May Issue

Twice a Week, Peer Listeners Are Available to Help Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE 4

Sit-down with Shreiber: Q&A with the New Parsons Dean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE 8

MAY 2019

A student-run newspaper since 2007

ISSUE 3

Fun in the Sun: Summer Events to Look Forward to After Finals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE 11

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Students Protest Tuition and Fee Hikes The ‘Future No Longer Exists’ in Venezuela Eyes turn to top administrators and the search for the next New School president by EMILY DOSAL and KATIE COLOGNA

Venezuelans at The New School share their struggles coping with the humanitarian crisis in their home country by DINA WILLIAMS and MIKEY IZQUIERDO

Photo by Nico Chilla

A mass of students, employees, faculty and community neighbors rallied outside of the University Center. A student organizer with a pink megaphone stood on a plastic crate. The crowd chanted in unison, “The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated!” and “D.V.Z., Cut Your Fees!” More than 150 people attended the action, according to organizers. On May Day at noon, student organizers protested against the administration’s increasing

tuition and fees next academic year. The protesters included organizers from Campus Action Network, SENS-UAW members and other New School students. All eyes turned to top administrators at the New School, particularly President David Van Zandt, as well as his eventual replacement. Van Zandt announced he would not renew his contract at the New School on Jan. 22, and will conclude his presidency after the 2019-2020 academ-

Parsons Street Seats Returns to 13th Street

Design Build offers a unique opportunity for students to design for the community by NICO CHILLA

Photo by Nico Chilla

When this spring’s Design Build students assembled in the back of 25 East 13th Street’s massive third floor studio for the first time, it didn’t matter if you were an architecture student or a liberal arts major: it was straight to work. “We all came in the first day and really hit the ground running,” said senior Architectural Design student Rachel Ferrier. “Eric said ‘Alright, everyone sit down and make their own iteration of what this could be in

like an hour.’ So each of us sat and kind of drew out what our vision was.” Eric Feuster, professor and leader of the Parsons Street Seats project, is in his second year teaching Design Build: Urban Public Space. The class collaborates with the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) to design and install an outdoor seating area, dubbed a “Street Seat” by the DOT, outside the University Center on 13th street. The team of 19

ic year. May Day organizers echoed sentiments expressed at an April 18 town hall session with the presidential search committee, namely, removing the position of president entirely. Many organizers argued for a democratically-run university. Tyler Munro, a first-year at Lang studying philosophy and culture studies, organizes with the Campus Action Network. Munro spoke about the disapCONTINUED ON PAGE 6

students receives $10,000 in funding ($5,000 from DOT and $5,000 from The New School) to bring the project to fruition. The challenge and scale of the task means it is reserved for juniors and seniors, and is double the time commitment of a normal three-credit elective. Students said that the effort and time put into the class rivals what they put into their studio classes. A project manager for Pembrooke & Ives, Feuster says he runs Design Build like an architecture firm, with students collaborating on the design and then delegating individual construction roles. “The only way this project is done is when people take ownership over different aspects of it, and to do that we function like a team. Like we’re one firm with multiple teams within it. It runs itself towards accountability — you have to show what you did in the past week. It’s not a class where you can kind of fade into the background and slide through because one, the demand, and two, everyone has a role.” The class begins with each student presenting an individual design, which is then combined with other students’ in repeating cycles until two finalist designs are combined at the midterm. At this point, students divide into teams that CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

Photo by Andres Zeiter (@andresavellanedazeiter/Instagram)

Beyond the surface of political turmoil in Venezuela lies an immense and catastrophic humanitarian crisis — a disaster that is devastating the lives of the country’s citizens, including people at the New School who call the South American nation home. “I think the best way to explain it, and it’s not really a way of explaining it, [is that] Venezuela is literally no man’s land. There’s no law. There’s so much corruption,” Mishka Capriles (Lang ‘18), told the New School Free Press by phone from Spain, where she now lives. “The economy doesn’t make any sense. Inflation is soaring, so with what people make economically in their job, they can’t pay anything, so they resort to alternative jobs. There’s so much corruption because there’s so much poverty; there’s so much poverty because there’s so much corruption. You don’t know which one came first.” The situation in Venezuela has been declared a humanitarian crisis by several countries and non-governmental organizations around the world, but more importantly by Venezuelans themselves. Survival is their priority. Political corruption, restricted access to food and other necessities, poor medical care, and horrific violence have diminished the quality of life for Venezuelans at home and abroad. Maduro’s government is not the only player in this crisis. The United States continues to economically sanction Venezuela in efforts to “further squeeze the finances of the government led by President Nicolás Maduro,” according to an April 19 article in New York Times. Government opposition

continues to try to destabilize Maduro’s government, burning food and supplies.

‘The First Time We Were Robbed’ When Hugo Chávez was first elected president of Venezuela in 1998, he ran on the principle of helping the poor and listening to the voices of the disenfranchised. But by the fifth year of his presidency, 54 percent of the country’s population were living in poverty, according to the World Bank. When Chávez died in 2013, Nicolás Maduro was elected that April. Maduro beat Henrique Capriles (no relation to Mischka), the Governor of Miranda, in the presidential election. Capriles and his supporters demanded a recount but the request was not granted. Maduro has been in office for six years. “I think that the first time we were robbed of elections was immediately after Chávez died,” Daniel Rodriguez-Navas, an NSSR assistant professor of philosophy who is Venezuelan, told the Free Press in an interview. The country’s poverty rate soared to almost 90 percent in 2018 from just under 50 percent when Maduro first took office, according to a report by researchers at Andrés Bello Catholic University, one of Venezuela’s largest private colleges. Ricardo Isea, a PhD candidate in NSSR’s politics department, wrote in a 2017 Public Seminar essay that during Chávez’s presidency, “the Venezuelan economy [was] more dependent than ever in the world capitalist CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

EDITORIAL MASTHEAD Editors-in-Chief Molly Mintz Ryanne Salzano Creative Director Candice Wood Art Director Olivia Heller News Editor Emma Tucker Deputy News Editor Dina Williams Arts & Culture Editor Sammi Fisher Deputy Arts & Culture Editor Kurt Burger Social Media Editor Lundon Lafci Designer Alyssa Achacoso

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR On Wednesday, April 24, a man entered the New School Free Press’ classroom. He was not supposed to be on campus, he wasn’t a “member of the New School community.” He was an intruder. I was at the front of the room, leading reporters and editors through our list of stories, getting updates on drafts and assigning deadlines. I didn’t notice him enter. Allison, one of our faculty advisors, left to get security. He interrupted me during class. Irwin, another faculty advisor, approached him. We dismissed class early and he left the room. He was escorted out of the University Center by security. To a degree, I felt responsible for the safety of my peers. What if I misplayed the situation? Do I call out this intruder? Should I run to my

phone and try to call Campus Safety? Nothing happened and no one was hurt. We were all deeply affected. Several reporters and editors have talked about some ugly “what-ifs.” What if he attacked someone? What if he had a weapon? What if he had a gun? For those of us that grew up amid the constant news of school shootings, it’s not hard for the mind to wander there. After this incident, Thomas Iliceto, director of Campus Safety at the New School, came and spoke to our class, on the record. You can find that story on page 5. This kind of violence is not only found in the U.S. On the next page, you’ll find the rest of our story on the crisis in Venezuela, and how members of the New School’s community are

affected by the violence there. Older generations can’t really comprehend how a breach like this affects us. Maybe our parents or grandparents remember the fear in nuclear drills. We’ve grown up with lockdown drills, with active shooting drills. The fear that comes from a breach in safety like this — it’s arresting. We had a conversation the next time the Free Press met, trying to think of what we can generate from this incident. How can we generate something that helps people, that brings light to these issues? How can we show how our generation feels? Our conversation in class turned to how close we are to this fear, these tragedies. Everyone had a story. Their hometown, their best friend, their sister.

I think faculty was surprised by how affected we were, by how tightly we held this intrusion. We came up with this: We want to publish these stories. We want to show what it’s like to grow up right now — to be on campus and have these things in your head. The Free Press will be accepting submissions of stories from our readers for publication next semester. The topic: trauma and feeling safe on campus, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere. The word count is 300 words. Send your stories to nsfreepress@gmail.com.

