GIA LEARN-AT-HOME TUITION TO RISE IN MARCH
Tuition for most of the Gemological Institute of America’s home-study courses will rise about 5% March 15. The cost of updating materials to keep up with changes in the jewelry industry, as well as other rising prices, prompted the increase, says GIA.
“As the costs of paper, printing and postage continue their upward climb, the cost of professional training for the jewelry industry must keep up,” says Brook Ellis, GIA’s vice president of education. “We will never sacrifice the basics personal instruction, hands-on experience with gems, and the research and library resources available to our students so this move was inevitable.”
GIA will keep costs at their 1996 level for the first 212 months of the year so students can enroll at the lower rates.
Veronica Clark-Hudson, education services manager for GIA, says tuition for home-study courses rose slightly last year for the first time in five years and that this year’s tuition hike was impossible to avoid. “We made significant fundraising efforts to keep costs down, but with rising costs of paper and materials, we had no choice,” she says. “We’re really price-sensitive, and we know our students may be sensitive to the change because of GIA’s move.”
Clark-Hudson says the move of GIA’s headquarters in California from Santa Monica to Carlsbad this year has nothing to do with the tuition increase.
Five home-study courses escaped the tuition hike: pearl and bead stringing, counter sketching, fine jewelry sales, advanced fine jewelry sales, and gold and precious metals.
BROOKFIELD TO OFFER CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS
Brookfield Craft Center in Brookfield, Conn., will offer day and evening classes and weekend workshops this winter. Weekly classes begin Jan. 13 and last eight weeks. They include “Jewelrymaking” with Anne Marie Ciuffini and “Casting for Jewelry” with Patrick Purcell.
Weekend workshops include “Metals Granulation” Feb. 15-16; “Lapidary Basics,” Feb. 22-23; and “Soldering,” March 22-23.
Brookfield Craft Center, P.O. Box 122, Brookfield, CT 06804; (203) 775-4526, fax (203) 740-7815, e-mail brkfldcrft@aol.com, Internet http://www.craftweb.com/org/brookfld/brookfld.html.
FRENCH SCHOOLTO OFFER GEMOLOGY IN ENGLISH
The University of Nantes in France will offer a degree program in advanced gemology in English starting in 1997. The program is accredited by the French government and can be completed during a three-month residency at the school. Topics will include advanced laboratory techniques, synthesis and treatment of gems, and gemstone geology and genesis.
The program will be taught by Emmanuel Fritsch, a professor of physics at the university and formerly a research scientist at the Gemological Institute of America.
Faculté des Sciences, Université de Nantes, Chemin de la Censive du Tertre, 44072 Nantes Cedex 03, France, (33-2) 4037-3190.