Gary -
I believe the current disconnect between the administration and its understanding of MFA-V pedagogy is clearly made visible by your response.
First, calling my efforts polemic is to claim that I am not invested in, or indeed a product of, the pedagogy of the program.
For me, activism falls directly under the category of rights and responsibilities which we are asked to uphold when the MFA degree is conferred.
The pedagogy of MFA-V embraces an art practice that encourages an active questioning of institutional power and resulting critique.
In short, it seems you are placing my efforts into an oppositional relationship with the pedagogy.
Whereas, if you had a firmer understanding of the pedagogy, you would recognize my actions as that of placing our pedagogy into practice.
Second, suggesting that a new printed piece of marketing material could ever serve as evidence of a commitment to the program’s pedagogy is disturbing.
As you know, pedagogy is more then just words in print. Pedagogy is putting education in motion in very specific and carefully crafted ways.
The MFA-V pedagogy is crafted in a way that incorporates self-discovery, self –actualization, and an understanding of social context.
To date, I have seen nothing from the administration that offers this learning model during the current transition period.
In fact, the way in which the staffing change occurred is a gross offense to these important values of the program.
I have offered three distinct opportunities and suggestions to you and Tom for ways in which you might demonstrate your commitment. None of which have been acted upon.
As a reminder, they include: directly answering my three questions; writing a mission statement for the MFA-V program in collaboration with faculty that includes the founding pedagogy; appointing alumni and students to the search committee for the new Director.
Regardless if you decide to act upon my suggestions or not, I implore you to put the pedagogy of the program into your daily practice of providing administration to the MFA-V program.
Also, in case it is not easily available to you, I have attached a pdf copy of two important essays from of G. Roy Levin
and Steve Kurtz that explain the founding pedagogy of the MFA-V program.
Regards,
Craig
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Gary's Reply
Craig, I hope you'll forgive me for letting my communication drop off when you altered my first message by posting it with a context-changing headline as part of your polemical effort.
As Tom and I have said a number of times to you and others, and I won't redundantly restate again after today, the College is founded on student-centered pedagogy used in all three of our MFA programs and copiously described in our handbooks and catalogue, and on our website. Perhaps most to the point at present, this commitment is expressed anew in a new Visual Art print piece created with faculty help and destined to be in your mailbox, and that of all alums for whom we have good street addresses, soon. If evidence of commitment is what you really want, this new print piece should provide it.
The change in staffing recently made at the college had and has nothing to do with any changes in the pedagogy of the Visual Art program, whose students are now and will continue to be taught in the same manner as has been current in the program for years.
With best wishes,
Gary
As Tom and I have said a number of times to you and others, and I won't redundantly restate again after today, the College is founded on student-centered pedagogy used in all three of our MFA programs and copiously described in our handbooks and catalogue, and on our website. Perhaps most to the point at present, this commitment is expressed anew in a new Visual Art print piece created with faculty help and destined to be in your mailbox, and that of all alums for whom we have good street addresses, soon. If evidence of commitment is what you really want, this new print piece should provide it.
The change in staffing recently made at the college had and has nothing to do with any changes in the pedagogy of the Visual Art program, whose students are now and will continue to be taught in the same manner as has been current in the program for years.
With best wishes,
Gary
Another Letter to Gary
April 7th, 2010
Greetings Gary -
It's been over 3 weeks since I've asked the questions below, and I have not received an answer. I and many other alumni are looking for something tangible from the administration right now. To date, we have received only platitudes. Please take a moment to provide specific details to your previous written commitments to the program, pedagogy, alumni and most of all, to current and future students.
Regards,
Craig
***************** original 3 questions ****************
1. Address the ways in which you will continue to support students in their development. Specifically address your commitment to students in helping them determine their own educational values and describe how you will help them achieve self-initiated ideas of progress and professionalism.
