Teeeeejirrrrr

I work at The New School, a liberal arts university in Manhattan comprised of eight separate schools unified as one university. Arguably the most famous of them is the Parsons School of Design. There has been some controversy of late- basically at time of writing what has happened so far in a super-condensed form:

• The newly hired provost Joe Westphal left his position after roughly three months on the job. Mr. Bob Kerrey, the university president announced that he would assume the role of interim provost until one could be found.
• The full-time  faculty held a meeting and voted no confidence in Mr. Kerrey along with James Murtha, the executive VP.
• A flurry of communications between the two parties, mostly through third party media worsened and escalated the situation to some degree.
• Mr. Kerrey then met the faculty face to face in a meeting that was off limits to students (presumably for the sake of airing out grievances on a straightforward manner and not to involve student issues).
• Some students then occupied the cafeteria and neighboring study facility at the  “GF” building on 65 Fifth Avenue.
• A video was released of a small fracas between one member of TNS security and a student.  This happened around noon on 18 Dec 2008, into the second day of the student occupation.
• Bob Kerrey canceled the student senate meeting which was due to have met in that very building on 8PM that night.
• Students occupied some parts of the ‘main’ building at 55 West 13th Street for a period of several hours starting from roughly 10PM on 18 Dec 2008.
• At some point near midnight, Bob Kerrey left the 55 West 13th street building and was chased down the street by a large group of student protesters to his apartment building a few blocks away.
• The students who occupied the 55 West 13th eventually left early in the morning of the 19th after some of their demands were met. The students holed up in 65 Fifth Avenue are still there.

If you’re a parent and you’re reading this, I just wanted to express some of my opinions about the situation so far. If you’re a parent of a New School student, thank you for putting your trust in the school and its staff.  I’m not a faculty member, and what I do for the university is akin to that of a ‘digital janitor’. There are a lot of dedicated and hard working staff trying to make sure that students get the best services and support that we can provide.

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