RYANNE SALZANO, co editor-in-chief

Double the Fun in the Sun by RYANNE SALZANO

Reporters Jihan Basyah Nico Chilla Katie Cologna Anna Conkling Emily Dosal Joseph Gobran Katherine Huggins Michael Izquierdo Martin Kaff Manami Kaneko Marissa Matozzo Isaac Sante Kathryn Schmid Anvita Shah Rebekah Stewartson Faculty Advisors Irwin Chen Allison Lichter Joseph Vivyan Tran

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NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Venezuelan New Schoolers Share Struggles of Coping with Crisis in Their Country

Photo by Andres Zeiter (@andresavellanedazeiter/Instagram)

system. Oil dependency went from around 70 percent of the total value of exports in 1999 to 97 percent in 2016. National production, including food production, was progressively substituted by imports, financed through petrodollars and an artificially cheap foreign currency.” He explained that “corruption reached levels never recorded in the history of the country. But when oil prices started to collapse in 2014, the party was over.” Citizens can’t get necessities like fresh produce and hygiene products that the government regulates and imports. “Maduro is an animal. He is what we call Satan on Earth. He is the reason that my beautiful country is destroyed,” said Bettina Tobo, a fourthyear musical theatre major at the New School. She spent 18 years of her life growing up in Caracas, and said that she’s visited Venezuela once a year since starting college.

‘Illegitimate and Lacking Credibility’ Maduro faced a political challenge — and challenger — this time last year. On May 20, 2018, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) held a premature election that re-elected Maduro as president. The election marked the lowest voter turnout in presidential elections of all time in Venezuela’s history, as Maduro’s main opposition boycotted the election. Days prior to the election, the United States, Spain, and most of the Lima Group, an alliance of Latin American countries and Canada established to end the crisis in Venezuela, condemned the election, calling it “illegitimate and lacking credibility.” News outlets reported that the CNE was accused of suppressing votes to favor Maduro. Maduro’s government does have support from some countries — Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba recognize him as a legitimate leader. Mexico and Uruguay, though members of the Lima Group, issued state-

ments recognizing Maduro as a legitimate president. China and Russia also support Maduro’s government. Interestingly, the CNE has ties to the New School: It’s current president graduated from NSSR. Tibisay Lucena is the president of the CNE, which is responsible for organizing and regulating elections on both national and local levels. She was first elected in 2006 and re-elected for a second term in 2014; her tenure will finish in 2021. Lucena’s biography on the CNE website states that she received her PhD, thesis pending, from NSSR. The New School’s registrar office confirmed to the Free Press that Lucena earned a Master’s degree from NSSR. The aftermath of the controversial May 2018 election introduced the world to Juan Guaidó, the then-president of the National Assembly. In the months since the CNE declared Maduro’s reelection, the U.S., European Union, and Lima Group representatives refused to recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader. Instead, they recognized Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela. The Venezuelan constitution states that in case of an unfair election, the president of the National Assembly takes over as acting president. On April 30, 2019, Guaidó took to Venezuela’s streets with activists and a small group of armed soldiers to protest, calling for the military to rise up against Maduro. The uprising was unsuccessful. Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information Jorge Rodríguez commented on the situation on Twitter. “Maduro’s government was confronting a small ‘coup attempt’ led by military ‘traitors’ backed by right wing opponents,” he wrote, according to the Guardian.

‘People are Being Violently Repressed’ Over 3.4 million Venezuelans have fled Venezuela. By December that number will

grow to 5.3 million, according to the UN Refugee Agency. That projected number would accounts for nearly 16 percent of Venezuela’s total population. According to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), an estimated seven million Venezuelans are currently in need of humanitarian assistance. Venezuelans inside and outside the country have resorted to drastic behavior to maintain their basic needs and a simple sense of control. “People are dying because they get ill and there’s no hospital where they can get care. Babies are dying because incubators go off when the power is shut down. It’s a scarcity of goods. People are being violently repressed. People are being taken to prison and tortured,” Rodriguez-Navas said. “I have to send my grandma her pills because she won’t be able to find them there,” Capriles said. She said that her former boss has tried to shield his children from the trauma of the crisis. “He was telling me about [how] he and his wife have to make up games: Showering in the dark, or lantern [at] night. Trying to help their kids not realize what’s going on — why they don’t have water, why they don’t have food, why they don’t have any electricity,” Capriles said. “My sister only gets 15 minutes of water daily in her building, and you have to take a shower, do the dishes, and do the laundry,” Tobo said. “And she’s one of the lucky ones.”

‘The Future No Longer Exists’ Inflation has contributed to civilians’ jeopardized safety. The annual inflation rate in Venezuela has risen to over 1.6 million percent as of March 2019, according to Trading Economics. The inflation rate, according to the IMF, is expected to reach 10 million percent this year. In a damning report entitled “This Is No Way To Live,” the human rights organization Amnesty International determined that Venezuela is one of the most violent countries in the world due to the state’s use of “disproportionate force, including lethal force, on the pretext of ‘combating crime.’” “My sister was kidnapped. She was held at gunpoint, they took her in their car, and that was a two-hour kidnapping situation. That’s the thing. It’s normal that your family is going to get kidnapped,” Tobo said. She added that other family members had also been kidnapped. “They just want money.” She explained how the violence in high schools and universities across the country led to another disruption of everyday existence. “I would

have three months without classes during high school because of the strikes,” Tobo said. “You just grew up used to it. That was our normal.” “Think of people in different generations. My mother is 70 years old. My mother is a very meticulous planner. We were never particularly wealthy, we were never particularly poor, but she planned her life, her future,” Rodriguez-Navas said. “The future no longer exists for her. She can’t have the future that she always planned for. And she’s kind of had to latch onto that for the past 10, 12 years. This conversation is something we always have in the family.” “The messages I get from my friends who are living there are so depressing. Psychologically, they’re affected,” Capriles said. “Their messages are like, ‘I’m going crazy, this feels like they’re killing us, they’re manipulating us. I’m not sure if the light goes out because the infrastructure sucks and they have no way to provide power to us or they’re playing with our brains and trying to make us go insane.’”

‘They Need Help. And That Should Be the Priority’ When it comes to the debate surrounding foreign involvement in Venezuela, the priority for the Venezuelan people remains unchanged: they want to survive, at the least. They need to live safely and peacefully. “By default, I am against all sorts of foreign intervention. It’s very easy for me to say that here, sitting comfortably in my Union Square office,” Rodriguez-Navas said. “I don’t need to fly to [people in Venezuela] and ask them what they want in order to know what the Venezuelan people want. The Venezuelan people want for this to be over, however it happens.” On Feb. 23, 2019, Colombia and Brazil sent trucks carrying food and medical aid supplies

to Venezuela. Supporters of the aid were met with active resistance from Maduro’s militia. They were tear gassed and shot at with rubber bullets. Four people were declared dead and nearly 300 were wounded. Three of the trucks carrying aid caught fire as they approached the border checkpoints on two bridges that connect Venezuela to Colombia. Anti-Maduro protesters were recorded throwing Molotov cocktails at the trucks, in deliberate attempts to destabilize the government. As of April 16, 2019, the Red Cross successfully delivered humanitarian aid to Venezuela, according to Reuters. The shipment included a total of 14 power generators, 5,000 liters of distilled water, and three surgery equipment kits aimed to serve roughly 10,000 patients. Venezuela is accepting aid from all non-U.S. backed countries. The U.S.’s involvement in oil-rich Venezuela has sparked debate. Is the U.S. sending aid to the country for its own gain? Are the Venezuelan people getting what they want in this dire time of need? Jeffrey C. Isaac, a political science professor at Indiana University, wrote in a January 2019 Public Seminar column that “the Trump administration is surely using this crisis for its own purposes. This ought to be loudly criticized, and moves toward a U.S. military intervention ought to be strongly opposed.” When asked about the debate surrounding the intentions of America’s involvement in Venezuela, Rodriguez-Navas stated that “the priority should be the Venezuelan people.” “I don’t want to say ‘we’ because I think it would be disrespectful,” he said. “Because I’m not suffering as much as the people that are in Venezuela right now. They need help. And that should be the priority.” •

Juan Guaido amongst a crowd. Photo by Andres Zeiter (@andresavellanedazeiter/Instagram)

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NEWS

Peer Listening: New Alternative to Counseling at Student Health Services Peer Listeners reflect on how active listening and reflective responding skills can support their fellow peers by MICHAEL IZQUIERDO

Vanessa McGann, Student Health Services Counselor. Photo provided by New School Communications.

