It's just a short hallway, but it connects two institutions that are very different.

This passage leads from the Toledo Museum of Art to the home of the University of Toledo's art department - a link between one of the most renowned art museums in the country and an art program that is not ranked, let alone ranked among the best art schools in America.

This year marks the 85th anniversary of a partnership between the museum and university, which takes physical form in the Frank Gehry-designed Center for Visual Arts on the museum's campus near downtown.

As UT and the Medical University of Ohio move toward a proposed merger, problems between UT and the art museum could serve as a warning to school and state officials as they rush to join the two Toledo institutions into the third-largest university in Ohio.

There were such high hopes in the late 1980s when UT and museum backers unveiled their plans to construct a signature building next to the museum to house the university's art department.

The museum led the project, and the buzz was all about fund-raising and building design, with great excitement over a renowned architect putting his mark on Toledo. The Gehry building would become the museum's largest sculpture.

The museum led the project, and the buzz was all about fund-raising and building design, with great excitement over a renowned architect putting his mark on Toledo. The Gehry building would become the museum's largest sculpture.

University officials said the new building would lead to a greater reputation for UT's art program.

In 1986, when plans for construction were announced, then-UT President James McComas went so far as to say that he hoped the university would develop its art program to one of national prominence within a decade.

That hasn't happened, even though it is attached to one of America's great art museums.

The country's top-ranked art schools - the Rhode Island School of Design, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Yale University, Cranbrook Academy of Art - have achieved distinction in part by selecting promising students from across the country based on portfolios of their work, interviews, and test scores. Competition for enrollment is fierce.

That's not the case at UT.

UT's art program takes almost everyone that applies and draws students from the region - mostly Ohio (89 percent) and Michigan (9 percent).

Of 108 who applied to its art programs in fall, 2005, 101 were admitted and 44 enrolled, according to John Nutter, UT director of institutional research.

UT officials say they have no choice as an open-enrollment public university. They are required by state law to take those students who apply if they meet the basic requirements of admission to the university.

Other Ohio universities - Miami, Bowling Green, Ohio, even the mammoth Ohio State - are selective in the students they accept.

Some UT programs, such as engineering and education, have established more stringent entrance requirements, but its art department has not.

Art department officials say they are discussing establishment of more stringent admission criteria for students wishing to enter the studio art program, such as requiring incoming students to submit a portfolio.

Another long-overdue step came in 2004 when UT's art department first earned accreditation from the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD).

Even though the art department gained NASAD accreditation, the association's report cited UT's art program for not having a full-time faculty member to teach in the museum's new Glass Pavilion.

Administrators at both UT and the museum admit their collaboration isn't what it should be. The museum's new glass center is a prime example.

The Glass Pavilion - a 76,000-square-foot, $30 million glass structure being constructed across Monroe Street from the museum and UT's Center for Visual Arts - is set to open with lavish parties in June. It will display the museum's large collection of glass and will include a cafe, entertaining space, and educational areas that will have classrooms and expensive glass furnaces for making art glass.

The center's facilities will be available to the museum's students, but there are no plans for UT to use them.

UT never asked to be part of the museum's new glass center, a mistake UT President Dan Johnson now says he intends to correct.

UT offers several areas of studio art, but not glass art, a surprise given the city's prominent role in the industry's history and the museum's extensive art glass collection.

Mr. Johnson said last week that attention to the university-museum partnership needs to come from the top, and he's prepared to give it.

"So many times these things come down to leadership and for it to become important to the leaders involved," he said. "By being engaged with the museum toward a common goal, there is tremendous potential there that we haven't realized."

Museum officials were more blunt in their comments about the UT art department.

Carol Bintz, the museum's chief operating officer, said the university did not inquire about using the new glass center.

When asked about UT's role in the new glass center and whether UT was invited to be part of it, Don Bacigalupi, museum director, responded by e-mail saying: "The Glass Pavilion was intended to showcase TMA's glass collection and its glass classes."

Despite repeated requests from The Blade to discuss the relationship between the university and the museum, Mr. Bacigalupi refused an interview.

David Guip, chairman of the UT art department, said discussions have not occurred on how the university might use the Glass Pavilion, but he suggests that it might be a possibility in three to five years.

President Johnson says it's time to talk now.

"I think we need to move from the general conversations to the strategic conversations," Mr. Johnson said. "And it does need to be done fairly soon with new opportunities, such as the Glass Pavilion, emerging."

Much of Mr. Johnson's focus has been on science, technology, and economic development. "It's now time for us to raise our sights to achieve a higher level of visibility [for the arts]," he said. "I think we need to dream big."

Mr. Johnson said the university's experience at the museum - including the missed opportunity to be a partner in the museum's Glass Pavilion - provides lessons for UT and MUO as the two institutions head toward merger.

