Glasgow Conservatoire accused of ableism and transphobia

I only read it once but I remember a bit where he says a lecturer talked about being raped. He said first ‘how did she know what the triggers of her students were’

Oh, a case of "stop talking about male violence, it makes men uncomfortable* And "if you won't shut up we'll make you shut up."

I feel for his future therapist. S/he'll earn that 73K.

Are they really called E wank d? Surely that’s a joke name?

Some of those accusations do sound terrible. I have every sympathy for the students who were on the receiving end.

But Jesus, their writing is so steeped in PoMo and Queer Theory it sounds laughable. Using neutral, everday language would have served them much better in being taken seriously.

And now that post has been deleted so it's hard to guess what they said

That Facebook statement and the rant on here are like some parody of a whiney student. It makes the cast of the young ones look like grounded, practical thinkers.

There seem to have been a couple of quite serious incidents but when you report a shopping list of complaints, long after the incidents with such ridiculous language and bad faith assumptions it makes it hard to believe.

I bet there were culture problems but demanding the institution do what you say and pay for your 'emotional labour' any credibility is gone.

Medusa, I don’t doubt that some of the staff might have been idiots. A lot of people are. My point is that it should be an aim for everyone to call these things out in a friendly way. If I had overheard a “joke” like that I would have made a face and said something along the lines, “that is kind of inappropriate. Unless you are Prince Phillip, we should probably be a bit careful with those comments”.

Regarding the MS, if that is true, it is completely inappropriate. However, it should have been easily solved with a doctor/consultant’s letter.

I was signed off sick for a few days due to a high risk pregnancy. My boss questioned it. We had a nice HR discussion, I had a consultant letter (I was under bi-weekly consultant care on the NHS) and everything was solved very amicably with me having time off for all medical appointments. Once it had been formally cleared, my boss was very supportive. And I held no grudge against him. I only felt slightly embarrassed over all the fuss HR made of me for the rest of my pregnancy.

The problem is mulling over multiple injustices, getting a gang together and write some kind of a letter or go above somebody’s head without calling it out first. And I am saying this as somebody who helped to get a misogynistic bully fired by keeping a diary about everything inappropriate I witnessed. This was, however, a man who frequently reduced junior female colleagues to tears by shouting at them. And on the request of my (male) boss.

Iong post not log post!

(I've seen that advert for those books on at least four threads now.)

Someone resurrected a zombie thread at 03.04 during the night, apparently made a very log post that peeps have responded to. And now that post has been deleted so it's hard to guess what they said (and therefore what the responses address).

Have I got that right?

I do think the reporting on this has been a little.. disingenuous. Especially about the Cantonese, the complaint wasn't about a mispronunciation, it was that when it was realised that they weren't able to pronounce the word and the student had thanked them for trying, a comment was made about how that's what the Cantonese students sounded to the English staff when they spoke English. Clearly not a great thing to say, even if meant as a joke.

I also googled to see if there'd been an update since the original article, and found another student with MS saying that they were repeatedly discouraged from using mobility aids and accused of lying about their need for them. So, there's clearly more going on here, even if some of the complaints seem an overreaction.

Indeed - if you can’t argue your work or take a knock back /criticism then you are in the wrong industry.

I've always defended young people studying performing arts if that's their passion. I've even argued it teaches you resilience and how to take feedback....

I assume this person was wanting a career? Where they have to work with people and be managed/directed? Good luck with this smell following them...

I particularly enjoyed the bit about the lecturer forcing them to affirm her beliefs without evidence.

I only read it once but I remember a bit where he says a lecturer talked about being raped. He said first ‘how did she know what the triggers of her students were’ and ‘hearing this forever links me to the rapist’. He also said something about being 73k in debt from the course and having to spend at least that in therapy to get over it.

It was astonishing 😂

Anyway this is of course paraphrased from my memory

I gather I missed a very public bed wetting from a toddler who wants a bikkie for ruining a woman's livelihood?

The combination of piety and viciousness is very Puritan/Spanish Inquisition, isn't it?

I went to art school later - they wouldn’t last a week there! It was rough sometimes and the lecturers would tell you if your work was rubbish!

