In a Post-Truth Era, New School Professors Make Presidential Predictions for 2020 . . . . . . Page 4
February 2019
She’s a Frog, She’s a Lady: Meet the Parsons Student Who Paints Her Face Like Lisa Frank . . . . . . . .Page 5
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A student-run newspaper since 2007
ISSUE 1
Students Protest “Whiteness” Gathering at Student Health Services
Parsons Has a New Executive Dean: Who She Is and What It Means
Student groups respond with a call to action, school releases apology statement
Rachel Schreiber, of the San Francisco Art Institute, will begin in July
by DINA WILLIAMS, MICHAEL IZQUIERDO
by KATHERINE HUGGINS, EMILY DOSAL, DINA WILLIAMS, NICO CHILLA
Photo by Dillon St. Bernard
It is Black History Month, and a group meeting for “white identified students” was held at Student Health Services on Wednesday afternoon. The gathering, created and spearheaded by Tracy Robin, assistant vice president for SHS, and Bradley Heikes, a student success advisor, incited a visceral reaction among many members of the student body. “Exploring Whiteness,” was on SHS’s Instagram account and on its website. The post generated 300 comments from students expressing their disdain and questioning the validity of the meeting. This outrage comes a few semesters after students of color at the New School advocated for a dedicated meeting space. The meeting on Wednesday,
Feb. 20, was the second official meeting of the group, and drew a crowd of more than 25 students, as the Instagram post was the first widespread announcement of “Exploring Whiteness.” The post described the event as a “supportive space for white identified students to explore whiteness from a social justice framework.” The students, who were predominantly students of color, expressed their initial reactions to the viral Instagram post as they flooded the SHS waiting room before the event began. “I wanted to transfer. I am ready to go,” said Laiza Martinez, a first-year Photography student. Aishamanne Williams, a first-year Journalism + Design student, said, “The New School,
The Centennial: a Fact Check by NICO CHILLA About halfway through the New School’s “100 Years of New” video, produced among other articles of fanfare for the university’s centennial celebration, James Baldwin’s name and portrait flash on-screen. As his image appears, the narrator describes New School students as “groundbreakers” who “create the movements that forever change the world.” Baldwin certainly fits the description: a prolific writer and activist who became a prominent name in the civil rights movement. But was he a New School student? How much time does a person need to have spent at the New School in order to be celebrated as an alum? “All of the individuals featured in the video have a direct connection to the New School and illustrate different aspects of our proud legacy,” Ashley Bruni, the university’s Director of Brand Strategy and Activation, wrote in a statement to the New School Free Press. Still, using Baldwin and the 22 other figures from The New
School’s past in the video raises questions about the best way to convey the school’s complex narrative.
What does it take to be considered an alum? “Everybody wants to be connected to James Baldwin in 2019,” said Mark Larrimore, a Lang religious studies professor. “What could be cooler than that? But what could be more disrespectful to James Baldwin than to claim that you made him, when you didn’t?” Larrimore and Public Engagement history professor Julia Foulkes have worked for the past 10 years with the Archives and Special Collections office to research the New School’s past, and educate its community through lectures, courses, and a website. The question of James Baldwin’s presence on campus has been a debate for some time. Foulkes wrote a Public Seminar essay in December 2017 examining the evidence that Baldwin had ever attended. “From all available evidence
as a university, is a space to explore whiteness.” Students were moved into a small room that wasn’t able to accommodate the unexpected turnout. The students crowded onto a couch, shared seats with each other, or spread out and sat on the floor. Right off the bat, students led the discussion and asked the leaders to clarify the expectations and objectives of the group. The idea was to create a space for “learning about whiteness to become better allies for people of color, to educate, and dismantle white supremacy, white fragility, and white privilege,” said Heikes, the Student Success Advisor.
If you want a particularly grizzly observation about what it means to be the head of Parsons, Juliette Cezzar has one for you: “If you’re going to be a dental hygienist, be prepared for blood.” Cezzar, an assistant professor of Communication Design, looked for this level of grit in each of the candidates for Parsons’ top job. Dr. Rachel Schreiber, the final pick announced on Dec 19, meets her standard. “I’m really excited about the new executive dean,” said Cezzar, a former program lead of the Design and Technology and Communication Design departments. “Parsons is a very
Illustration by Nico Chilla
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unearthed so far, Baldwin never took a course at The New School,” Foulkes wrote. “The Baldwin estate had agreed that the university could quote him on its website but the estate could not verify that he had attended the school.” However, the Free Press located a biography on Baldwin written by his long-time friend and journalist, William J. Weatherby, that describes an interview where Baldwin himself described how the two met. “He thought it was at the New School for Social Research, where he was taking a class on the theatre with the dream of writing a long-running broadway play,” Weatherby wrote, and quoted Baldwin: “I think I was about twenty so it was probably around 1944,” Baldwin said. “I think Marlon [Brando] was hanging out at the New School, too.” Baldwin likely took a course at the Dramatic Workshop, a program that Brando and three other celebrity figures from the video attended that the New School cut ties with in 1949 after launching in 1940. Foulkes had heard rumors of this, and nonetheless expressed concern at
complex school embedded in another complex school, and we really need someone with the operational stamina and desire to go headfirst into that instead of spending two years just trying to figure out the puzzle and then questioning it.” Schreiber’s career in the world of art and design spans over 22 years, from studio practice, non-profit higher education and administrative leadership. She is coming to Parsons from the San Francisco Art Institute, where she was most recently Provost and Senior Vice President. Jess Irish, a full-time faculty member in the School of Art, Media, and Technology and an assistant Design and
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the use of Baldwin’s reputation to bolster The New School. “I think we tread on his image at our own peril,” said Foulkes. “Especially considering that for the first 50 years of its existence, the New School did not have a consistent record of social justice regarding civil rights, despite a few good moments.”
