This letter was signed by 108 of MSU’s architecture students. The Giles Architecture Building is located at 889 Collegeview St.Despite an extensive rhetoric of reform, the only comprehensive conceptions for universities in a democratically constituted industrial society have been worked out by students. (Jürgen Habermas, “Toward a Rational Society,” 17)
This letter is an open and public request by us, Mississippi State University School of Architecture students, for clear reason and prudence to be restored to the Office of the President at MSU and for the IHL to reconsider its decisions on the leadership for our fine university. We speak from the position of design-oriented students offended and appalled by the way this university administration has conducted itself over the past year. The cult of individual power and secrecy promoted by Dr. Robert H. Foglesong is damaging the rationalization of the university system that the democratic process provides.
In our four years at MSU, no other administrator has micro-managed the aesthetics and pedagogy of the university in the way it is now being done. President Foglesong leads our university with a dictatorial attitude that disregards and disrespects the views of faculty professionals.
Our School of Architecture has been under a barrage of intolerable orders from the Office of the President.
First, the president has demanded the removal of many student-designed installations from around our building, including many from previous years, that are exhibited for pedagogical purposes. Specifically, we have been told to remove student work from certain windows because they are visible from the exterior. Publicness is an essential characteristic of the pedagogy of design work and these specific projects were designed for the particular light that comes through these windows. President Foglesong’s requests have not relented, even under explanation from other administrators as to the purpose of these projects.
Second, for design work to reach its full potential, we as students, along with faculty guidance, must be able to use our building through our creative expressions. We conceive of our building as an educational laboratory for experimentation that must take precedence over a homogeneous campus aesthetic.
Third, we find the attempt to force aesthetic judgments by the president on the entire university to be oppressive. We fully support Dr. Foglesong’s desire to produce an aesthetically pleasing campus, particularly regarding maintenance and unwanted litter. However, President Foglesong defines where posters and flyers are posted in our building, prevents us from keeping chairs on our balcony, asks that certain windows that expose studio spaces in our building be covered up, and makes decisions about the design and use of our building. Not only do we find the attempt to paint brown all exposed concrete and metal aesthetically offensive for a university campus, we are outraged also by the continued refusal to acknowledge the professional views of design faculty on these issues.
Fourth, by now the removal of university daffodils has become well known to many students, faculty, alumni and the general public. This wholesale removal illustrates the assertion of Dr. Foglesong’s opinions that are in direct opposition to professional views. It clearly demonstrates the spin that his administration continues to employ. His replies to many student and alumni e-mails express an immature, almost childish manner, that consists mostly of empty rhetoric. Many of these e-mails can be accessed via the Facebook group, “Save the MSU Daffodils!”, just one of the many examples being President Foglesong’s ending remarks to a concerned alumni: “Please don’t bother to respond since I will have filed this under a category to not except [sic] your e-mail.”
Fifth, the immature and irrational nature of President Foglesong’s replies to many students and alumni over the removal of daffodils is only an instance of a larger issue of belligerence and an atmosphere of fear. Faculty complaints about his domineering leadership style have been widely known since November (See The Reflector’s article “Faculty Senate fed up” printed on Nov. 20).
All of the aforementioned instances serve only as examples to which we as students are directly connected. Many other instances of systematic oppression of those who disagree with this president are known to faculty and administrative staff. The irrationality being perpetuated by Dr. Robert H. Foglesong is inexcusable, especially for a president who professes leadership yet fails to recognize the fundamental purpose of a university as one of the few places left for open, uncensored pursuit of knowledge.