2. As you may know, the pedagogy of the program is based on the principal that the creation and reception of art resides within a social context, and that the process of making art should be as valued as the art object itself, if not more so. Describe your commitment to this pedagogy and explain what steps you have taken to make sure it remains in place.
3. Describe the ways in which you will maintain having the program be student centered. Specifically, address the role of the administration in working with faculty in the support of the student being at the center of the program. Please provide an example that will illustrate this support during the next residency.
Greetings Gary -
It's been over 3 weeks since I've asked the questions below, and I have not received an answer. I and many other alumni are looking for something tangible from the administration right now. To date, we have received only platitudes. Please take a moment to provide specific details to your previous written commitments to the program, pedagogy, alumni and most of all, to current and future students.
Regards,
Craig
***************** original 3 questions ****************
1. Address the ways in which you will continue to support students in their development. Specifically address your commitment to students in helping them determine their own educational values and describe how you will help them achieve self-initiated ideas of progress and professionalism.
2. As you may know, the pedagogy of the program is based on the principal that the creation and reception of art resides within a social context, and that the process of making art should be as valued as the art object itself, if not more so. Describe your commitment to this pedagogy and explain what steps you have taken to make sure it remains in place.
3. Describe the ways in which you will maintain having the program be student centered. Specifically, address the role of the administration in working with faculty in the support of the student being at the center of the program. Please provide an example that will illustrate this support during the next residency.
Mission Statement Petition
Make your voice heard inside and outside of College Hall ! Sign the petition that requests the administration to be true to their commitment to the program. Click on the link above to go to the
MFA-V Mission Statement Petition, and sign your name with email address and list your affiliation to the program.
Let the administration know that you care about the future of the program !
MFA-V Mission Statement Petition, and sign your name with email address and list your affiliation to the program.
Let the administration know that you care about the future of the program !
Monday, March 22, 2010
"staffing change" : my take on it
I know there is a lot of confusion out there still with regards to recent events at VCFA. I wanted to take a moment to explain, ( from my own perspective ) as much as I can.
On March 16th, Vermont College of Fine Arts announced that there had been a staffing change, and that Danielle Dahline ( long time Assistant Director and an amazing person ) is now the Director of MFA-V.
On that same day, all references to Jessica were wiped clean of the website ( well, almost clean – since Joey and others were able to find all the wonderful things that the website previously described about jessica ).
Immediately speculation started amongst alum as to what happened. Did Jessica win the lotto ? Did she run off with Clay to a remote and tropical island? Did she get a call from Obama saying.. “ I need you in Washington to get health care reform pushed through congress?” Or, did the fact that a scrubbed website and a devoted, passionate, co-founder and lifetime advocate of the program, who has remained silent about the staffing change, indicate that she was pushed out the door?
You all have graduate degrees, so I’ll let you make your own conclusions.
Since (it could be assumed) the heart of the program was under threat given that the individual who most defended those founding concepts had been erased from the college’s history. A call for collective action quickly started and many of you jumped right in with emails to VCFA President Tom Greene and VCFA Dean Gary Moore asking questions about the staffing change and demanding an accountability to the vision and founding pedagogy of the program.
Here are the program’s founding concepts as written by G. Roy Levin:
1. Art is not value-free, nor is art education. Both must be considered within the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts which necessarily define and condition the production and reception of art.
2. Just as the process is an essential part of the product in art making, how one teaches is what one teaches.
3. Self-actualization should be encouraged through a student – centered pedagogy where the students create their own individualized curriculum.
4. A student’s self-evaluation and Faculty evaluations of a student’s work should not be based on abstract Program generated criteria but on the student’s own experience and the creative process s/he has undertaken within the Program.
5. All subject matter of study and artistic inquiry should be approached from a multi-disciplinary view of knowledge and art practice.
6. The educational milieu should be as non-hierarchical as possible and serve as a model for other artistic communities for future activity.