“How much time does a person need to have spent at The New School in order to be celebrated as an alum?” In response to the Free Press’ inquiry about the new evidence tying Baldwin closer to the university, Foulkes wrote, “I think the question remains as to whether we can call him an ‘alum’—and, most important, claim his standing on racial issues as reflective of our own at the time. The school barely had any students at that point who had a degree from the school (just a few graduate students from the Graduate Faculty);
most often, people took a course or two. So I often think in this kind of situation that it’s important to consider whether the person claimed the New School.” Baldwin and the Dramatic Workshop alumni are not alone among the featured figures in the video with a tenuous connection to the school. The artist Ai Weiwei appears, his photograph and name popping up as the narrator says, “They are the persistent,” despite the fact that he dropped out of Parsons in 1982 after arriving in New York in 1981. He told Time Magazine in an October 2012 interview that the school helped him better understand influential artists like Andy Warhol. However, a New Yorker feature about the artist stated that “Parsons was a poor fit. Ai excelled in the studio but hated art history.” The actor Bradley Cooper also gets a nod in the centennial video. He received his MFA from the Actor’s Studio during the period that it was contracted to the New School from 19942005. It severed from the New School and has since been at Pace University. CONTINUED ON PAGE 5
MASTHEAD Editors-in-Chief Molly Mintz Ryanne Salzano Creative Director Candice Wood Art Director Olivia Heller News Editor Emma Tucker Arts & Culture Editor Sammi Fisher Deputy Arts & Culture Editor Kurt Burger Social Media Editor Lundon Lafci Reporters Jihan Basyah Nico Chilla Katie Cologna Anna Conkling Emily Dosal Joseph Gobran Katherine Huggins Michael Izquierdo Martin Kaff Manami Kaneko Lexi Lane Marissa Matozzo Kathryn Schmid Rebekah Stewartson Dina Williams
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR New School students are schooled in social justice. Many of us are here because we were sold on the university’s rich history, safe space, and liberal ethos. Dramatically more so than at typical and traditional universities, our seminars invite intellectual insights on climate change and capitalism; our courses challenge us to question global inequalities and design for a fair future; and our community encourages us to fight for women's, immigrants’, and LGBTQIA rights. The pursuit of real, tangible social justice is imperative when so much is under threat in this post-truth political era. But it appears that in the New School’s continual quest to be the progressive place, its administration risks leaving people of color behind. Earlier this Black History Month, on Feb. 20, Student Health Services hosted the second meeting of an event titled “Exploring Whiteness” that aimed to be a “safe space for white identified students to explore whiteness from a social justice framework,” according
to a SHS Instagram post advertising the event. Students of color predominately attended and questioned the organizers’ intentions and next steps while 300 commenters left outraged replies on the since-deleted post. The New School publicly apologized three times: twice on its official Instagram through different Stories and by a post on the SHS Instagram page. The tension between this “Whiteness” event and the reality of the difficulties the Students of Color Weekly group faced in obtaining a physical space within the university to call their own is not lost on the New School Free Press. The administration has made strides to address POC students’ needs, but SHS’s event, while intended to bolster allyship and discussions of white privilege, was tone deaf and was definitely not executed in a manner that highlighted the ongoing racial issues on campus. The university’s calendar at large also lacked a strong schedule of events dedicated to Black History Month. As its Centennial celebrations
kick off, revisiting the historic shortcomings of the New School as a true space of social justice could act as a springboard for creating a campus that includes everyone, especially our POC community members. The Free Press is operated by passionate students who care about this university’s students, faculty, support staff, and administrators. However, we would benefit from turning our perspective internally to assess our own inclusivity—or lack thereof. Like most newsrooms, ours is mostly white. Our editorial board is mostly white, too. Two people out of our small faction of reporters of color led the reporting of the “Whiteness” event. Our newspaper is nowhere near as diverse as we want it to be. The Free Press needs to broaden our coverage yearround to represent the needs, voices, and stories of POC on campus beyond inflammatory events like this. We need to attend SOC and Black Student Union meetings regularly and recruit reporters of color from all divisions within the New
School. And we will, because we cannot continue to leave our POC peers behind. Our reporting strives to be clear and unbiased as we seek answers to difficult questions and explore controversies and issues that affect our community. By providing you with news of what’s going on at The New School, we hope your conversations on campus are more informed. Our readers inform us, as well. We want your feedback, critiques, and submissions because we want to grow. Please read our coverage of the original event (page 3), learn what political science profs are predicting for the 2020 presidential election (page 3), get to know Frog Lady (page 5), and more. This semester I am working with Ryanne Salzano as co-Editor In Chief of this newspaper, and I am proud of our Free Press reporters’ hard work. We have so much more work to do.
Happy reading, Molly Mintz
Across Campus by RYANNE SALZANO
Faculty Advisors Irwin Chen Allison Lichter Joseph Vivyan Tran
Follow Us @nsfreepress newschoolfreepress.com TELL US WHAT WE SHOULD COVER, OR SUBMIT YOUR WORK. nsfreepress@gmail.com
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ACROSS 4. Author of “If Beale Street Could Talk,” heavily associated with TNS 7. Where the water isn’t so deep, or the 2018 Oscar winner for Best Original Song 8. Initials of US representative from the Bronx 9. Social justice term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw 10. 16 weeks on campus
EDITORIAL
DOWN 1. Oscar nom for “A Star is Born” and New School alum 2. What 2019 isn’t, since there’s no Feb. 29 3. Popular piece on the camel-toed feet of Parsons students 5. Unicorn of the sea 6. University president with a dorm to his name
February 2019
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SHS “Whiteness” Meeting Sparks Outrage “The idea was creating an opportunity where there can be an affinity group where work can be done that wasn’t burdening people of color,” said Robin. One student, Jonon Gansukh, asked the group leaders if they had any previous background in working in this field or if it was a new experience for them. “I’ve been a therapist for 30 years, so sitting around and talking in groups is something I really know a lot about,” Robin said. However, she said she didn’t consider herself an expert on this particular subject matter. “I work here as an advisor, but I’m getting my Masters in Social Work at NYU. So I’ve curated all the articles that we’re going to read [in the group] with classmates and instructors over there and I’ve been working with the language with some of my colleagues here,” Heikes said. Blue Lonergan, a first-year
Literary Studies student, responded to these comments with skepticism. “You can’t educate with educators who don’t have experience with the problem. You’re speaking about ignorance and all of these issues,” Lonergan said. “But I don’t understand how you would be able to lend that knowledge if you don’t have that experience.” Both Bradley and Tracy were unaware of the outrage taking place on social media while they were in the meeting. They explained they are not in charge of scheduling and posting content onto the SHS Instagram page. At one point, the discussion focused on the term “whiteness” and how to address it. One white-identifying student chimed in on why he joined the group. “I was excited about a group about unpacking whiteness. It’s because in class when I’ve seen racist shit go down in some of my programs, which it does, I’ve struggled with how
to have conversations about where I can intervene in that process,” the student said. Another white-identifying student asked how “whiteness” was defined. Ninoshkka Paul, a second-year global studies student, said, “White people created the term ‘whiteness.’ It wasn’t a term that came out of nowhere. When you talk about black and whiteness, that term came because of slavery and because your ancestors needed an ‘other.’ White people created the term whiteness and blackness to divide it. If you want to define whiteness, there’s no way to define it.” When the leaders were asked what they planned on doing moving forward, they stated they would take all the input and then turned the question to the students for feedback. The sentiment from many of the students was that the group should be suspended until they convene with people with more education on the issues they want to address, and with
voices of color, especially those on campus. After the discussion, Mica McGriggs, a Coordinator for Mental Health Equity at SHS, spoke about the event and its core objectives. “The deconstructing of white privilege is the work of white folks. They kind of have to do that work. And I feel that the focus for black and brown people is to work on their own kind of healing, work on how do they kind of navigate all the atrocities we face historically and how do we move forward. We all have to engage in this work, but all of our jobs are going to be different. I think the intention of this group was for white students to do that process,” McGriggs said. SHS deleted their controversial Instagram post. Robin and Heikes after the event released a formal statement the next day reiterating their original purpose for the group, apologizing to the New School community for “missing the mark… big time,” and thanking the student body for speaking out.