In an effort to seek alternative mental health support for students, Student Health Services has introduced a peer listening pilot program where trained students listen and offer support to their peers in need. Peer listeners will “support the health and wellness of the student body, reduce stigma through social support and education, and share resources,” according to the SHS application. Applications for the new program were distributed to advisors, classrooms, on the SHS Instagram, and Narwhal Nation during the Fall 2018 semester. Created by Mica McGriggs, Staff Psychologist Coordinator for Mental Health Equity, and Vanessa McGann, an SHS Counselor, the program is run under the supervision of licensed counselors at SHS. McGriggs and McGann emphasized that the trained students are not therapists. “We’re not training them to be therapists. What we are training them to be is a peer support group or network, people who have been trained specifically in active listening skills and active reflective responding skills,” said McGriggs. “That’s important to distinguish. Hopefully it will be therapeutic and helpful and beneficial, but it’s not therapy.” Peer listener programs have been sprouting up across the country, in schools like Columbia University, University of California - Berkeley, and the University of Kansas. Harvard University also published a guide to active listening and communication with fellow students. These programs served as models for McGann and McGriggs when creating the pilot program. “There’s a lot of evidence that students talk to students before they talk to faculty or staff. It also helps as a gateway to bring people who do need therapy into therapy because if they’re talking to them, they can sort of give them a warm hand off or referral to bring them in,” said McGann. SHS has hired a total of six peer listeners and New School students can access their services on Monday and Thursday nights from 5 to 8:30 p.m. in the University Center. These sessions are not made by appointment, but are available on a walk-in basis. Held in room 404 on Monday nights and room 304 on Thursday nights, students will have access to at

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least two or three listeners each night. Sessions typically last 20 to 40 minutes long, but are open to going beyond or below that depending on the needs of the student. Students have to meet specific requirements and demonstrate a level of maturity in order to be considered. Peer listeners must be at least a junior, in good academic standing, demonstrate a level of familiarity with university and city life, and above all, have a genuine passion for listening to peers at the New School, according to the application. Applicants also had to submit two letters of recommendation from a professor or an advisor in order to be considered for an interview. Applicants weren’t required to receive work study funding to participate in the program, but are being paid through SHS. Peer listeners make $15/hour.

As part of the application process, coordinators of the program conducted in-person interviews, and candidates attended an intensive two-anda-half days of training. The training covered a variety of clinical topics; discussing ethical guidelines and confidentiality. The training also included role-playing scenarios to practice active-listening skills and

asking open-ended questions, and as well as validating the concerns of peers. McGann, a suicide prevention specialist, assisted in a suicide risk assessment training in case of severe situations, which, she said, “normalized” asking someone if they were feeling suicidal. “That’s a really important thing to know how to do and to be able to know what to do if someone says yes, and get them the help that they need,” she said. “This is a confidential space and we want to make sure that people know that, so that people can feel safe to talk about [their concerns]. But also we need to know when to get SHS involved because we are still students. We’re not therapists,” said Adrian Lajara, a thirdyear Literary Studies major, who will serve as a peer listener.. “That’s one of the things that we wanted to make really clear with this program. How do we provide this help without overstepping boundaries?” “We’re not here to give advice necessarily. We’re also not trained professionals in psychology. It’s kind of being able to support and validate people’s experiences and that’s something that you learned how to do in the training,” said Natasha Magallon, a fourthyear Literary Studies major, who is a peer listener. Candidates were not chosen for the position until after they underwent the training. This

was a conscious decision made in case candidates opted out of the program due to the severity of the issues they might encounter on the job. Counselors wanted to make sure there was a batch of peer listeners fit for the roles required of them. Peer listeners will continue to develop their active listening skills through one hour supervision from a counselor every week.

Since the “peer listener” is distinct from a licensed counselor, the stakes are even higher for confidentiality. McGriggs and McGrann stressed in their training that although these students aren’t licensed professionals, they would be held to the same standards and ethical guidelines as if they were. “[Confidentiality] is our most important ethical value which ties into the roots of ethics in psychology is the beneficence in non-maleficence, which means only do good, do no harm. That’s really important,” said McGriggs.“I think we’ve spent a lot of time trying to sell that philosophically to them so that they can really feel empowered to be able to embody that value.” There are a couple of instances for peer listeners breaking confidentiality. If the peer expresses signs of suicidal or homicidal tendencies, or abuse being inflicted upon them or a known individual, peer listeners must address this issue with SHS counselors.

“I think that until every student on a university campus has the same access to support, to resources, to achievement, and health as every other student, there’s work to be done.” said McGriggs. In all cases, McGriggs and McGann repeated that if a breach of confidentiality was made, the consequences for the peer listener would be determined on a case-by-case basis. “At the end of the day, that’s our value. That if you’re going to do this work, you can’t cause harm. If that were to happen, they’d be dismissed from the program,” said McGriggs. Peer listeners also spoke to why they chose to participate in this pilot program and discussed their objectives in assisting their peers in their one-on-one sessions. “I know that therapy costs money and The New School is great but they only give you eight free counseling sessions, and also not everyone wants to go straight to counseling or anything,” said Lajara. “This is a space where they can talk to other students and just vent, get resources, or get help without having to take the time out of their busy schedules to go to regular therapy,” said Lajara. This pilot program comes a year after SHS faced budget cuts this academic year for access to medical services. In the 2018-2019 term, students only

Mica McGriggs, Staff Psychologist Coordinator for Mental Health Equity. Photo provided by New School Communications

have access to eight counseling sessions, instead of the 12 counseling sessions that were offered the previous academic year. In the previous academic year, Student Health Services encountered a growing demand for these resources, but due to long waiting lists and insufficient staffing, these resources were inaccessible to many students. “I thought it would be great to have some tools instead of just me making it up myself in terms of active listening and trying to understand. Also being able to actually help people [get] to the right resources. I thought this would be a great way to do it,” said Caroline Garcia, a graduate student seeking an MFA in Fine Arts at Parsons, another peer listener. Garcia said she feels isolated in the MFA program and the TNS community and hoped this program would bridge that gap. “I have no classes in the UC. I hardly ever come here. And we’re literally just around the corner and I’m not from here. I just thought it’d be a really good opportunity to meet people but also get a better understanding of how our community actually functions,” she said. The success of this pilot program will be measured by anonymous feedback forms provided to students who meet with peer listeners, along with peer listeners being asked how effective they viewed the program to be. “I think that until every student on a university campus has the same access to support, to resources, to achievement, and health as every other student, there’s work to be done. ” said McGriggs. “And if we want to make our university, or any other university, a wellness campus, a campus that is looking at education holistically, then this piece of it is very, very key to those ends. That’s my goal and I’ll do my little part where I can.” • Rebekah Stewartson contributed reporting.

NEWS

What Do You Do When a Stranger Enters the Classroom? New School Director of Campus Saftey Tom Iliceto answers the Free Press’ questions by KATHRYN SCHMID and ANNA CONKLING

Photo by Nico Chilla

On Wednesday, April 24, an intruder came into the University Center. The man walked through the turnstiles behind a student who had swiped in using their ID card. He came into Room 314 at 5:24 p.m., where The New School Free Press class was in session. At the time the class professor went to get security during the incident, there was only one guard at the desk. The guard had to wait for a another guard to come to the desk and relieve him. In the past seven years, five unwelcome visitors have found their way into the New School campus buildings, according to Thomas Iliceto, director of Campus Safety. The Free Press reported on a past incident of an intruder on campus, on Feb. 27, 2018 at the 6 E. 16th Street building. (For the full reporting on this incident, read “Trespasser Grabs Student’s Groin, NYPD Not Called,” on the Free Press’s site.) Iliceto came to the Free Press on May 1 for an on-the-record conversation about security measures and policies. Iliceto was accompanied by Amy Malsin, senior director of communications and public affairs at the New School. Students who experienced the strange man entering and exiting the classroom had lingering questions about the frequency of similar occurrences, how to best handle the situation and how to improve campus’ overall safety. Malsin said of the incidents: “In the past several years, the university has taken a number of important steps to make our campus safer, including the addition of electronic turnstiles in our buildings, upgraded camera systems and alarms, and emergency response training.” One imminent answer to a campus security breach is the New School Safety App, which was released last August. This application that anyone can download the app, install and use it from their phone, given

they have cellular connection or WiFi. Two functions include “Call 911” and “Call Campus Safety” to instantly report unsafe situations and emergencies. There is a chat with Campus Safety feature, as well as a map of the New School’s campus. The app has been downloaded 1,236 times, Malsin said. It has not been used to report any security incidents yet. “Providing a safe environment for our students, faculty, and staff is a responsibility we take very seriously. The incident last week was and is of great concern to us, and we recognize that even though no one was physically harmed, any disruption of a class by a stranger is frightening and upsetting,” said Malsin. Currently, there is no mandatory security training for faculty at the New School. The following Q&A has been edited for clarity and length.

