A group of architecture students this week wrote a letter to several media outlets, MSU President Robert “Doc” Foglesong and the Institutions of Higher Learning explaining their discontent in regard to the university president and his recent actions. The letter is signed by 108 architecture students and is published on Page 3 of today’s edition of The Reflector. Foglesong was unavailable for comment.
On Monday, the students assembled as a school and were asked to take an hour out of their studio time to pick up installations on the exterior and visible interior of the building because they were not “aesthetically pleasing.” Students were particularly upset about their window boxes being removed from the windows. They said Foglesong also wants certain beams in the building to be painted brown.
According to several architecture students, Foglesong was on his morning run on Feb. 9 and he noticed the displays. They said he called provost Peter Rabideau around 6 a.m.
Rabideau said Foglesong asked him to talk to dean of architecture Jim West because it was following the appropriate chain of command.
“The bottom line issue is balancing pedagogy with campus appearance,” Rabideau said. “I have told the dean that I will be happy to work with him and the faculty so they can maintain their pedagogical objectives.”
Senior architecture major Bryan Norwood said he believes Foglesong jogs past the architecture building, Giles Hall, every morning.
“It’s on his route,” Norwood said. “Over last weekend, what we heard is that he called the provost and asked him to come up here and look at our building and we were told ‘These are things you’re going to have to change.’ And the way I understand is that the provost has nothing to do with these things.”
He said the students chose to write the letter when things between Foglesong and the architecture school began to affect them. He said the biggest thing that pushed a lot of people over the edge is that projects, such as shadow boxes, which are supposed to be in the windows, are being confused with mess.
“Most of the stuff we’re finding out from faculty is second-hand information, but we know that there’s a fear of what is possibly going to happen if we don’t do things the way they’re asking them to be done,” he said. “The light boxes would be the biggest example. [The administration] hasn’t relented even though we’ve said they’re projects.”
Numerous students said they are offended by the president’s actions because it affects their creative learning environment.
Senior architecture major Wade Martin said majors that include designing need to involve spontaneity.
“We can’t spark new ideas based on our old designs [if it’s tidy all the time],” he said. “As far as the mess outside, I can understand making us clean it up, but we pay a staff to keep this place tidy.”
Senior architecture major Chris Estill said the building is meant to be a learning laboratory for students.
“We use our building as a research facility, sometimes at the expense of aesthetic appeal,” he said.
Senior architecture major Liz Sellers said there is a concrete difference between trying to make things neat and tidy and taking away creative energy.
“You should be proud that you have a good architecture and art program,” she said. “By limiting our use of our facilities, it stunts our creativity. It’s the fact that he [Foglesong] seems to be dictating what happens in the university completely without keeping what’s in best regard to students.”
Senior architecture major Alanna Gladney said she feels as if Foglesong is putting his opinions and desires above those of students and faculty members.
“It’s really frustrating to see someone come in and challenge, or muffle, the voice of the students and our faculty,” she said. “It seems like he’s criticizing the way we work and the way we learn when he tells us we can’t display our work in areas it was designed for and that we can’t display our work in our windows.”
She also said it was frustrating for the students when they had to take time out from their allotted studio time to pick up the “unaesthetic” materials.
“We had to take care of matters that are supposed to be taken care of by maintenance,” she said. “We’re paying to be here and learn, yet we’re doing other people’s jobs.”
Martin said he had no complaints about the administration until Monday.
“I didn’t have a problem with him [Foglesong] until he told us to take our installations down,” Martin said. “You don’t walk into a museum and start taking out things you don’t like. It’s our second home.”
Martin said as an architecture student, he has to make things to learn and that the students are graded based on the opinions of their professors.
“Before he does all that [asks for installations to be taken down], he needs to come in here and see what we’re doing,” he said.
Senior architecture major Austin Barnes said studio-based learning is fueled by making projects like the shadow boxes. He said he was bothered when the students had to pick up outside the building.
“It’s like your neighbor telling you they don’t like your furniture,” he said. “You’re not going to go buy new furniture.”
Barnes said students should have to have a certain degree of academic freedom.
“It feels as if we’re being hindered on doing things to the best of our ability. Our building is a learning tool,” he said. “Things like that are representative of our time here. They’re our landmarks in coming into the program. Is MSU about pleasant running experiences or is it about learning? That’s what it boils down to.”
Norwood said that as far as he knows, there have not been any problems of this nature until this year.
“We’ve been doing things this way for a while,” he said. “It’s not that we’re afraid of change, but it’s just things that shouldn’t be a problem that have all of a sudden become a big deal for some reason.”
He said the way Foglesong is choosing to go about things seems to reflect his personal whims, rather than those of the larger group. He also said it is an absence of democracy that leads to the fall of rationalization and that it is offensive to him that the president of a university would choose to run things this way.
“If you look at all the old e-mails between him and students and alumni, whenever someone tries to bring up ‘we disagree with you on this,’ he switches the subject to something else,” he said. “That’s a very classic rhetorical move to just change the subject when somebody’s calling you out on something. We’ve taken to thinking of him in the same sense of the general in ‘Doctor Strangelove.’ It’s this sense where he will not admit that he’s wrong about anything, and he’s not willing to listen to what other people have to say about it, unless it’s what he thinks.