“We acknowledge that we did not take into account the voices of the very students we hoped to unburden by doing the work that white people really need to be doing. We failed to gather the wisdom and voices of the generation we directly wished to serve.” The formal statement was issued on the SHS Instagram account, as well as the official New School Instagram. Black Student Union posted on their Instagram story that all students of color should come to the SOC Space the day after to review the “Exploring Whiteness” event. Clarke Johnson, a first-year student, attributed the event as another example of institutions, such as the New School, treating social justice as a “performative” act— paying lip service to the issues, without having the means to back it up. “Do I think it was tone deaf? Yes. Do I think there’s a way to fix this? Not without a complete start from the bottom, like get rid of it,” they said. •
Plotke, though, thinks that the New School student body remains mindful of the serious and complex dangers that we currently face, and of those to come in the next few years. “Even though lower Manhattan has its political culture, the students in the undergraduate level at the New School have generally lived here for a couple years, and many of them have lived in Pennsylvania or Michigan or Ohio,” said Plotke. “They are very aware that the country as a whole does not look like San Francisco or Manhattan.”
is utterly obvious, which is to persuade voters in more centrist states that the Democrats are too far to the left,” he said. This classic strategy in presidential races entails “provoking or at least benefitting from the divisions in the opposing party,” Plotke said. Similarly, Khrushcheva thinks that Trump has been effective so far in his political messaging. “I wouldn’t dismiss him winning [in 2020] because he’s very clever,” said Khrushcheva. “People just dismiss him all the time, but he’s incredibly clever at reading his audience.” Trump’s strategy to divide and conquer the American left is working so far, according to Khrushcheva. “I think in 2020, the more our side would stop shrieking and actually start admitting what Trump’s strengths are, the better we are equipped to meet those strengths,” Khrushcheva said. “And we’re not really doing it.” Still, most professors as well as students do not see any way to predict or anticipate what will happen in 2020, or even in the time leading up to voting day, which could give Democrats assurances about winning. “I have an idealistic view of my duty as an American to vote no matter what,” said Mason, “but the statistics show that I am in the minority. If there is anything I think I learned from the last election, it is that I don’t know anything.” On the 2020 race, Khrushcheva said that ultimately no expert can really know how the next eighteen months or so will play out. “We don’t know,” she said. “We can’t know.” “Because either side wants to believe, and this may sound ridiculous, that the truth is on their side — whatever the truth is,” Khrushcheva said. •
Professors Talk Trump and the “Post-Truth” Era How the 2016 election changed political conversations in the classroom by MARTIN KAFF
Illustration by Olivia Heller
For New School professors, the current political situation is uniquely difficult to put in perspective for students. “You have alternative facts, you have fake news, so how do you write history in a post-truth moment when truth doesn’t matter?” said Nina Khrushcheva, professor of International Affairs at the New School for Social Research and an expert in political media and propaganda. “We’ve never seen this before. We’ve never seen reality TV writing reality.” Khrushcheva is the biological great-granddaughter and adoptive granddaughter of former premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev. Lisa Huestis, professor of politics at Lang and a former federal prosecutor, said her approach to teaching has changed substantially since the election in 2016. “For years I’ve attacked [the system’s] weaknesses in class,” said Huestis, “and for the first time I really feel like I have to sort of flip it, and say let’s just pause for a moment and not just criticize.” Huestis is married to David
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Van Zandt, university president of the New School. Formerly part of the Department of Justice and an expert in constitutional law, Huestis believes that the value of representative democracy and the strength of American institutions should be her focus as an educator. “I have a very hard time imagining why your generation would not be disillusioned with institutions, or disillusioned with process, or disillusioned with any of the systems that are in place,” she said.
“You have alternative facts, you have fake news, so how do you write history in a post-truth moment when truth doesn’t matter?” Michelle Mason, a senior studying politics at Lang, felt
blindsided by Trump’s victory from within the liberal bubble of a metropolitan college campus. Students and professors only begin studying him seriously after the election. “During the fall semester professors were certain that he would not win,” said Mason about the late months of 2016. “Despite being in all politics classes, I don’t remember any significant discussions [about Trump]. I think everyone in New York City did not understand how popular he was.” Mason also feels that politics classes have changed significantly after the election.“I felt the level of rigor go up,” she said. “All professors admitted they had never seen news become so unpredictable and cycle so quickly.” As a politics major in her fourth year at the New School, Mason also understands that painting all students in Manhattan as trapped in the “liberal bubble” does not tell the whole story of the New School. “I don’t think the entire student body falls into line with this [left-leaning] ideology. I have had many classmates who lean far more to the right, they are just not as vocal,” she said. Although Huestis understands our time as “a moment of absolute emergency,” that may not be enough to prepare Democrats and progressives for the upcoming election. “One of the things that tends not to be much discussed, at least not an analytical way in Manhattan, is the depth of divisions within the Democratic party,” said David Plotke, professor of politics at the New School for Social Research, with a focus on U.S. politics. “The political danger of lower Manhattan is you may overestimate Trump’s weakness to the point that you think any Democrat will win,” he said.