How did the “visitor” get into the U.C? Unfortunately, at this particular instance, our technology failed us. We had a student who walked in, presented her I.D card, walked in through [a turnstile], the arms stayed down and this gentleman walked in right behind her.

Are you required to alert the campus of what happened? We do make alerts to the campus by way of New School Alerts if it is a major instance. In a case like this the answer would be no.

How do you determine what is ‘an extreme emergency?’ Everybody is different in how they perceive something. Anybody who is here that doesn’t belong here is an emergency enough to leave [the

desk] and come up here to see what we have.

How do you characterize the level of threat? Like an active shooter versus a mentally unstable guest? Well, obviously from active shooter to unstable, they are very different. Everyone is going to handle a situation differently. My folks are trained to not confront, to find out what’s going on, to see if this is something that could just be solved with, ‘You have to come out with us. You’ve got to get out. You’re not supposed to be here.”

So how can faculty and students make that differentiation? An active shooter, it is something that takes place, very quickly. Very methodically. Big difference between an intruder sitting in a classroom and an active shooter. Active shooter is looking to come in, and do. That is everything I have read on, been instructed on, trained on, for the last many many years. So we will know the difference right away. And so will the people in the room.

Does security work with any student health faculty on campus to provide what to do after a situation where an intruder comes into the room? Are support services communicated with your personnel or is on the students to find help? Any major incident that involves a student, we usually contact support staff at the school to let them know and they will reach out individually to see if any follow up is needed to their office.

Can you assess what went well and what went incorrectly?

Technology failed. I watched the video 30 times. It did fail. The professor going down to get the guard and the guard coming up on the timer is about two minutes. I wish my technology would have worked better, I wish it would have. I wish he was only in here for 6 minutes but he was in [the building] for 20-something , before we could get him out. I need to figure out what we can do better.

the room, what are we supposed to do? We have no wifi, we can’t call out,’ is that where we’re going with it?

I think the technology is secondary, and the personnel is the first issue here. Not spotting it initially and visibly at the front desk, and their reaction. It was more human than technological failing.

Tell us how we should have handled [our situation].

When the young lady went through, after she checked her ID, the arms of the turnstyle went down, and they remained down for a couple seconds longer, and the man walked in right behind her. Alarms will ring when you don’t check your id and walk through. There was no alert made because the arms were down. I am working with IT folks to see if we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.

What else are you going to do to improve security since this has been happening more frequently, three times in the last year and half? Should faculty have mandatory training? We do make it so that it’s offered. We are trying to get it as part of the “on-boarding,” so if you are coming to work here, you fill out a bunch of paperwork, and we’re trying to get training be a part of that requirement.

In a class like this with no service, the wifi barely works, the phone is all the way over there, [front of the classroom]. Is there a chance that classrooms like this could have panic buttons? Is there a type of open dialogue for students to talk with security about any kind of new ideas that they have?

Yes. Ok, we have somebody sitting in the back of the row. I’m trying to play a scenario in my head, I really don’t want to get into the ‘What ifs?’ because this is very, very difficult to answer.

If somebody’s sitting in the back of the room, and everyone’s sitting in here, we’re uneasy about what it is…... Let me pose a question:. What’s the easiest thing for you to do? We can’t use the phone, the easiest thing to do: Try to get through the door.

Our generation, right now, violence brought to a classroom doesn’t exactly feel like a ‘what if.’ That’s why those two minutes can feel like twenty minutes. We see it everywhere, it sinks in. If someone’s sitting in the back of the room, with a weapon you don’t know about, there’s 30plus students, who are trying to rush out the door, not everyone can get out the door. How often is security updating their training in an era where ‘what if’ is a reality? I can tell you on a weekly basis one of the emphasis is on the most important task, being at the front of all our buildings. It’s repeated over and over again, they get it at least once a week. When these things happen and the questions that you ask, I take back and we incorporate it into our training. •

Email me and let me know you have an idea. I’d be more than happy to take it up, if there’s something we can use, I have no problem.

What if we cannot access the [Campus Safety] app? We’re getting into a little bit of ‘what if?’ questions. ‘We have somebody that comes into

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Moved by tuition and fee hikes, student organizers look to presidential search and top admins

Photo by Nico Chilla

pointment and failed promises of the New School. “I think the administration puts on a facade of progressivism but behind that they’ve let down the students, the faculty and the workers in as many ways as imaginable,” he said. “If you look back at the original founding documents of the university, they called for no president and as little amount of money going to the administration as possible. And they want all the money to go to research and education. That vision has been lost,” Munro said. More than 100 years after its publication, the document from which the New School originated continues to be cited by organizers. “Proposal for an Independent School of Social Sciences” (1917), states that to meet the needs of this “New School,” they must, “eliminate presidents and deans and the usual administration retinue and cut the overhead expenses to the minimum.” The increased fees include a University Services increase of $410, bringing the total to $600 a year, an international student fee of $90 per semester, a one-time orientation fee, and a tuition hike of 3.8 percent. The Student Health Services fee, which was $370 during the 2018-2019 academic year, has been folded into the University Services Fee. The university described these fee increases as “comparable to and, in many cases, below the averages for peer institutions” in an email regarding fee clarification sent by the office of Student Success on Friday, April 26. Students, faculty, organizers and student employees gathered in front of the University Center around 11:45 a.m., with SENS-UAW signs and cloth banners. Organizers marched to President David Van Zandt’s office at 66 W 12th St. The group of students marched loudly down and across Fifth Avenue, chanting, banging on tambourines and drums and strumming guitars. President Van Zandt wasn’t in his office, and the rally moved to protest at the Financial Services office.

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The presidential search committee is co-chaired by head of the Board of Trustees, Joseph R. Gromek and Linda Rappaport, another trustee and partner at law firm Shearman and Sterling LLP. The committee aims to have a sketched-out profile of their desired candidate completed by mid-May, when they’ll begin advertising the position in higher education publications, including the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed, according to university spokesperson Amy Malsin. Over the summer, the committee will review resumes and interview candidates with a deadline of choosing and recommending candidates to the Board of Trustees in Fall 2019. “Our desires are to conclude the process in the Fall,” said Gromek in an interview with the New School Free Press. “The potential start date for the next president is when President Van Zandt’s term concludes in the end of June in 2020.” Just like President Van Zandt, who started his first term in January 2011, Gromek added, it’s possible that the new president’s start-date could be mid-year. “I think, ultimately, we believe that this university should be run by a horizontal democratic institution of students, faculty, and workers, because that’s who know the university, that’s who is the university, not the trustees, not the President, not the corporate donors,” said Aaron Jones, a second year Lang student and organizer of the event. When asked where Jones believes the money as a result of the upcharges is going to he responded with, “some damn murals in Bushwick,” referring to The New School’s recent advertising with posters throughout the city, with phrases such as “Code a Feminist Manifesto.” Laura Auricchio, vice provost for Curriculum and Learning at Parsons co-chaired the search committee for the new Parsons Dean, and called this presidential search a “different beast” in an interview with the Free Press. Auricchio acknowledged that many

elements that the Parsons dean search committee implemented have been replicated by the presidential search committee. Those elements include anti-bias measures and hosting listening sessions. Auricchio will leave the New School this year, as she has been appointed the first female dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center. She’ll start August 1, 2019. She spent 17 years at the New School, according to a May 2 email sent to faculty and staff from Provost Tim Marshall. Search and recruitment firm Spencer Stuart will conduct the search, interviewing and vetting process, which they will begin after all of the town hall sessions take place. “They will be key in helping us build a broad group of resumes,” Rappaport said. “They are giving us information about

