The Victorian College of the Arts was founded in 1972 to provide education and training in all the visual and performing arts within the one institution. Since 2009, however, it has been headline news as a training institute in crisis, a situation fed by government intervention, the press and disputes with the University of Melbourne which now administers it. As the college begins its restoration, the author presents the case in a wider context for repositioning the VCA as a centre of artistic invention.