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“All professors admitted they had never seen news become so unpredictable and cycle so quickly.” Looking ahead to the 2020 election, Plotke foresees a real challenge for Democrats to beat the current President. “Although Trump incites a lot of antagonism, you have tremendous advantages as an incumbent,” he said. “It’s very powerful to be president and you can do all kinds of things to augment your chances of winning.” Since World War II, seven US presidents have been reelected to a second consecutive term, and only Presidents Carter and Bush Sr. have lost their reelection campaigns since then, which makes George H.W. Bush (1988-1992) the last one-term US president to date. Hoping to join the long list of two term presidents, Trump plans to use any weaknesses he sees in the Democratic camp to his advantage, Plotke explained. “Trump’s strategy
February 2019
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Dr. Rachel Schreiber to Take Charge of Parsons in July
Photo by Slava Blazer Photography
Technology professor, was most impressed by Schreiber’s diverse professional background and ambitions for Parsons. “What I really liked about [Schreiber] was that she was the only candidate that knows what it’s like to be a design student as well as an administrator,” said Irish. “She has this breadth of experience that is both studio-based — which a lot of the other [candidates] did not have — and scholarly.” Irish also thought having a woman at the head of the school was a plus. “I think it will be a good thing to have a woman dean. I think that’s going to be a notable change. A lot of the running and leadership of the university is done by women and I think there has been a desire to see that continue in other levels of the university moving up,” Irish said. Schreiber steps into a role that was held by Joel Towers’ for nearly a decade, during which he played a central role in redesigning many of Parson’s curricula and programs, constructing the Making Center, and working to bridge the gap between Parsons and the rest of the university. Towers will now serve as a university professor and continue as the director of
the university’s Tishman Environment and Design Center. A 20-person committee — described as “a Noah’s Ark” by its co-chair and associate dean of Art, Media, and Technology Lucille Tenazas— was responsible for selecting a new executive dean for Parsons. “There’s two of everything: two executive deans, two students, two Parsons staff, two central office staff, two school deans, a group of five faculty, and three board members,” Tenazas said. The selection process began in Spring of 2018. “Last spring we held six listening sessions: two for faculty, two for staff and two for students,” Said Laura Auricchio, Vice Provost for Curriculum and Learning and Professor of Art History, who co-chaired the committee. “We heard what every group wanted to see in the next dean of Parsons and incorporated that into the job description, which was collectively written by the committee.” The job posting attracted competitors from a diverse set of backgrounds and positions all over the country, the selection committee co-chairs said. Of the six final candidates, four were deans at their current institutions. Four were female,
two were African-American, and one was originally from India, though now based in the US. The candidates were spread across the U.S., in New York, Illinois, Kansas, Oregon, and California, and one was based in Canada. In order to get more input, the committee also organized meetings for faculty to discuss the potential of each one at length. Both the job talks and these meetings were well-received and drew high participation from Parsons faculty, organizers said. “We were able to really think through our opinions and articulate, as much we wanted to, our thoughts on each [candidate]’s strengths and weaknesses,” Irish said. Auricchio was disappointed by the lack of overall student involvement in the search. “Not a lot of students came to the forums,” Auricchio said. “Originally, we had set up a time and place for students to meet the candidates, but no one showed up.” One exception was a forum hosted at 2 W. 13th St. held during the standard one-hour block where Parsons has no scheduled classes. While most attracted a crowd of about 100 people, this forum hosted in the Kellen Auditorium attracted a crowd nearly five times the size. It was so packed that some students and faculty left, Auricchio said. Many students said they were unaware or apathetic about the search process and about how the dean’s office would affect them generally. “I feel like everyone just focuses on their homework and work,” said second-year communication design student Liz Park. “No one ever talks about anything in the administration. I don’t know if it’s that no one cares or if we genuinely don’t know anything about it.” Cotter Christian, an as-
sistant professor of interior design, attended all of the final candidates’ job talks and faculty-staff mixers after. He believes that there while there were ample opportunities for students to participate, many may not understand the importance of who is hired.
“The dean has the opportunity to shape the institution and impact the health and reputation of the school,” Christian said. “This directly correlates to their job opportunities in the future.” “Students are only here for the time they’re in school,” Christian said. “Many may graduate by the time the new dean will take over and may feel that it doesn’t directly impact them.” He said that students should be invested in who comes into the job. “The dean has the opportunity to shape the institution and impact the health and reputation of the school,” Christian said. “This directly correlates to their job opportunities in the future.” Despite lack of awareness, some students had clear expectations for the incoming dean, urging Schreiber to prioritize students’ financial concerns. “Scholarships should increase when tuition increases,” said Blair Overton, a Parsons student. Schreiber acknowledged financial challenges students face during her job talk on Nov
13. She presented the questions: “How will we increase access to education?” and “How will we reduce tuition dependence?” as two of her focus points for the future of Parsons. She also emphasized the U.S. government’s role in recent decades of reducing funding and support for students and institutions of higher education. Schreiber proposed expanding other channels of revenue to mitigate Parsons’ dependence on high tuition, such as sponsored studios and seeking out greater donations from individuals and organizations. She also described a financial program she helped integrate at SFAI that halted the increase in tuition for juniors and seniors with above a 3.0 GPA average who received financial aid. “For a family with whom an entering student is a real financial stretch, two things [are true]: one, the three to four percent tuition increase every year affects at a greater dimension than other students. Also, those tend to be students whose financial situations with their families are precarious. So one small life event, the death of a grandparent or the loss of a job, means they can’t stay in school,” Schreiber explained. However, Cezzar noted that the unique nature of Parsons may present challenges to Schreiber in implementing programs of this type. “The concept of an internationally famous school embedded in a university doesn’t exist anywhere else,” said Cezzar, “Schreiber has the same responsibilities as the director of another private institution, but a lower amount of power.” • A previous version of this article ran online and misstated that 500 people tried to attend the candidate presentation on Nov. 7. 100 people attended the event.