Illustration by Nico Chilla

the best practices.” Arya Vaghayenegar is a P.h.D Sociology student at NSSR, New School employee and SENS-UAW union representative. Vaghayenegar said that the SENS-UAW and the Graduate Faculty Student Senate (GFSS), the student governing body at NSSR, are working together to organize against how administration is operating. “We called for the joint meeting and so far we have done ground work trying to inform the students. And besides that, we are filing a grievance for the international fee because we think it is discriminatory against a specific section of students at The New School,” Vaghayenegar said. Vaghayenegar said that SENS-UAW and the GFSS have written a joint petition against the fee hikes, which they will

send to faculty at the New School to co-sign. SENS-UAW and the GFSS organized a response to the increased tuition and fees at the town hall listening session for the presidential search held at Arnhold Hall on April 18. Munro, and other student organizers, said on May 1 that organizing democratically with students, faculty, and other staff and employees is how they plan to put pressure on the university. “Today we tell the administration that we are not going to go on without a fight. From here, we escalate,” Munro said. • Emma Tucker and Martin Kaff contributed reporting

NEWS

New School Experts React to Mueller Report Release by MARTIN KAFF On May 1, Attorney General William Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his handling of the Mueller report, which was released to the public on April 18. One of the central questions Barr faced was the potential mischaracterization of the report’s findings and implications, in his four-page letter to Congress summarizing the report prior to the report’s release. Special Counsel Robert Mueller expressed concerns, in a now-public letter to Barr, that Barr’s initial letter to Congress “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of [Mueller’s] Office’s work and conclusions report.” Mueller’s 448-page, two-volume report details the findings of a two-year-long investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential election and any possible ties to the Trump campaign. Although Mueller’s team did

not find that the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government to interfere in the election, his report does not directly exonerate the president of obstruction of justice. It identifies numerous instances in which Trump or high ranking members of his campaign behaved inappropriately. Two of our New School experts, Liesl Schillinger, professor of journalism at Eugene Lang and Nina Khrushcheva, professor of International Affairs at the School of Public Engagement, both of whom are professors of this reporter, gave their reactions to the report and the media coverage of the investigation and the report’s findings. They also weighed in on what all this means for American political life going forward. Nina Khrushcheva argued that a definite outcome of the investigation, like in the cases of Watergate or the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky

scandal, was impossible in this case because, she says, we have entered an era of “Post-Truth” in America. Post-Truth, she says, can be broadly defined as “a recent explosion of political culture in which debate is framed by appeals to emotion, disconnected from the details of policy or impartial information.” “In this very American way, the Mueller report allows the United States to continue its lust for entertainment, because both sides got the material they want,” she said. “Both sides got the plausible deniability, and both sides are going to milk this story for the purposes of their own propaganda.” Liesl Schillinger, reacting to the most recent news surrounding the discrepancies between Mueller’s findings and Barr’s summary, said: “Like so many other people, I was shocked and dismayed that Mueller had written this letter to Barr,” characterizing Barr’s handling

of the report and his testimonies in front of Congress over the last couple months as a “dereliction of the duty of the Attorney General.”

“In this very American way, the Mueller report allows the United States to continue its lust for entertainment, because both sides got the material they want,” Khrushcheva said. Though heavily redacted by the Department of Justice, the report offered confirmation of the multifaceted Russian assault on the U.S. election, which sought to harm the Clinton campaign and spread disinformation on prominent social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, among others. The Russians’ intent, Khrushcheva argues, was primarily to embarrass Hillary Clinton and the United States — not to elect Donald Trump. “The point was to tell the United States that it is not the democracy it says it is, and it runs around telling the world that it is,” she said. Schillinger believes that the Mueller report is far from conclusive on the questions surrounding Trump’s and his campaign’s behavior. “The president was not subpoenaed to speak to the Mueller commission,” she said. “Ivanka Trump, who has lied about the level of her knowledge and involvement in business deals the family was working on in Moscow, was not subpoenaed. Donald Trump Jr. was not subpoenaed, and Jared Kushner was not subpoenaed. So why did Mueller choose not to investigate them? Well, it may have been a little bit of domestic realpolitik, [a political term referring to a strategy that puts pragmatism over morality and ideology],” opting to take the more cautious or conservative approach to avoid making any decision that would be viewed as partisan. Schillinger noted the ubiquity of the word “collusion” in press coverage and in the president’s own language. While the Mueller report condemned the term as misleading and legally ambiguous, Schillinger said that Trump may have succeeded here in shaping the narrative.

“Hannah Arendt talks a lot about how dictatorial leaders will find a simple phrase and repeat it over and over,” Schillinger said. “She seems to imply that the weaker portions of the populace will swallow it, but really, something repeated long enough, everyone will swallow it.” But Schillinger feels that what ultimately matters, going forward, isn’t a criminal indictment or a legal proceeding, but rather what all this information says about the way President Trump is running the country. “There is a way in which he is, wittingly or unwittingly, following the autocrat’s handbook,” said Schillinger. Schillinger cited Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny and Masha Gessen’s “Autocracy: Rules for Survival” as shorthand guides to tyrannical formulas and how to be vigilant when parts of it become a reality. Snyder urges citizens, for example, to defend government bodies and institutions at all costs and to be wary of the dissolution of objective truth.

Khrushcheva believes that, as Mueller’s team did not explicitly charge the president with a crime, Trump has come out looking like the victor against his expressed adversary: the media. Khrushcheva also expressed concerns about the coverage surrounding the investigation, which may have lead to premature conclusions about what Mueller’s findings would mean for the president at the end of the probe. Framing the political struggle in the US today as a battle between Trump and mainstream news outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as CNN and MSNBC, Khrushcheva believes that, as Mueller’s team did not explicitly charge the president with a crime, Trump has come out looking like the victor against his expressed adversary: the media. “Just like in the election of Donald Trump, the story that they reported was in fact a story, but the way it was reported was in such a hype, shrieky, sensational manner, that ultimately the facts may be there but the truth is lost,” she said. •

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Five years running: student-designed seats return to 13th Street range from tasks like lighting design, construction drawing, and planting, to social media and press. The roles complement the individual skills of students, who form a notably diverse group pulled from Parsons, Lang College, and the Schools of Public Engagement. “It’s really about giving everyone the opportunity to be a part of this,” said Feuster. “But it’s also important to have a diverse skill set. Just because this is an architecture design studio, this is building a public park, which requires public outreach, you know, and press, to some degree. It requires a key design eye, and an understanding of human behavior. So I think opening it up to everybody is one, only fair, but two, makes the project stronger from that.”

Luca Dalla Chaiza, a Lang senior studying Culture and Media said, “You really have a huge role in every aspect of it, from the design, to anything to do with its online presence and reaching out to other organizations, and getting the design adopted by actual parks. There’s a lot that you could offer and a lot that you have your own autonomy to build off of.” Dalla Chaiza works on Street Seats’ press team, coordinating the project’s social media and public outreach. Despite this, he could be found joking around with senior Architectural Design students Mika Tumi from the drawing team, and Celine Hallier and Rachel Ferrier of the planting team. The time and commitment sunk into the class has

Photo by Nico Chilla

bred a close-knit, friendly working environment. “I’ve never worked, despite having been in architecture courses, despite having been in urban design courses. I’ve never learned to work with people in quite this way before, which is insane,” said senior Robbie Sylianteng, a Liberal Arts major at the Schools of Public Engagement. “Because this is really difficult, or it’s the most rewarding amount of work and type of work that I’ve done so far.” Sylianteng is in lighting design, a technical-oriented team that works with MFA students and contracted electrical engineers to wire a self-sustaining lighting system for the installation. The grid will run completely on solar power, keeping the street seat illuminated well into the evening. This year’s design in particular will feature a motif of glowing boxes, wrapped in red canvas reused from the university’s water tower. Outside experts have provided valuable input to all parts of the design, including DOT staff that visit the class regularly and oversee adherence to street regulations. These consultants, alongside Feuster, offer guidance and pushback to make sure the students’ vision can be realistically achieved. In the last weeks of the course, Design Build shifts

Photo by Nico Chilla

from designing to building, as students have the opportunity to physically fabricate and install the street seat. For students, this is the class’ most unique selling point: the lack of an outdoor campus at The New School makes it hard to offer similar programs and means the street seat is all the more special as a structure for the university and public. “I think we all just wanted to have to build something that’s physically there, and in a large scale,” said senior Product Design student Queenie Huang. “Because for product design, we do build a lot of things, but they’re not, you know, the biggest size is probably like a table or a chair. But this is just a large-scale thing that we can interact with and experience.” When the project started in

2015, it was an extracurricular spearheaded by then-assistant professor Nick Brensen and ten Parsons students (Brensen is now an adjunct professor). The installation immediately garnered popularity among students, faculty, and the general public, earning it community board support and a spot as a Parsons elective. The impact of Street Seats on the community makes the long hours and hard labor worthwhile for students. “It just feels like every minute is completely worth it, because you know it’s going to end up in something,” said Sylianteng. “We can actually do it in order to say something. Like, express emotion. It just becomes a medium, because you know that people are going to see it and touch it and interact with it.” •

Incoming Executive Dean of Parsons Talks About Her Goals by KATHERINE HUGGINS Dr. Rachel Schreiber steps into the role of Parsons executive dean beginning July 1. She comes to New York from the Bay Area, where she served as provost and senior vice president at the San Francisco Art Institute. She has a Ph.D. in American History, and her research explored histories of gender, labor, activism, and visual and print culture. “The threads in my background, in terms of my scholarly and creative work, really are about how visual culture produces meaning in the world,” Schreiber told the New School Free Press. The Free Press sat down with Schreiber to discuss her goals and experience.

