Glasgow Conservatoire accused of ableism and transphobia

[Igneococcus]

Can they not see how ludicrous this will appear to anybody outside their bubble?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/diversity-row-after-conservatoire-is-accused-of-ableism-and-transphobia-m77wr030m?shareToken=5de1751afcada56a85ddd52141df3ecf

Wouldn’t she get frostbite?

wont she get frostbite

Nah.
Holding ice as a metaphor for a burden you carry is a pretty overdone and standard performance art trope.

I went to a conservatoire although not Glasgow, everyone was alternative. I consider myself a bit off but my god it was off the scale oddness for everyone. Anyone wanting to be anyone was accepted by all. I cannot even begin to understand these weird scenes occurring in them now.
It's because everyone has to be special. Back when I went many moons ago it was completely acceptable to be whoever you wanted to be, you could rock up as a guy in a dress and no one would have bat an eyelid so why all the fuss now who knows?! Teachers and staff were pretty much previous students of one conservatoire or another as well so all a bit bohemian.

Good grief!

I do wonder how much truth there is in any of it.
A great way to seek attention though.

Academic settings always have an us vs them feeling in any case, don't they? Students have always resented the academics, right?

Not my experience of university, no, but I did a science degree that involved a lot of field work.

These students sound incredibly tiresome and I'm willing to bet not a one of them pronounces Glesga properly so fuck their whining.

The woman in question is a real character, she is very strict and does push you as a student.
She says things that are close to the bone and she definitely made me cry a few times.
The comment about getting a puppy I can 100% imagine her saying, but only because she doesn't have children and instead has dogs and she would have meant it as an genuine piece of advice.

They don't pull any punches when critiquing your work (which was incredibly personal so felt like a personal attack), there was a running joke that it wasn't a working day until you'd had a cry in the toilets.
But honestly; it's one of the best courses in the world. The work made there is good. The graduates have one of the highest employment rates of any uni in the the country. They don't let you be substandard and as an arts student you should be able to take criticism. You learn not to take it personally, and let it make your work better.
I no longer make art but I use what I was taught there every single day.

On the very first day we were told 'no one wants to see your art, in fact the world would prefer it if you didn't. if you want to make it you're going to have to learn to fight for it and only make something you truly love'

I remember thinking that was the most awful thing I'd ever heard, but but the time I graduated I realised what amazing advice it is.
They don't let you just coast.

Worst performance art piece ever!

I would be interested to hear the lecturer’s version of this. The student was planning to hold a piece of ice to demonstrate her loss due to an abortion. The lecturer may just have been discussing how to show this best especially if as a pp suggested the block of ice thing has been done so many times. If so the lecturer is justified in putting alternative view points - the student is using her experience and can expect comment to be passed from a performance perspective. If it is too painful to discuss don’t do it. If true, the puppy comment isn’t on though.

Does this remind anyone of the protest in an American college where they tried (and succeeded) to have a lecturer removed and it led to sit ins, strikes and the lecturer being told campus security weren’t able to protect him. Can’t remember the name of the college.

Are you thinking of the Evergreen College case and Bret Wernstein, ImGenderfree?

"mandatory anti-oppression training"

Lesson 1: How Not To Be Compelled To Participate In Mandatory Training.

Lesson 2: How Not To ........ oh, everyone seems to have walked out....

Arnold yes that one - I watched a program on it in utter disbelief, The current climate is stifling academic thought, freedom and rigour. I hope we aren’t heading the same way.

I read that article and thought that the journalist's specific intention was to portray the students as a bunch of whining clueless snowflakes. But there are at least hints that one or more lecturers may be abusive or a bigot. Grabbing people by the neck isn't terribly good pedagogic practice, is it? Making constant little digs at specific individuals because of their ethnic background/nationality/religion/gender isn't great when you are the teacher and supposedly in a position of authority over your students.

There's also this terribly persistent trope that white men are the most oppressed group ever, and their oppression is being escalated when anyone who is not white or not male suggests that something a white man said was untrue, or unfair, or broke the law. Think of that douche Jordan Petersen, who made his name by bellowing that he was happy to go to jail for the crime of insulting his students (when there had never been any suggestion that he would go to jail, even for blatant rudeness).
Think how many times efforts by arts/humanities students to get some diversity into the curriculum lead to this sort of panicky attack on 'political correctness' from the right wing press.

I can't find this open letter though

This?

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2728437857207663&id=100001244253416 Archive (archive.li/2O135)

It was literally signed by 5 people ...

reanimated

I know the woman in question personally having spent 4 years doing the exact same course.

I don't believe for a second she's a bigot, not one second. I don't believe she'll have made sly digs about someone's ethnicity/religion/gender.
She's a strong character definitely but not a bigot or a bully.

But the person in question isn't a white man.

Also there are trans people on the staff and it's more than half women.

Not many BAME people but probably more than proportion of how many are in Glasgow in general.

None of my friends have shared that letter and I have over 200 alumni and staff of that course on my Facebook friendship list so that's saying a lot.

Glasgow has a huge immigrant population and well documented problems associated but they're white so don't count.

It says link may be broken or page removed on the link to the letter...

It says link may be broken or page removed on the link to the letter

Weird, it works ok for me

Hopefully the archived link works for you?

archive.li/2O135

“white, cis-gender, able-bodied and heterosexual”

As is the majority of the UK population. They need to get their heads out of their arses and into the real world.

"The students complained that they had yet to receive an apology for the “unpaid emotional labour” they expended in the complaint"

Self absorbed bullshit.

I particularly enjoyed their demands including:

"For the academic board to grant mitigation in assessment processes to students involved in this complaints procedure, including but not limited to the exclusion of Prof. Richardson-Webb from issuing these students grades and feedback."

And

"Compensation to the ten students involved in the submitted complaint, including but not limited to the refund of tuition fees paid by students who are not supported by SAAS or other funding bodies and have paid / are required to pay tuition fees. Prof. Hodgart’s insistence that compensation cannot be offered because “the programme was delivered” is roundly fallacious in its refusal to acknolwedge how, as a result of the malpractice of Prof. Richardson-Webb and her staff team, the RCS has breached its contract to provide us with an adequate standard of tuition. We firmly maintain that the abuse suffered by us as students has had a severe negative impact on our learning and wellbeing, denying us the full opportunity to participate in the teaching offered"

The thing is, that as others have said it sounds as if there may be a grain of truth in some of the complainant, but these students have just made themselves sound ridiculous which means that everything they say will be dismissed out of hand.

Saying this as a biracial, disabled lesbian (what does that make my acceptability score this week?) - being any of those things does not make a person more virtuous or better at a job than anyone else. Saying that there must be disabled providers for disabled students and gay service providers for gay students and so on - that's pretty exclusionary, separatist stuff, which does nothing whatever for helping disabled/BAME/homosexual people achieve what has been sought for over decades, which is to just be accepted as a normal part of the population and workforce, not standing out as special or different. The focus is the best person for the job.

The fact also stands that minorities are called that because they are minorities. There ain't that many of them about. The massive majority of the UK population is going to be straight, able bodied, white, non trans, the population bulge is for older people, this is representative of the population. You will never be able to staff any average service with a full complement of minority staff. The demonising of everyone outside those minorities is ridiculous.

First misgendering now mispronouncing???

The People of Kirkudbright, Llansanffraid and Happisburgh will not stand for it.

Thank you for link. It's a bit tedious and wordy, isn't it?