Search Begins for Next University President Committee to find the ninth president of the New School to include student representatives by RYANNE SALZANO The New School is starting the search for its next president, after David Van Zandt announced he would leave the New School in June 2020. The board of trustees will appoint a search committee and it will include student representatives, as well as faculty and staff. The search will involve a website and a committee, according to an email from the board of trustees. The website will launch “later this week,” said Amy Malsin, a university spokesperson. The university hasn’t yet announced how the committee will be formed, or how student representatives will be selected. The board of trustees also plans on hiring a search firm to hire the next university president.
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Joseph Gromek, chair of the board of trustees, is a co-chair on presidential search committee. Van Zandt told the New School community that he had informed the board of trustees that he will conclude his presidency after the 2019-2020 academic year, in an email sent Jan. 22. Van Zandt began his tenure in January 2011, following the contentious presidency of former senator Bob Kerrey. Kerrey served for nine years. Kerrey stepped down at the end of December 2010, even though his contract did not expire until May 2011. Van Zandt is not leaving early, as his contract did not extend past the 2019-2020 academic year. “The Board has accepted
Photo from Free Press archives
David’s decision with regret, and we are grateful for his exceptional service, commitment, and dedication to The New School.” said Gromek, according to the university’s press release. The news comes as the university celebrates 100 years since its founding, which has already prompted new logos and branding. This announce-
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ment will have no effect on the centennial celebrations, Malsin said. Van Zandt, 65, came to the New School after serving as dean of Northwestern Law School for 15 years. Van Zandt was a faculty member at Northwestern University before serving as dean of its law school. Van Zandt is not planning
on retiring. “[Van Zandt] expects to remain active and open to opportunities outside the university to continue to shape the future of higher education, or to be involved in innovative, forward-looking initiatives,” according to a university statement. •
February 2019
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James Baldwin Didn’t Get a New School Degree. Is He Part of Our Legacy?
Photo from “100 Years of New”
“If you could talk to Bradley Cooper, he would describe a place that’s almost unrecognizable now,” Larrimore said. “So in some ways it’s disingenuous to say, ‘We’re the place that made Bradley Cooper,’ because we [The New School] don’t do what they did when Bradley Cooper was here as part of the Actor’s Studio.” The list of questionable relations continues, including civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois, who taught a grand total of one class at the university in 1946, and Jack Kerouac, who like Baldwin is only confirmed to have briefly taken
courses that he never publicly indicated. Their inclusion demonstrates an inclination, not unexpected in a branding campaign, to prioritize celebrity over complexity. What Does the “100 Years of New” Video Overlook? The famous figures of the “100 Years of New” video are part of a highlight reel that pulls from a broader, more complex history of The New School’s evolution since 1919. Looking back over a century, there are sharp contrasts between the founders’ vision and the institution of today. When the university was founded in 1919, its focus
was on adult education. “It was going to be unlike other universities,” Larrimore said. “People would keep coming as long as there were things they needed to learn: ‘from age 30 to age 80,’ they [the founders] said. Not for four years, not for six years, not to get a degree at all. That was the vision. Adult education was central to what The New School was about.” This is partly explains why only a fraction of the alumni referenced in the centennial video ever received degrees from The New School. The first full-time Bachelor of Arts undergraduate program, which would eventually become
Eugene Lang College, began in the 1970s. Moreover, the New School’s self-narrative does not mention how events in the school’s evolution abruptly changed its structure, markedly the establishment of the University in Exile and the acquisition of Parsons. “[The Parsons Acquisition] came as a surprise and happened very quickly,” Foulkes said. “At the time [The New School] was taking on experimental undergraduate programs, and Parsons was just another one to conglomerate. It had been floundering financially, and no one thought it would take on the importance that it did in 10 years. As it began to take off, the school helped the university stay afloat financially.” Larrimore said that “the founders were trying very hard not to make a university” in 1919 and that there was “no particular interest in design” at The New School before acquiring Parsons in 1970. Clearly, the New School is not obligated to acknowledge every twist and turn in 100 years of history within a two-minute video. The university summarizeacknowledges its past on its website. “The New School was founded century ago in New York City by a small group of prominent
American intellectuals and educators who were frustrated by the intellectual timidity of traditional colleges,” the website’s history page states. “The university has grown to include five colleges, with courses that reflect the founders’ interest in the emerging social sciences, international affairs, liberal arts, history, and philosophy, as well as art, design, management, and performing arts”. “For the purpose of a centennial, you don’t want to tell a complicated story, because you’re talking to people who aren’t interested in history, and they’re not going to be interested in history next year either,” Larrimore said. “So the video was fine for that, and the various centennial events are fine for that, but they don’t tell what really happened.” For now, those interested in a more in-depth version of New School history can rely on the knowledge being rediscovered and published by the university’s historians. “The magic of The New School is how it happened,” Larrimore said. “How did this place, that was set up to be one thing, become something else, become this place where all these other unexpected things have happened?” •
Meet Froglady: Parsons Student, Makeup Artist, and Musician The Instagram influencer describes her latest EP, her favorite place on campus and how she deals with anxiety by REBEKAH STEWARTSON
Photo by Jackson Fischbach
Froglady enters the room wearing a dark blue sweater with a rainbow icon on the front. Today her makeup is “neutral” meaning she drew on dozens of faux freckles, inverted black triangles below her eyes, and dusted bright, pink blush on her nose and cheeks. This took her about 10 minutes. When she does a more intricate look, it can take her anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. Her colorful makeup is the focus of her Instagram account: neon flowers,
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multi-colored eyebrows, or tiny clowns holding balloons on her cheeks. Her account, @ froglady444, has more than 75,000 followers. Froglady has been dressing in unconventional clothing and makeup since she was 14 years old. As she sits down, earrings shaped like disembodied clown heads dangle from her ears, their bright red lips stretched in a smile. “Every chance I get, I want to look like I do on my account because that’s just normal to me, ” she says,
running her hands through her rainbow-colored hair. So who exactly is Froglady? Her name is Jess Girillo (pronounced “Jah-rill-oh”) and she’s a 19 year old, first year student attending Parsons for fine arts, but primarily, she’s a singer-songwriter. She’s hoping to transfer to The School of Jazz so she can focus more on vocal performance. She chose the name Froglady due to her love of frogs, which dates back to her early childhood. She grew up on Long Island where she took vocal lessons outside of school. She’s a Capricorn, her celebrity crush is Matthew Gray Gubler, and her favorite singers are Bladee, Mary J. Blige, and Trippie Redd. In November 2018, she released “Love Games,” her debut EP, which is available on Spotify and Apple Music. Her sound is dark pop—featuring eerie bass, electric tones, and her deep voice, which drips with pain and intensity. Her music serves as an outlet for her emotions and “Love Games” is her artistic expression of the heartbreak she faced in a relationship earlier this school year. She’s been writing music “for a fucking long time,” ever since she was around 15, she said. Sometimes she’ll force herself to sit down and write a song, but she believes her best music comes naturally in the moment. Girillo recorded “Love Games” at Loeb Hall in the dorm room of her pro-
CAMPUS LIFE
ducer, Roy Raviv. Whenever Girillo felt inspired, she and Raviv would pause what they were doing to go make a song. “We always say that we’re like musical soulmates, we just get each other,” she said. He’d play her a beat and she would freestyle, coming up with lyrics influenced by emotion. Currently, she’s trying to expand the themes of her music from heartbreak to experimenting with talking about her mental health and non-romantic experiences.