As the new executive dean of Parsons, what are your top priorities upon arrival? Well, the first order of business for sure is a big listening tour. That’s not a year-long project, I’d talk about that more in terms of the first 90 days. Some things I really want to work on are increasing access to the education. We want to make this fabulous education available to a much more diverse and broad swath of people, in whatever ways that means — in degree programs, in non-degree programs, really thinking through in creative and innovative ways what that might mean. I will be looking for ways to generate revenue, and new

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ways to generate revenue, in addition to also focusing on fundraising which is an ongoing objective and goal, for student scholarships and for also other kinds of projects. I really want to think about, and I said this in my talk, “What does it mean to be global?” We have one of the largest, if not the largest, international student populations of design and art schools. I don’t think we have recognized how deeply American-centric our higher education system is.

Just to be completely clear, you are currently not coming in planning to make any radical curriculum changes? I need to begin by getting to know and learning and really listening, understanding what people’s needs are, and then involving faculty, students and staff and alumni and trustees and senior leadership, really everyone in determining if something needs to change.

The Free Press has become aware that when you were at the San Francisco Art Institute, you opposed the part-time and visiting faculty unionizing. Given the recent efforts at organizing student workers, and the fact that the part-time faculty contract is running out at the end of August, what will your position be? The union characterized my position as opposition, but I

would not characterize it that way. I did not think that was the best union for the part-time faculty. I’m a labor historian. I care about labor history, I care about workers’ rights, and I have had very successful relationships with many unions. And after that process, I was the lead negotiator for the first two years, and helped develop what I think is a really good contract which is now in place. I look forward to working with the union, and seeing if there’s anything in that contract that they feel and we feel needs to be refined to more clearly address their needs and our needs. One of the real advantages I’ve found with contracts with the part-time faculty is that through unionization, we have the opportunity to more deeply understand each other’s relationships to the institution.

You did touch on it a little bit that you do have this experience incorporating art and social justice together. How do you plan to institute that in Parsons? Access is really important to me and that, to me, is a social justice issue because it’s about socioeconomic diversity and racial and ethnic diversity, which tend in our society to be intermingled. How do we make sure we’re not just educating an elite group of people? One program I am thrilled that Parsons had already decided to participate in. I actually can’t take credit for Parsons’

Dr. Rachel Schreiber. Photo by Katherine Huggins

decision to participate in it, but I am one of the founders of a teaching fellowship program offered by AICAD, the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. Parsons is a member. Its goal is to help us diversify the faculty of our own institutions. The Postgraduate Teaching Fellowship offers one to two years of full-time or nearly full-time teaching at another member institution for graduate students of color within the association. Seven of the alum of the program have achieved full-time teaching jobs, including Kelly Walters, who’s here at Parsons in Communication Design. She was one of the first fellows in the program.

Why do you want to take on this position, and why Parsons? Having a school of design and art of the quality of Par-

sons that operates in relation to a university, and not just a university, but a university that’s oriented towards social research and social justice, is like my dream institution. I couldn’t have dreamed up a more appropriate kind of opportunity for me. I’m just so thrilled. And of course, being able to do that in New York City which is just a city of availability, the cultural richness, the diversity of the city, everything the city has to offer. I’ve lived here before, so I’m familiar with all of that. I’ve seen how it enables things to be done here. And just to emphasize that, since I’ve been here, I’ve been so deeply impressed by the students and the faculty — their thoughtfulness, their rigor and devotion to what they do, it’s completely evident throughout every building and every space, every counter. •

ARTS & CULTURE

“Safe Spaces” Film, Premiered at Tribeca Film Festival Written and directed by a former New School professor, “Safe Spaces” brings real issues to the silver screen by SAMMI FISHER

Photo by Dominik Bindl/Getty Images. Daniel Schechter, Justin Long, Lynn Cohen, Fran Drescher and Richard Schiff at the Tribeca Premiere

How did Dan Schechter, filmmaker and former New School professor respond to conversations around “safe spaces” on college campuses? He made a movie about an adjunct professor’s busy week; a week where he finds himself in hot water at work at the same time that his grandmother is in the hospital. “Safe Spaces,” written and directed by Schechter premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival on April 29. Justin Long stars as the main character, Josh. Josh’s mother is played by Fran Drescher of “The Nanny.” “Safe Spaces” is Schecter’s fifth produced film. Previously, he directed “Life of Crime” starring Jennifer Aniston. In addition, his film “Supporting Characters” held its premiere at Tribeca in 2012.

Schecter taught a film class at the New School for a year. Schecter said he loved sharing his knowledge of film with his students. “I never had a mentor. And I always wanted to mentor people because I always like to learn from my own mistakes, which is a lot of what the movie is about.” Schecter was inspired by events in his own life when writing “Safe Spaces.” The film is centered around a week where the grandmother of the protagonist, Josh, falls terminally ill. During the same week, Josh finds himself in trouble at his job as an adjunct professor at a university. “Safe Spaces” is a love letter to Schecter’s family. His own family went through a week similar to what happened in the film.Schecter describes his film as a functional family

comedy, “It was based on this really shitty, but in a weird way, great week with my grandma in hospitals. I was like ‘Oh, we’re a pretty good family, we’ve got a pretty strong core.” Being a professor, Schecter became aware of issues surrounding sexual assault and harassment in a collegiate setting, which inspired the main conflict in the film. In the beginning of the film, in his creative writing class, Josh pressures a student to admit what really happened to them in the situation they’re writing about for their assignment. This leads to the student talking about a sexually explicit encounter that they were embarrassed about. While it doesn’t bother the student relaying the information, another student in the class is severely triggered, as she was a survivor of sexual assault. “I knew it was important that it was a victim of sexual assault. I thought it had to be something that everyone just acknowledges as trauma,” said Schecter. The encounter leads to students refusing to attend Josh’s class, in support of the triggered student. Throughout the situation, Josh is convinced he didn’t do anything wrong, at least not intentionally. The incident ends with Josh’s suspension from work. “Safe Spaces” brings

Schecter’s two loves together, teaching and filmmaking. “I always wanted to do both,” said Schecter, “Because they feed into each other. You also have to learn your craft kind of better when you start teaching it. And it’s fun, because young energy is exciting.” Schecter hired multiple New School students to be extras in the film. He also used the university as a set for many of the scenes in the film. Bennett Melley, a senior studying Culture and Media at Lang met Schecter last year through his class and worked on the film. “He brought a lot of his outside experience into the classroom, which led to him talking a lot about the new film he was writing, ‘Safe Spaces’,” said Melley. “I was really curious to see how Dan would act as a director as opposed to a professor, but most of it really was the same. You can tell he loves making films, and is confident and comfortable in the role of director.” The cast for “Safe Spaces” consists of well-known actors along with students who aren’t used to being in productions. “It was fun to work with people who I’m learning from because they’re far more experienced on set than I am. Then there was this other handful of, just super young, exciting actors. Sometimes you’re giving them their first role on film, and they’re acting with Justin