G. Roy Levin – Art Education as Cultural Practice 1998.
Tom Green then distributed his email dated March 19th that described that any suggestion that the college is looking to change the pedagogy of the program is wrong, and that the idea that the college is somehow dismantling the program is ‘ludicrous’. After describing that proof of their dedication to the program can be found within the college’s recent marketing efforts, he concludes the letter by describing next steps:
“In the next week or so, we will announce the formation of a search committee to conduct a national search for a new director. I am confident we will find someone who understands the importance of this program's history, its unique approach, the landscape of the contemporary art world, and can lead visual art at VCFA positively into the future.”
Many of you recognized the inherent conflict in his statement about finding a new director, since the old one had all the qualities of the person he is now looking for. As a result, another collective action was called, and many of you are now writing postcards to him and Gary as a reminder that we are invested in this program, that we are engaged and organized, and that they should expect ongoing accountability for their stewardship of the vision and pedagogy of the program.
Some of you have asked me what the risk is if the pedagogy of the program is eroded or substantially changed. For me, these are the two biggest risks:
1. The program would no longer have student centered learning. Which is to say, imagine a residency where you have to challenge and petition just to be able to explore aspects of art, culture and society that are of deep interest to you, but not within the parameters of what the college feels is required knowledge ( #3 of the founding concepts ).
2. The second biggest risk, as I see it, is a loss of faculty autonomy. As you know, our faculty often come from different programs ( School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Cooper Union, UCLA, etc. ) which have their own issues regarding academic freedom, curriculum and pedagogy. We have heard time and time from them that they elect to come to vermont college in order to teach in a place where they can expand their own knowledge in partnership with the students. So imagine how difficult it would be to recruit and sustain the amazing faculty we have been fortunate to work with, if vermont college is only able to duplicate what they have elsewhere. Taken a step further, we should not assume that this administration would continue to renew contracts with faculty that may seem in opposition to the future direction of the program.
This is not about nostalgia or updating an outdated model of teaching. This program was intentionally radical at the very start. It found power in that radicalism and continues to serve as a place of institutional critique and safe haven for those who are traditionally restricted and marginalized within academia.
“It is the program’s hope and belief that our students are radicalized by their time in the program. Radicalized in the fundamental sense of having gained a more complex and confident view of the world as artists and as people.” - G. Roy Levin Art Education as Cultural Practice 1998
In summary, I have elected to see the “staffing change” as more then a warning shot of upcoming changes. I believe it was a tactic of intimidation and a calculated strategy to remove dissent in an effort to put change in motion.
Will the program actually cease to exist? Of course not.
It will keep going and expand enrollment and have pretty marketing materials and branded coffee cups, umbrellas, USB drives and whatever else Marketing can find to put that horrible logo on.
But will it be a program that is worthwhile, for both the student and faculty? No.
I believe once you remove such critical items as the overt intention to achieve self-actualization, you have lost any worthwhile reason to expect someone to make a commitment to VCFA, both as a student or as faculty.
It’s my hope that through our collective efforts, we can remind the administration that the
MFA – V program was born out of an attempt to offer a model of arts education that is inherently radical, inherently student centered, and inherently non-hierarchical. We can remind them of the value found within a faculty that shares power with the administration and works collaboratively for the good of the college. Finally, we can remind them that we are living proof of how successful this program can be, and that as visual artists, the process of education is just as important as the process surrounding cultural production. If not more so.
Obviously you have your own reasons for taking (or not taking ) action. I at least wanted to explain my own.
On March 16th, Vermont College of Fine Arts announced that there had been a staffing change, and that Danielle Dahline ( long time Assistant Director and an amazing person ) is now the Director of MFA-V.
On that same day, all references to Jessica were wiped clean of the website ( well, almost clean – since Joey and others were able to find all the wonderful things that the website previously described about jessica ).
Immediately speculation started amongst alum as to what happened. Did Jessica win the lotto ? Did she run off with Clay to a remote and tropical island? Did she get a call from Obama saying.. “ I need you in Washington to get health care reform pushed through congress?” Or, did the fact that a scrubbed website and a devoted, passionate, co-founder and lifetime advocate of the program, who has remained silent about the staffing change, indicate that she was pushed out the door?