“It’s really easy to be your worst critic, but you have to learn to stop looking at yourself and just do what feels right to you” Having a large Instagram following has contributed to her musical success. Many of her followers who are inspired by her eccentric looks also support her by listening to her music. “This is me expressing myself, and coping with my anxiety, and just being who I am and not giving a fuck, so for other people to be like, ‘You make me happy when I see your pictures,’ it feels good,” said Girillo. Doing her makeup and documenting it on Instagram serves as an outlet for her anxiety, she
said. The process grounds her. Girillo also uses other creative outlets to cope with stress, such as painting and drawing, and she journals every day in order to release emotion and reflect on her life. Some people may find her many unsmiling Instagram photos intimidating, but in person, her “goofy smile” is an insecurity that she’s working to overcome, which is why she doesn’t smile as much on Instagram. “It’s really easy to be your worst critic, but you have to learn to stop looking at yourself and just do what feels right to you,” she said. One of her favorite places to hang out around campus is the UC cafeteria. She enjoys interacting with the people she isn’t able to see on a regular basis. “She does have a really big heart. She’s really caring,” said Rob Mousavi, who is a first year student at Lang, majoring in Literary Studies, and one of her closest friends. “One thing I admire about her artistic side is her aesthetic. I think it’s a very interesting exploration of the cute, kind of vintage, 90s, color schemes of children’s toys,” said Mousavi. Girillo hopes to be doing live performances soon and is currently working on new music. “I don’t care who you are, if you’re passionate about something, you just need to try, because that’s what sets you apart from other people: the passion that you have for something,” said Girillo. •
February 2019
New School Students Dabble in Magazines by MICHAEL IZQUIERDO
Illustration by Olivia Heller
If New School students have been paying attention lately, they might have noticed a spate of posters for independent, student-run magazines being promoted in the past few months. Some of the publications that have been spreading around campus include Alchemy Magazine, Rebelle Magazine, UTOR, and Document 1. “Everyone’s trying to do it. I think it comes from this divergence from things like Eleven and a Half [Lang’s student-run literary magazine],” said Eliot Sandbach, a second year student in the Creative Writing program and co-founder of UTOR. “I didn’t want to join Eleven and a Half because I felt like I wouldn’t have full control, and as a control freak, I needed that,” said Sandbach. UTOR is a workshop-based, mix-media literary magazine created by Lang students Ben Burg, Trina Mercado, and Sandbach. The publication was founded during the Fall
2018 semester and focuses on producing works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, original artwork, and photography. The name for the magazine is Latin, meaning “to consume,” and reflects the group’s objective. “We wanted it to be a place where you, in a way, eat other people’s work and then spit back out this sort of amalgam of creative minds,” said Sandbach. Many of these magazines are labors of love, not assignments. From spending hours laying out the design of the magazine in InDesign, to using printing credits from the New School to print their publications, students are working hard to create content they’re proud to share outside the classroom. Most of these students have had prior experience in producing content similar to their magazines, from being part of their high school newspapers and learning InDesign, to creating online magazines with
friends in high school. Founder of Rebelle Magazine, Lexi Madison, a first-year student in the Journalism + Design program spoke about how she’s taking advantage of the resources the New School provides her. “Here, I get printing credits, which is easier to print a full-designed magazine.” Rebelle Magazine is a collaboratively-run magazine guided by Madison and Gabrielle De Gracia, a first-year Journalism + Design student. The magazine offers different types of features, from fashion and photography to interviews with musicians. Madison didn’t want to follow the traditional norms of what a magazine should look like or how it should be run. “I’m not going to follow somebody else’s rules of what a magazine should be, where there is a hierarchy that you have to follow,” said Madison. Madison and De Gracia handed out their first issue in January of this year at the University Center lobby, distributing 35 copies in total. Madison said that she only has 50 printing credits left this semester, so the next issue is going to be hard to produce. Another aspect of producing these magazine involves deciding whether to have a print
Public Seminar Launches Podcast “Exiles on 12th Street” will explore crime, civil rights and other contemporary issues by KATHERINE HUGGINS
Illustration by Olivia Heller
Looking for a new podcast to check out? The New School’s digital publication, Public Seminar, has just launched a new one, called “Exiles on 12th Street.” “Public Seminar’s lens is the point of view of intellectuals from The New School and from the Greenwich Village area,” said Ian Riedel, a freshman in the Bachelors Program for Adult and Transfer Stu-
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dents and the sound editor of the podcast. “The podcast is designed right now to feature an indepth interview with someone, a conversation between two people, and then a contribution from an artist or performer,” said Claire Potter, a professor of history, co-executive editor of Public Seminar and host of the podcast. “We’re going to take a topic and come at it
from at least three different angles.” “The hope is that we’ll be able to do things on the audio platform that simply aren’t possible in print, like the sound of someone’s voice, sound of a neighborhood, the tone of an interaction between two interesting people,” said Potter. The first episode, “Graphic New York,” featured an interview with dedicated walker
ARTS & CULTURE
or online presence. For the most part, the creators want to have audiences hooked on either both platforms, or only on print. “On print, it’s whatever we want it to be. We can put pictures in just a double-page spread and have it be so nice,” said Madison about Rebelle Magazine. “If it grew, we would do web because people go on the internet, but there’s something about print magazines that’s fun.” The New School’s student-run Zine Collective promotes independent, student-run publications and distributes them on a stand at the Social Justice Hub in the University Center. They’re described as “an informal collection of free, radical, print publishing through this school,” according to the Narwhal Nation website. As of last school year, the Zine Collective received $1,500 in funding from the University Student Senate to publish 10 to 15 more zines with 40 copies per publication. According to a Spring 2018 proposal, the funding would be applied towards creating more content the 2018 - 2019 school year. The New School Free Press contacted the Zine Collective on three separate occasions to get a clearer vision of the work they were doing, as it related to this semester. Nolan Kelly was listed as the group’s leader online, but is currently studying