Long and Fran [Drescher],” said Schecter. “Fran Drescher literally lit up every room she walked into. She’s angelic,” said Melley. Schecter says the students worked hard to portray an accurate depiction of college students in 2019. “They wanted to make sure those characters didn’t come off as any kind of parody of angry college students.” “Overall, it was some of the hardest work i’ve ever done, but also the most rewarding,” said Melley. “Watching the film for the first time was sort of surreal. It was a simultaneous experience of remembering the day on set, but watching a different story take place there. The film was genuinely great. I laughed and I cried, and I never cry at movies,” he said. •

2019 Commencement Ceremony Speakers: Tarana Burke, Kevin Kwan, Robert Mundheim, and Ta Kasitipradit by EMILY DOSAL MARISSA MATOZZO Graduates, their guests, and anyone attending this year’s graduation ceremony will be privy to speeches from some of the biggest cultural change-makers of the moment. At the commencement for the entire graduating class of 2019, the New School will award honorary degrees to Me Too Movement founder Tarana Burke, Parsons alum and Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan, and university trustee Robert Mundheim, who was a refugee from Nazi Germany and has led a prominent career as a lawyer and investor. Ta Kasitipradit, who is graduating from Parsons with a BFA in Communication Design, was selected by the graduating student body as the ceremony’s student speaker. “Each year, The New School awards honorary degrees to individuals who exemplify the interests and ambitions of the graduating class. The award recipients embody the university’s driving principles of academic freedom, tolerance, and creative experimentation,”according to the university’s commencement webpage. “Honorees are invited to briefly address the graduates, sharing insights and advice from their unique vantage point. They are joined by a student speaker, who embodies and projects the best qualities and core values of The New School.” Each honorary degree re-

cipient will speak for approximately five minutes at the event, according to Senior Vice President for Student Success Michelle Reylea. “You get a lot of different perspectives, rather than just one message,” she said. “We’ve always tried to be on the cutting edge of what’s happening and also have messages that speak to our students.” “To open for them is crazy. I am honestly just humbled to be there. I want the speech to be really celebratory, humorous and lighthearted,” Kasitipradit said. He said he plans to open his eight-minute speech with a meditation, then talk about community and being a trailblazer. The 2019 University Commencement will occur on May 17 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Arthur Ashe Stadium at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens. Students from the university’s different schools — the College of Performing Arts, Eugene Lang, Parsons, Schools of Public Engagement, and the New School for Social Research — will be seated by their divisions. According to the commencement page, tickets are not needed for this event. The ceremony will be followed by an after-party festival with games, food trucks, photo booths, and the school’s mascot, Gnarls the Narwhal. Tarana Burke, the senior director of the Brooklyn-based

nonprofit Girls for Gender Equity, is a Bronx native about civil rights activist who founded the #MeToo movement in 2006 to raise awareness about sexual abuse and assault. Kevin Kwan is a Singaporean-American novelist and New School alum, best known for his novel turned blockbuster rom-com Crazy Rich Asians. Even though Kwan graduated in 1998 from Parsons with a BFA in Photography, he is receiving an honorary degree this year. “Honorary degrees are not equivalent to the academic degrees conferred after a course of study; they are honors to recognize a figure’s contributions and career that we believe will inspire our graduating students. Granting such an honor to an alumnus like Kwan actually highlights the important work our students go on to do in the world,” university spokesperson Merrie Snead wrote in an email to the Free Press. Robert Mundheim is a lawyer, investor, former University of Pennsylvania dean, and refugee who fled Nazi Germany. He is currently a member of the New School’s Board of Trustees and is counsel to the multinational law firm Shearman and Sterling. He served as Special Counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1962 to 1963 and General Counsel of the U.S Treasury Department from 1977 to 1980. Ta Kasitipradit, soon-to-be Parsons graduate and graphic

Clockwise: Tarana Burke, Kevin Kwan, Ta Kasitipradit, and Robert Mundheim. Photos courtesy of The New School

design enthusiast, has worked within the university community as a Kerrey Hall Resident Advisor, Leadership Retreat leader, student advocate, and meditation guide. Originally from Thailand, he has lived in China, Canada, and America. The committee that selected these honorary degree recipients was comprised of Student Senate members, staff administrators, executive leadership, and faculty from across the school. The student speaker was voted by the senior student body after several candidates submitted a cover letter and video submission explaining why they wanted to represent the Class of 2019 at the commencement ceremony. The annual commencement tradition will celebrate the

university’s centennial while attempting to encompass individuality, inclusivity, and New School values, Reylea said. She said that the event will encourage a future of academic freedom, conversation, and diversity. “My New School career has given me the vocabulary to express who I am, talk about myself, and kind of rediscover who I am so much more,” Kasitipradit said. “The speech, if anything at all, will be a big ‘Thank you’ to everyone out there who made my experience so great, and celebrating that we did it. There’s so many people in my year who didn’t get to graduate, or weren’t able to fund their education, so I’m definitely really happy about that—that we made it.” •

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ARTS & CULTURE

University-Wide Climate Assessment Evaluates New School Community and Campus Experience by EMILY DOSAL

Photo by Emily Dosal

No, the Climate Assessment is not about global warming. Instead, it is an effort from The Office of Social Justice, led by civil rights activist Maya Wiley and Director of Social Justice Initiatives Melanie Hart, to evaluate whether the New School is living up to its standards of social justice, equity and inclusion. The New School emphasizes a strong message of community, diversity and new ideas. The climate assessment is an attempt to determine whether The New School practices what it preaches. “One of the reasons I proposed a climate assessment,” said Wiley, “was because, after being here for about two and a half years, we’re constantly reacting to problems, rather than taking a step back and trying to understand where we are together, and then figure out what our community thinks is important to change it.” The process includes evaluating university behaviors and campus-wide student, faculty

and staff experiences through data collection and survey analysis with help from a consulting firm. The process is designed to be transparent. Wiley and Hart emphasized how they’ve attempted to make the process interactive, involving the entire New School community, from the Senior Leadership Team members to students to cafeteria staff, through focus groups and individual interviews. “One of the things we’ve been trying to do is manage, to make sure there’s representation in the survey,” said Hart. “This is an objective process, so we step back, and it’s not about who do I know personally that they could interview.” The analysis is composed of four stages: a qualitative assessment that is based on focus groups and individual interviews, a quantitative assessment comprised of a university-wide anonymous student survey, a report with recommendations for the administration to put into place,

and finally, implementing solutions based on the results. “The goal isn’t to have a process for solving the hurt once it happens. The goal is how are we reducing, as much as possible, any of that hurt. And supporting people’s full potential to do what they came here to do,” said Wiley. “No institution will be perfect and no matter what we do we won’t be perfect, but can we challenge ourselves to actually think about what it means to be a community, across all our various both parts in terms of what we’re studying, researching, what work we do, to what our experiences are, and can we understand that we’re going to disagree with one another?” Wiley said. She added, “How are we going to understand how we actually value what we’re all here to help each other do?” New School participation is the first step. Graduate students and faculty have been more likely to participate in the focus groups and individual interviews, Wiley and Hart said. The climate assessment, in its four stage process, also aims to involve wider undergraduate participation. “We’ve had and invited students from across the university into that process,” through focus groups and interviews, said Wiley. “In fact, we’re trying to get more undergraduates engaged. We’re starting now to ask faculty to actually give some release time so they’re [undergraduates] better able to, because we’ve realized grad students are easier to get than undergrads.” The most accessible way

for undergraduate students to share their experiences is through the university-wide email survey that was sent on March 7, which records all submissions anonymously. The survey provides undergraduate students a chance to describe their experiences both in and outside of the classroom. Rather than a person mediating an interview, students can share experiences anonymously and honestly. The assessment survey, which was sent out university-wide on March 7, was a culmination of multiple choice questions that can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to fill out. The survey was in long sections, with only a top bar indicating a “100%” in several parts to indicate each section. Questions ranged from how one felt discriminated politically or racially on campus, to feeling comfortable to having fun and making friends. New School students, despite a feeling of lack of community or representation, are vocal about issues around campus. The Exploring Whiteness event instigated mounting tensions that the assessment may reflect on. “The intention of the folks who were organizing were good, I think the communication was bad, the student reaction was completely understandable but indicative of larger issues. In other words, it was tapping something. That is exactly one of the reasons we’re having a climate assessment,” said Wiley of the Exploring Whiteness group. Multiple independent organizations, such as the Student