This proves my point.

Who on earth would want to work with these people? Can you imagine the daily frustrations, perceived insults and sulking if constructive criticism wasn’t given in exactly the right and most sensitive way. I would have thought that arts would be a place were you really needed to sell yourself and make people like you?

I realise that I am coming across as a tad harsh, but I never had a problem working with people others perceived difficult. And I protected and helped junior female colleagues (and male) if I saw anything a rational person would be uncomfortable with - or if they spoke to me about something bothering them. I just cannot stand sulking and nursing of perceived slights - and trying to cancel people who may be much more talented than yourself.

Oh for goodness sake, Ewan, have the courage of your convictions!

I’m not sure that deleting and deregistering your long and rambling diatribe after a whole five comments does anything to improve anyone’s perception of your ability to take feedback on board, a year or eighteen months after the event.

I now think more than ever that the lecturers weren’t the problem.

The students complained that staff were “all white and all cis-gender”, a term for people whose gender identity matches their biological sex. The letter said: “Most staff members fit a white, cis-gender, able-bodied and heterosexual mould.“

What the actual...??? Why on gods green earth would the sexuality of your lecturer make a hit of difference- let alone how they think about themself (and how do the students know what Dr Smith does when they get home)?

Seriously - I was a student in Glasgow and students were generally pretty down to earth and normal back then. Have these students not got some music practice to do?

Message deleted by MNHQ. Poster has deregged and won't be back to engage

Judging from the responses of those who read whatever it was prior to deletion, MNHQ has done the rest of us a favour.

Could be nobody else, one other person or a hundred others.

The saddest thing is (and this is why I already trying to coach 10 and 11 year olds in this) is that it will make this person’s life very difficult.

I worked for years in an incredibly sexist, male dominated environment. There were people who were shouting at others, emotional people, people on the spectrum, really all sorts. Nobody ever objected to someone calling things out in a friendly way (well, they could make some snide comments, but that was the end of it). However, once somebody (who seemed perfectly fine at the time) started complaining to HR or managers after having “thought about their feelings for a while”, that was usually it. People started to be incredibly polite, but nobody really wanted to work with them. No sane person wants to be hit with an HR report for a behaviour they didn’t realise came across wrong.

I don’t know how this translates into arts, but I have to say, I watched my hair dresser choose hair models once (whilst he was cutting my hair). He didn’t go for the prettiest, but for the “pretty enough” who was happy, friendly and had “good energy” as he put it. Even when you choose on looks, it appears people want to work with people that are easy to get along with.

I feel like I’ve acccidentally opened someone’s journal this morning

What a lot of words you’ve used there to justify your hounding of this woman. It seems like you managed to get her fired, but you’re still not done! A year down the line you’re still googling this, and still lecturing more women about your terribly important feelings. And as for thinking that Mumsnet is “an Isolated right wing community”- don’t be silly.

But thank you for bumping this fascinating thread that I’d missed the first time round.

When do I get paid for the emotional labour I just expended reading that wall of self-pitying waffle?

I am exhausted from reading that. To be honest, it does come across as quite self justifying, self pitying and very young. As Flora says, you are a young adult, not a child.

I will give you the advice I am giving my children already now (the oldest is 11).

There are a lot of people out there that aren’t very nice, who you disagree with and who will not like you. If you think about it, you may not like them. It is possible to co-exist anyway, just try to be polite and don’t expect too much.

There will be a few people in your student life and working life who are very good at what they do. They are likely to also be very self absorbed, difficult and sometimes unpleasant. Try to be useful to them and learn from them. They usually respond to anyone who constantly tries to excel, but will not bother with anyone who doesn’t. Avoid working with the nice, useless people.

If something bothers you, call it out immediately, but in a joking way. “Oups, jargon here is almost sexual harassment, I’d better read up on the complaint procedure.” “On a 1-10 scale of cultural insensitivity, that was a 9.5”. Followed by “ can I get you a beer/coffee” or leading the conversation back to where it was. It actually works and most people will respect you for drawing a line where you are uncomfortable and doing it in a good, friendly way, without all this unsafe, feelings business.