abroad. In an email he said, “We are by no means a definitive voice for the community at New School — just a network of resources for people.” The Free Press received no response from the Zine Collective representative that Kelly directed us to. When Madison and Sandbach were asked if they were aware of the Zine Collective before creating their magazine, most of them responded having no prior knowledge. Aishamanne Williams, a first year Journalism + Design student and founder of Alchemy Magazine, said she was aware of the collective but she didn’t hear from them when she contacted them. “I think it speaks to the disconnect that exists at the New School in general; the fact that people are creating zines is maybe to bridge the gap between them and every other individual here,” said Williams. Alchemy Magazine is a fashion and literary magazine geared towards having content created by and for black students at the New School. Williams mentioned that this is an outlet to give black students a voice to share their experiences at the university. “The fact that the Collective is supposed to be making that happen and it isn’t connected to the zines just speaks to that even more. I think that it’s interesting that we’re doing this on our own.” •
Matt Green, diving into his current goal of walking every street in the five boroughs. The episode also highlights writer Luc Sante, radical counter-cartographer Liz Green, and biographer Chris Bonanos. Future episodes will explore civil rights, psychedelics and crime stories. Sarah Montague, the faculty advisor of the student-run New School radio station, began collaborating with Public Seminar as a producer in late spring. She worked with the executive producer Maryam Omidi, a doctoral student at NSSR, as well as Potter, Riedel, and Molly Mintz. Mintz is a fourth-year Journalism + Design student, and Co Editor-in-Chief of the Free Press. Mintz is as a researcher and production assistant for the podcast. “We’re all working on the interviews and finding the best way to have these astonishing people who share their ideas and passions come across in their best, come across as dynamic thinkers,” Montague said. One of the defining characteristics of this podcast is how discussion-oriented it is.
conversation between people and not just between guest and host,” said Riedel. “Exiles on 12th Street” joins three other podcasts currently hosted on Public Seminar, but is the first to be produced directly by Public Seminar. Potter explained that, through the provost office’s publishing initiative, several different podcasts have been created by The New School community and published on Public Seminar. “Public Seminar is becoming a kind of arena to gather and support various projects that people are doing around the university that have to do with publication,” said Potter. “ The title “Exiles on 12th Street” aligns with the history of The New School, specifically The New School for Social Research. “We wanted to evoke the tradition of the University in Exile, which is the intellectual cornerstone of the New School for Social Research, and the classic Bauhaus building on 12th street, designed by architect Joseph Urban, which has been the New School’s Greenwich Village hub since 1930,” wrote Potter in an email. The podcast is available on iTunes, SoundCloud, and through a link on Public Seminar’s webpage. It will be available on Google Play and Spotify as well, Potter said. Riedel urged students to give it a listen. “Go listen to this new podcast, and while you’re listening to it go to a restaurant you’ve never eaten at before. That way you’re trying two new things at once, and hopefully you like at least one of them, which is the podcast. Or both.” •
“The hope is that we’ll be able to do things on the audio platform that simply aren’t possible in print.” All episodes will have the host and multiple guests talking to each other. “[Public Seminar is] trying to bring a
February 2019
Transfer Students Need Better Support by JULIA METRAUX
Photo by Orlando Mendiola
When I first arrived at The New School as a third-year student, I looked forward to learning more about what my next few years would look like and joining as many school organizations as I could. Unfortunately, there was only one event dedicated for transfer students. The New School must do a better job supporting students by implementing a transfer orientation week, facilitating transferring credits faster and working to foster a better-connected community. Many students change schools because they were unhappy with their previous institution for one reason or another. I definitely was one of these students, and I applied to universities based on where
Keeping the faith? A look at religious life on campus by DAVID WILLNER Religion might be the last thing that comes to mind when thinking of The New School community. The university prides itself on maintaining a creative and progressive atmosphere, so traditional religious institutions may not appear to fall in line with our forward-thinking ethos. However, some students on campus might beg to differ. According to The New School website, there are four religiously-affiliated student groups at the university, which are the only Student Activity Finance Committee sponsored religious organizations on campus: Ecclesia Christian Ministry, The Jewish Culture Club, Encounter Christian Fellowship, and Remnant Christian Fellowship. Lauren Hoffman, a sophomore at Lang studying Journalism + Design is the president of the Jewish Culture Club on campus. She said there is a taboo against talking about religion and spirituality on campus. “I feel like the culture here, specifically at Lang, [frames] big corporation and big religion, anything that sort of relates to a systemic belief system, as wrong. Now, especially here, being religious is
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I thought I could find the best educational support. I am still searching for this support. At TNS, according to the website College Transfer, there are 857 transfer students, which make up 12 percent of the undergraduate student body, so I am likely not alone when it comes to wanting more support as a transfer. I remember attending a mandatory event for new students during orientation week this fall, where freshman requirements were discussed. This may be helpful for incoming freshmen, but this information did not relate to me, so I was left bored out of my mind in an auditorium for a few hours. I am a third-year transfer associated with being in favor of an institution and I don’t think you can directly correlate those things.” Hoffman believes that, at Lang, institutions are generally perceived as places where injustice often occurs; that they are archical or foster systemic abuse. However, just because someone takes part in an institution, Hoffman believes, does not necessarily mean they inherently agree with or support the pitfalls of that group. But the taboo on talking about religion forces some students to choose between pride in their faith and the assumption of political or social beliefs imposed by the Lang community. Manasvini Nayar, a third year Parsons student studying Illustration Design came to The New School from India. She grew up Hindu and before moving to New York had never eaten a hamburger because she maintained a vegetarian diet. “Trying new things helps you become a more involved individual, it helps me explore my beliefs,” Nayar said. She explained that when you can expose yourself to experiences and traditions different than your own, for instance trying meat for the first time, that exposure can perhaps lead to a fuller understanding of the world around you, as it has for her. When discussing spiritual identity, Nayar says, “Some international students don’t want to expose who they are because they think they will be judged.” She believes that even