"The thing that I'm very concerned about is the importance of continuing to stay on message about the importance of partnerships," he said. "I should be asking our leadership here ... are we exploiting all the meaningful partnerships?"

MUO President Dr. Lloyd Jacobs, who will be president of the new university after the merger of UT and MUO is approved by the Ohio legislature, said nothing is being left to chance.

Asked whether he is concerned about the problems UT has had in its collaboration with the museum, he said opportunities for collaboration in the new merged university are being systematically investigated, including everything from research to purchasing.

"We've already got 15 or so groups of people and literally hundreds of people looking for opportunities to collaborate," he said. "We are already actively beginning to manage that process."

Toledo's 105-year-old art museum, with its hearty endowment, renowned collection, and educational mission, is considered one of the country's finest.

Despite its proximity to the museum, UT's studio-art program has never enjoyed comparable prestige, as does, for example, the private School of the Art Institute of Chicago with its venerable museum on Michigan Avenue.

One of the reasons is faculty.

The most prestigious colleges often launch international searches for faculty who are good teachers as well as productive artists who exhibit their work far and wide.

"We all spend a lot of time soliciting great faculty," said Jonathan Lindsay, vice president for marketing and enrollment services at the 2,700-student School of the Art Institute of Chicago. "Our dean and president travel the world regularly. We keep our eyes and ears open for interesting people."

UT's art department has 15 full-time faculty, a visiting teacher, and three lecturers. It also has 20 part-time instructors.

In the end, art can tragically be reduced to a rather common portrait of George Washington, the one that graces the dollar bill.

The University of Toledo lacks the financial resources of its more prestigious counterparts.

The Art Institute of Chicago has annual revenues of $197 million and devotes about one-half of the University of Toledo's entire budget exclusively to art education, a figure the University of Toledo cannot match. The Art Institute of Chicago's annual revenue is 10 times that of the Toledo Museum of Art.

A shortage of funds also strains the resources of the UT art history department, which has three professors who have specialized in 19th-century European paintings, classical and medieval antiquities, and contemporary art. They are expected to cover 27 different classes listed in the catalog.

By comparison, wealthier institutions that are also connected to world-class museums have a diverse set of art history faculty members who are tied to subjects in multiple fields.

Princeton University's department of art and archaeology has 23 staff members and offers 31 courses. There are 23 full-time professors in Harvard University's history of art and architecture department. Their academic specialties range from Byzantine icons to decorative Incan cups to Japanese paintings.

Even the Bowling Green State University art department faculty dwarfs UT's, with 46 full-time faculty and eight part-time teachers for its 769 students.

Art departments such as those at the Rhode Island School of Design and at the Art Institute of Chicago are ranked as the best in the country, and Harvard and Princeton's art history departments are at the top of national rankings.

In Ohio, U.S. News & World Report in 1997 rated Ohio State at 29th in the country for its master's of fine arts program and fifth in ceramics.

The report did not list the University of Toledo for one very conspicuous reason. The school does not offer a Master of Fine Arts, the basis U.S. News uses to assess visual arts programs.

On its website, the University of Toledo claims that many of its graduates enroll in master of fine arts programs elsewhere.

UT's heavy reliance on part-time faculty, especially those teaching foundation courses in basic drawing, has a negative effect on its program, according to a NASAD accreditation report.

More faculty need to be hired, the report stated, to eliminate "the one-deep faculty situation that exists in most studio areas," meaning each of the seven specialty areas tend to have only one expert, which can be confining for studio art majors specializing in a particular medium such as ceramics.

Space is also a problem, the report noted. The fly in the ointment? Again, lack of money.

A new building to house three-dimensional studies could be located near UT's Center for Sculptural Studies building, an 8,000-square-foot concrete box at the eastern edge of the museum's campus, said Mr. Guip, head of the UT art department.

And, were money on hand, the department would enlarge its Center for Visual Arts according to a Phase II plan drawn long ago by Frank Gehry.

As the university continues to make progress on a major capital fund-raising campaign, the art department's wish list includes many items smaller than new buildings: the addition of a glass teacher, more visiting artists, a computer lab in the Center for Visual Arts, a gallery director, scholarships, and faculty development, said Sue Ott Rowlands, interim dean of the college of arts and sciences.

But there's one way UT and the museum can enhance their relationship without spending a penny.

"Regular dialogue about visions and goals and where they intersect," she said. "I'd love to see the museum and the college work together on exhibitions."

That would take improved communication.

Ms. Bintz, the museum's chief operating officer, noted: "We plan exhibitions five years in advance, so it would take a lot of advance discussion."

First Published February 12, 2006, 11:02 p.m.