You all have graduate degrees, so I’ll let you make your own conclusions.
Since (it could be assumed) the heart of the program was under threat given that the individual who most defended those founding concepts had been erased from the college’s history. A call for collective action quickly started and many of you jumped right in with emails to VCFA President Tom Greene and VCFA Dean Gary Moore asking questions about the staffing change and demanding an accountability to the vision and founding pedagogy of the program.
Here are the program’s founding concepts as written by G. Roy Levin:
1. Art is not value-free, nor is art education. Both must be considered within the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts which necessarily define and condition the production and reception of art.
2. Just as the process is an essential part of the product in art making, how one teaches is what one teaches.
3. Self-actualization should be encouraged through a student – centered pedagogy where the students create their own individualized curriculum.
4. A student’s self-evaluation and Faculty evaluations of a student’s work should not be based on abstract Program generated criteria but on the student’s own experience and the creative process s/he has undertaken within the Program.
5. All subject matter of study and artistic inquiry should be approached from a multi-disciplinary view of knowledge and art practice.
6. The educational milieu should be as non-hierarchical as possible and serve as a model for other artistic communities for future activity.
G. Roy Levin – Art Education as Cultural Practice 1998.
Tom Green then distributed his email dated March 19th that described that any suggestion that the college is looking to change the pedagogy of the program is wrong, and that the idea that the college is somehow dismantling the program is ‘ludicrous’. After describing that proof of their dedication to the program can be found within the college’s recent marketing efforts, he concludes the letter by describing next steps:
“In the next week or so, we will announce the formation of a search committee to conduct a national search for a new director. I am confident we will find someone who understands the importance of this program's history, its unique approach, the landscape of the contemporary art world, and can lead visual art at VCFA positively into the future.”
Many of you recognized the inherent conflict in his statement about finding a new director, since the old one had all the qualities of the person he is now looking for. As a result, another collective action was called, and many of you are now writing postcards to him and Gary as a reminder that we are invested in this program, that we are engaged and organized, and that they should expect ongoing accountability for their stewardship of the vision and pedagogy of the program.
Some of you have asked me what the risk is if the pedagogy of the program is eroded or substantially changed. For me, these are the two biggest risks:
1. The program would no longer have student centered learning. Which is to say, imagine a residency where you have to challenge and petition just to be able to explore aspects of art, culture and society that are of deep interest to you, but not within the parameters of what the college feels is required knowledge ( #3 of the founding concepts ).
2. The second biggest risk, as I see it, is a loss of faculty autonomy. As you know, our faculty often come from different programs ( School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Cooper Union, UCLA, etc. ) which have their own issues regarding academic freedom, curriculum and pedagogy. We have heard time and time from them that they elect to come to vermont college in order to teach in a place where they can expand their own knowledge in partnership with the students. So imagine how difficult it would be to recruit and sustain the amazing faculty we have been fortunate to work with, if vermont college is only able to duplicate what they have elsewhere. Taken a step further, we should not assume that this administration would continue to renew contracts with faculty that may seem in opposition to the future direction of the program.
This is not about nostalgia or updating an outdated model of teaching. This program was intentionally radical at the very start. It found power in that radicalism and continues to serve as a place of institutional critique and safe haven for those who are traditionally restricted and marginalized within academia.
“It is the program’s hope and belief that our students are radicalized by their time in the program. Radicalized in the fundamental sense of having gained a more complex and confident view of the world as artists and as people.” - G. Roy Levin Art Education as Cultural Practice 1998
In summary, I have elected to see the “staffing change” as more then a warning shot of upcoming changes. I believe it was a tactic of intimidation and a calculated strategy to remove dissent in an effort to put change in motion.
Will the program actually cease to exist? Of course not.
