PARSONS ADDRESSES FACULTY CHANGES

The New School acknowledged yesterday that the university had poorly handled the faculty changes for its fine-arts program at Parsons, reports Robin Pogrebin for the New York Times. “We should have personally engaged the faculty about these pending changes,” said Tim Marshall, provost of the New School, in a public statement. “I want to offer my sincere apologies for these shortcomings and the discord it has caused.”

A dozen members of the faculty at Parsons the New School for Design were recently told that they would not be teaching in the department in the fall. Faculty members at Parsons and at other area universities protested the action. Marshall went on to say that he would work with human resources and other divisions to improve communications “so that all faculty members are properly acknowledged for the positive contributions they make to our academic community.” He also said a faculty task force had been established to “engage in a fuller conversation” about the curricular changes in the fine-arts program. “They will review both the content and implementation of these changes,” Marshall said.

Previous Artforum.com coverage of this story can be found here.