student at TNS, and I do not want to stay more than four years because I want to graduate and for financial reasons. I need to plan my classes wisely, as my Global Studies major is roughly 40 credits and my Journalism + Design minor is 18 credits. While I knew I would have some credits applied to my major, I couldn’t know for sure until the Registrar’s office formally transferred my credits. I finally had my credits formally transferred in October of this year. At that point, I was questioning if they would even be granted by the time I was registering for Spring 2019 courses. It’s hard to plan out your degree if you don’t know which classes that you have to take and which classes would be waived because of transfer credits.
“It’s hard to plan out your degree if you don’t know which classes that you have to take and which classes would be waived because of transfer credits.” TNS can help create a better environment for transfer
students from the get-go by creating an orientation week solely for these students. In New York City alone, there are universities that host transfer-specific orientation weeks, or at minimum have orientation groups for these students only. TNS can look at universities like New York University and Columbia University for guidance. While it is not a week-long affair, NYU’s College of Arts and Science has a two-day
“I needed more support when I first arrived at TNS, and I doubt I’m the only one.” program for transfer students, where students meet with their advisors, attend sessions which try to help students have a smooth transition. At Columbia University’s College of Arts and Science, transfer students are put in groups with fellow new second- and thirdyear students for their orientation week. These students attend transfer-specific events, get to know other students and participate in some general orientation events. Marissa Jackson, TNS director of orientation and transition programs, told me
Illustration by Olivia Heller
in spite of the encouragement at The New School toward maintaining a global perspective throughout all fields of study, “Some students feel unable to express who they are spiritually.” One of the four religious groups on campus is the Ecclesia Christian Ministry. ECM is a traditional Christian student group that holds a weekly bible study for both undergraduate and graduate students. “I became a Christian in my undergraduate years through a campus ministry; It has made a world of difference in my life to have God and the fellowship encouraging me. I think every campus should
OPINIONS
have this kind of presence and support for the students,” said Cindy Han, a junior in the Bachelor Program for Adults and Transfer Students, who serves as the student leader of the club. When speaking broadly of The New School community, Han believes that, contrary to what Hoffman and Nayar expressed, students are generally fairly open and honest about their religious ties. “People are generally upfront and sincere about whether they have a religious identity or not. New York City is such a diverse city and The New School reflects this uniqueness in its student
that the university is evaluating how they could create a more supportive onboarding process for students with diverse needs, such as transfer students and veterans. “We’re unique to other schools around the country that we try to remove as many barriers as possible,” Jackson said. “We do not charge students an orientation fee in order to be inclusive and accessible. Given that there are no fees, there are limitations to what we can do in terms of programming.” While I am fortunate to have a responsive and helpful program advisor, I needed more transfer-specific information, like how taking certain courses may affect my timeframe for graduation, about how long it would take for my credits to carry over from the get-go, as well as more time to meet other transfer students. Even for the sole transfer student event that I went to, it felt like a letdown. Sure, it was nice to play cheesy icebreaker games, but I wish there was an information session component as well. This event only lasted a little over an hour. I needed more support when I first arrived at TNS, and I doubt I’m the only one. TNS should consider different avenues to support transfer students, whether through an orientation week or other methods. • body,” said Han. “There seems to be a range of practices with most students sharing that they have no religion, are spiritual but not religious, or have a personal faith but are not a part of a community of faith.” Mark Larrimore, the Religious Studies Director at Lang said “Any students who come to The New School need to do their own thing. There will be some who were raised in religious tradition who are not estranged from it, but I think there will be more who are estranged from, or were never part of a religious group, who are seeking new ways of exploring something.” Larrimore believes some students are looking for ways outside of the bounds of traditional religious practice to connect to their spirituality. Some are choosing to reclaim their spiritual identity from the institutions that they feel do not represent what they stand for. “One doesn’t want to be associated with the most vocal self-appointing representatives of religion who are politically opposed to the types of things that many of us care about,” said Larrimore. He believes there cannot be a direct correlation between identifying oneself within an institution and social or political beliefs. “I think it’s valuable for some people to have an anchor outside of all consuming capitalist demands of how to survive and how to market yourself, including marketing yourself to yourself,” Larrimore said. •
February 2019
FASHION ON FIFTH by MANAMI KANEKO and REBEKAH STEWARTSON
Karya Karayalcin is a senior studying fashion design at Parsons.
“I found this and fell in love. I’m doing my whole thesis on this color actually, so it’s like very inspirational” Karayalcin said.
Hui Gao is in her second year of studying fashion design at Parsons.
Gao’s intricately patterned jacket is vintage, as well as her lilac button-up dress shirt. Her combat boots were gifts given to her by her friends.
Brandon Morris is a first year at Parsons majoring in fashion design.
“I took an old backpack and put a bunch of patches and buttons” He said, The unique accessory took Morris about a week to make.
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FASHION
February 2019