It will keep going and expand enrollment and have pretty marketing materials and branded coffee cups, umbrellas, USB drives and whatever else Marketing can find to put that horrible logo on.
But will it be a program that is worthwhile, for both the student and faculty? No.
I believe once you remove such critical items as the overt intention to achieve self-actualization, you have lost any worthwhile reason to expect someone to make a commitment to VCFA, both as a student or as faculty.
It’s my hope that through our collective efforts, we can remind the administration that the
MFA – V program was born out of an attempt to offer a model of arts education that is inherently radical, inherently student centered, and inherently non-hierarchical. We can remind them of the value found within a faculty that shares power with the administration and works collaboratively for the good of the college. Finally, we can remind them that we are living proof of how successful this program can be, and that as visual artists, the process of education is just as important as the process surrounding cultural production. If not more so.
Obviously you have your own reasons for taking (or not taking ) action. I at least wanted to explain my own.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
My Response to Gary
Dear Gary -
Thank you for your reply. Yes, we have different perspectives on the current situation, my concern at the moment is the future of the program. I appreciate your recognition of my investment in the program. Indeed, that is what happens when something so magnificent and rare as Vermont College comes along; you allow yourself to become invested.
I imagine that you would consider yourself invested as well. However, due to recent events, I remain skeptical.
With regards to my observations that the program is being slowly dismantled and the founding pedagogy left for dead, I would like to ask you to expand on your reply. Specifically, you state that the administration is fully committed to the support of the program. I have listed three questions below that provides an opportunity for you to provide further details of this commitment. You will find that none of the questions relate to marketing.
1. Address the ways in which you will continue to support students in their development. Specifically address your commitment to students in helping them determine their own educational values and describe how you will help them achieve self-initiated ideas of progress and professionalism.
2. As you may know, the pedagogy of the program is based on the principal that the creation and reception of art resides within a social context, and that the process of making art should be as valued as the art object itself, if not more so. Describe your commitment to this pedagogy and explain what steps you have taken to make sure it remains in place.
3. Describe the ways in which you will maintain having the program be student centered. Specifically, address the role of the administration in working with faculty in the support of the student being at the center of the program. Please provide an example that will illustrate this support during the next residency.
Thank you in advance for your answers. As you know, the alum have a vested interest in making sure that the vision of the program and the mission of the college work in collaboration with the program's pedagogy to provide an exceptional education. We expect nothing less from the administration and faculty, since nothing less was expected of us.
I remain,
Craig Snyder
Thank you for your reply. Yes, we have different perspectives on the current situation, my concern at the moment is the future of the program. I appreciate your recognition of my investment in the program. Indeed, that is what happens when something so magnificent and rare as Vermont College comes along; you allow yourself to become invested.
I imagine that you would consider yourself invested as well. However, due to recent events, I remain skeptical.
With regards to my observations that the program is being slowly dismantled and the founding pedagogy left for dead, I would like to ask you to expand on your reply. Specifically, you state that the administration is fully committed to the support of the program. I have listed three questions below that provides an opportunity for you to provide further details of this commitment. You will find that none of the questions relate to marketing.
1. Address the ways in which you will continue to support students in their development. Specifically address your commitment to students in helping them determine their own educational values and describe how you will help them achieve self-initiated ideas of progress and professionalism.
2. As you may know, the pedagogy of the program is based on the principal that the creation and reception of art resides within a social context, and that the process of making art should be as valued as the art object itself, if not more so. Describe your commitment to this pedagogy and explain what steps you have taken to make sure it remains in place.
3. Describe the ways in which you will maintain having the program be student centered. Specifically, address the role of the administration in working with faculty in the support of the student being at the center of the program. Please provide an example that will illustrate this support during the next residency.
Thank you in advance for your answers. As you know, the alum have a vested interest in making sure that the vision of the program and the mission of the college work in collaboration with the program's pedagogy to provide an exceptional education. We expect nothing less from the administration and faculty, since nothing less was expected of us.
