Letters to the Editor
-
The Slow Gazelle and the Heard Mentality
I went to art school and even though it is unlikely to be the same one, I know all the characters in this story all too well. Artists are insecure by nature, young artists even more so and putting all these personalities together can get a bit interesting at times.
A woman in my drawing class had all the signs of being vulnerable and troubled, she was terribly shy, wore all black, had body language that seemed to apologize for her mere physical presence and a pained look in her eyes. She was hit on by more than one professor at school. She was pretty but so were many students; they hit on her because they just knew she'd never tell.
I was a student in one class with her and an offending professor and the dynamic between them seemed very charged. It took her over a month to tell me that he was constantly propositioning her. I tried to encourage her to tell the Dean, but it took so much for her to tell me and she made me promise not to tell anyone. She told a few more people and also made them promise not to tell. This professor was rumored to be doing the same thing to other similar students.
Eventually it became the known secret. Everybody knew but nobody would say anything. We had another tenured professor in his fifties that got an eighteen year old student pregnant, my thesis advisor had slept with my closest friend in the same department, one of the painting students was having an affair with the department head and... so many stories, many true.
Many of the college's graduates tended to stay in the city and exhibit there. Meeting other graduates usually meant gossiping about professors, the same professors, doing this for twenty-plus years. One of the professors also checked into the hotel that I worked in with a student and used the school's credit card to pay for the room! I saw him in a bar a few months later and out of the blue, he brought it up just to deny it.
I paid (and am still paying) 60K for my education and these professors were undermining students' educations and the reputation of my school. Going through a BFA or MFA program alone is enough to make some people have nervous breakdowns, and this is really asking for trouble. I did tell the dean about the woman in my class without naming her and several students commented about the behavior on their course evaluations. He was not tenured and was fired. A new president came and a few of the other habitual offenders got a golden handshake. I think and hope it's a saner place now.
Telling is good for the students and the school. The school is responsible for providing a safe environment for students and can even be held liable for a faculty member's sexual harassment of a student. Do not look the other way, because the problem is likely to get worse.