting four kilns total,” said Lindsey DeVries, ADCI coordinator of external affairs. “Three of them are gas kilns and the other is an electric kiln, which is a gradient kiln, which means you can set two different temperatures and that allows for material testing of the clay body itself and glazes.”

Engineering and art students can use the electric kiln.

“They are computer-operated and students will be able to understand the dynamics of what is happening inside of the kilns,” DeVries said.

The arrival date is not set, but the tentative date is in spring of 2016. When the kilns arrive, technicians from Blaauw will host training sessions to help the professors with the beginning usage. Afterward, there are plans of a celebration of the new kilns and of Tanya Tandoc, owner of Tanya’s Soup Kitchen, who was killed over the summer summer and was a ceramics student at WSU.

Not only was Tandoc a ceramics student, but she was a member of the Art and Design Advocates. DeVries said Tandoc regularly supported the students with donations of food from the soup kitchen, was a friend to the faculty and was a student of Adler’s.

With support from Art and Design Advocates, Provost Tony Vizzini and President John Bardo, the school is excited for the technological advances in the ceramics department.

“[The students] know this is going to be a huge step forward for the program,” DeVries said. “These [kilns] will allow them so many more opportunities in their artistic processes.”

The kilns are not only more advanced in technology, but they offer digital archiving, custom programming, data recording and printable documentation features.

“These kilns are more than just a means of production,” Adler said. “They are teaching tools, something that is vital to the School of ADCI’s support of President Bardo’s vision of an innovative university.”