I remain,
Craig Snyder
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Call for Collective Action
Like many of you, I have had the pleasure to know Jessica Lutz for years. Like many of you, I have been a student, an alum, an alum assistant, an Artist-Teacher, and a member of her staff.
I do not know why Jessica is no longer on staff at VCFA, but I do know that it signals a watershed moment within the program, and that it's time to take action. Now!
Jessica's devotion and passion for the program has been unquestioned since the beginning in 1991. Yet, she no longer has a voice within the very program she started fewer then 2 years after we became Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Therefore, it's now our responsibility to be stewards of that which has served us so well.
Jessica's vision, in collaboration with Roy and the Faculty, is directly responsible for helping us make our way through the world in a manner that accomplishes meaningful social change, on whatever scale we have elected to act on.
That vision has thrived under the administrative leadership of the first private military college in the country (Norwich University) and survived under a suffocating and underfunded leadership ( Union Institute ). Yet here we are finally under our own leadership, and it is on the verge of collapse under it's own weight of indifference.
Vermont College of Fine Arts was born in 2008, and currently sits on the eve of being granted accreditation by New England Association of Schools and Colleges ( NEASC ). The administration needs to account for how it will fulfill the mission of the college in the future, in line with the vision that brought it ( and us ) to this place, at this moment.
Please write directly to Tom Greene and Gary Moore to explain your concerns. Some potential questions you may want to consider:
Ask how the current mission of the college will be achieved, starting with the first residency in the history of the program without Jessica Lutz.
Ask what the administration is doing to support the faculty in their attempt to achieve the mission.
Ask why the administration is placing more value on increasing market shares within low residency graduate degree programs, rather then living up to the pedagogy that got it where it is today.
Please make no mistake about the severity of the situation. The program you recognize as independant, radical, responsive, holistic and not afraid of failure, is well on the way to becoming what Steve Kurtz terms as a program full of formulaic production, ..."Fulfilling a set of expectations (formulaic production) is not conductive to the creative process, and in fact is its death in bureaucratization."
Please let your voice be heard. This collaborate art piece we call MFA-V needs our help.
I do not know why Jessica is no longer on staff at VCFA, but I do know that it signals a watershed moment within the program, and that it's time to take action. Now!
Jessica's devotion and passion for the program has been unquestioned since the beginning in 1991. Yet, she no longer has a voice within the very program she started fewer then 2 years after we became Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Therefore, it's now our responsibility to be stewards of that which has served us so well.
Jessica's vision, in collaboration with Roy and the Faculty, is directly responsible for helping us make our way through the world in a manner that accomplishes meaningful social change, on whatever scale we have elected to act on.
That vision has thrived under the administrative leadership of the first private military college in the country (Norwich University) and survived under a suffocating and underfunded leadership ( Union Institute ). Yet here we are finally under our own leadership, and it is on the verge of collapse under it's own weight of indifference.
Vermont College of Fine Arts was born in 2008, and currently sits on the eve of being granted accreditation by New England Association of Schools and Colleges ( NEASC ). The administration needs to account for how it will fulfill the mission of the college in the future, in line with the vision that brought it ( and us ) to this place, at this moment.
Please write directly to Tom Greene and Gary Moore to explain your concerns. Some potential questions you may want to consider:
Ask how the current mission of the college will be achieved, starting with the first residency in the history of the program without Jessica Lutz.
Ask what the administration is doing to support the faculty in their attempt to achieve the mission.
Ask why the administration is placing more value on increasing market shares within low residency graduate degree programs, rather then living up to the pedagogy that got it where it is today.
Please make no mistake about the severity of the situation. The program you recognize as independant, radical, responsive, holistic and not afraid of failure, is well on the way to becoming what Steve Kurtz terms as a program full of formulaic production, ..."Fulfilling a set of expectations (formulaic production) is not conductive to the creative process, and in fact is its death in bureaucratization."
Please let your voice be heard. This collaborate art piece we call MFA-V needs our help.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)