Senate and Faculty Senate, and constituents throughout the university have assembled a task force as part of the assessment, which is a group of university faculty and students who were chosen based on their current roles in the university “How do you contact a Parsons student, Milano staff member, a security member, literally how to get all parts of the university to participate?” said Hart. Once the Task Force receives the recommendations from the consultants, they will compile a set of priorities that the university must address in the campus environment, throughout all departments and schools. The final report will be sent to all members of the New School community via email and published on the New School site. “This is an assessment of the entire university, which means it’s also forming a baseline. We should be able to, in five years, do another one and see if we’ve made progress, To actually measure, okay these were the things we heard, that we’d take action on, how are we doing,” said Wiley. “As a faculty member, I’m not just here to teach students. I’m here because I get something from them. And to me, that’s a community,” said Wiley. “Every institution I’ve been in, and Melanie as well, the fundamental mission of effectiveness is that it’s a community. And when it doesn’t work, it’s because it’s not a community. The New School has real potential to be a community, but it’s not. And it can be.” •

Ted Bundy Charms Again in “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” by SAMMI FISHER Our society craves the gruesome details of true crime. Television shows, movies, books and podcasts all get produced to feed America’s fascination with true crime. Serial killers who killed dozens of people, will, years later, get even more attention than they did when they were murdering in cold blood. It’s like a bad car crash: you just can’t look away. The latest fix? Ted Bundy. Zac Efron plays the notoriously handsome killer in “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.” It’s a feature length film that first premiered at Sundance Film Festival, just premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival, and comes out on Netflix on Friday, May 3rd. From 1974 to 1978, Ted Bundy murdered at least 30 young women across seven states, including Washington, Utah and Florida. For over a decade, Bundy denied his crimes. Bundy didn’t confess to his crimes until shortly before he was executed by the state of Florida. The film is shown through

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the perspective of Bundy’s longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth “Liz” Kendall, played by Lily Collins. The script was adapted from Liz’s book “The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy,” which came out in 1981. Ted and Liz met at a college bar in Seattle, quickly falling head over heels with each other. The first half of the film follows the couple’s, at first, seemingly happy relationship. But over the years, Bundy begins to catch law enforcement’s attention, causing a rift in their romance. Bundy was first accused of a kidnapping and, later, murder. As time goes on, the charges get more and more serious, causing Bundy to give up his life with Liz and spend his days in prisons waiting for his next trial. This phase of Bundy’s life is shown in the second half of the film. One thing is certain: Bundys believes he’s innocent and needs to convince everyone he’s innocent. For years, Liz believes him. She’s confused: Is the kind, loving and charming man that raised her daughter with her actually Wicked and Evil? Throughout his many trials, Bundy never pleads guilty, despite the evidence against him growing increasingly

Image Courtesy of Sundance Institute

substantial. Through the course of the film, the viewer hardly sees Bundy being violent. We only hear about the details of the evidence, followed by Bundy’s plea of innocence. This plays in Ted Bundy’s favor. The jury, and at some points even Bundy’s judge, and the audience of the film are captivated by Bundy’s good looks and charm: a well-dressed and personable man, with a compelling smile. The audience at Bundy’s trials were filled with young women who felt the same way. They were attracted to this evil man,

the same way society is so intrigued with the details of story of the true crime. It’s important that we as viewers don’t let Bundy’s good looks outweigh his crimes against women. The violence wasn’t the focus of the film, but it should be the first thing noted when talking about Ted Bundy. Charming or not, this man was a serial killer. Not seeing any first hand violence from Bundy is exactly what it was like for Liz. For years, she didn’t want to believe what the trials were saying. She didn’t want to believe

the evidence. The highlight of movie was Efron’s performance. Efron was so convincing as Bundy, particularly in his media and courtroom appearances. He worked the jury and the judge. The judge even told Bundy it would be an honor to have him work as an attorney under him. Most importantly, Ted Bundy charmed 30+ women, which led to their demise. To see Zac Efron as Ted Bundy you can watch “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” on Netflix starting May 3. •

EVENTS

SUMMER EVENTS by KATHRYN SCHMID Illustrations by Olivia Heller Ah, the sweet smell of summer in the city. Sure it’s a bit hot — and maybe that smell is from the melting of asphalt, and maybe your apartment lacks air conditioning so you’ve been couchsurfing at cooler abodes — but hey! It’s summer! School is out and if you can’t take a jitney to weekend at the Hamptons, here is a list of things to fill those endless NYC days.

MAY 24 – 26

THE LOWER EAST SIDE FESTIVAL OF ARTS The 24th Annual festival. A full three days debuting a lineup of theater, poetry, music, dance, comedy, film, and art. This revival of culture and artistic expression is all presented by hundreds of individuals and performers from local theatres and workshops. And on Saturday you will find a bunch of local street vendors and food to nosh on before the evening’s performances.

MAY 30 – AUGUST 29

MAY 31 – JUNE 2

JUNE 30

JULY 19 – 20

YOGA IN THE PARK

THE GOVERNERS BALL

NYC PRIDE MARCH

PINKNIC 2019

This is a NYC summer staple! A well known 3-day mini Coachella without all the influencers, youtubers and bloggers just getting content! Headliners are Lil Wayne, Tyler the Creator, SZA, The Strokes, The 1975, Sheck Wes to name a few… Grab your friends and head over for a weekend of music, dancing, food and good times.

Since the first march in 1970, New Yorkers have gathered together to take a stand for civil rights and commemorate community members whose lives were taken by AIDS, violence or neglect. It is now the biggest Pride party in the world! Join the celebration of LGBTQ+ lives and cheer alongside 5th as paraders, floats and organizations go by!

An entire music festival drenched in pink and white revolving around the bubbly pink champagne, rosé. There is a sparkling swimming pool, a lawn with plenty of space to lay out a blanket and sip on bubbly and live performances for two days straight. Don’t forget to enjoy amazing food from NYC chefs and prepare for fireworks the last night to end an amazing musical excursion!

Yoga? Free? Unheard of in New York City! Whether you like to stretch it out in the late mornings or unwind in an evening class after work, Bryant Park has outdoor yoga classes throughout summer. The classes welcome all experience levels from beginner to teachers and they offer free mats on a first come first served basis. You don’t have to pre-register so enjoy a spur of the moment meditation or pencil it in your calendar every week! For more information, visit Bryant Park’s website.

MOVIES UNDER THE STARS

Time: 10 a.m. Price: Free Location: Starts in Bay Ridge on 3rd Avenue and 78th Street in Brooklyn

Time: 3 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Price: $95 per day Location: Randall’s Island Park

RED HOOK FEST

MAY 3 – SEPTEMBER 8

For more information, visit the Parade’s website: www.brooklynmemorialdayparade.com

Time: Noon Price: Free Location: 26th Street & 5th Ave

For more information: https:// pinknic.com

MAY 31 – JUNE 1

Time: Friday and Sunday 6 p.m. 1 a.m. Saturday 12 p.m. - 1 a.m Price: Free Location: 155 First Ave between 9th and 10th St.

BROOKLYN MEMORIAL DAY PARADE

Time: 11:45 a.m. – 11 p.m., each day Price: $115 per day Location: Randall’s Island Park

For more information, visit nycpride.org

Time: Tuesday’s 10 a.m. - 11 a.m., Thursday’s 6 p.m. - 7 p.m. Price: Free Location: Bryant Park

For more information, check out the Theater For The New City’s website.

MAY 27

Learn more at the Governor’s Ball website.

Enjoy a free movie screening as the sun sets and that cool summer breeze sets in. Grab your friends, a blanket for the lawn and some popcorn and cozy up the the movie of the evening! NYC Gov plays all genres from comedy, to action, to classics, to indie and family! So look up the show of the night and head over! I will definitely be seeing Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on the Hudson Pier. Learn more at NYC gov parks website. Time: Various Tuesday - Sunday starting at 7, 7:30, 8 and 8:30 Location: Central Park, Tompkins Square Park, Washington Square Park and more throughout Manhattan, Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn!

This is 2 days of free community fun making NYC tradition for over 25 years! A barbecue cookout, a DJ performance, huge dance party, special performances, kayaking, painting and other outdoor activities to get you up on your feet! If you want to relax, just hang out by the water, eat free BBQ, enjoy the music and see the statue of liberty. For more information visit the Red Hook Festival’s website. Time: 5:30 p.m. Price: Free Location: Redhook in Brooklyn

JUNE 10

TASTE OF BUSHWICK Head over to Bushwick and try an array of local restaurants and breweries! Support the 6th annual food and drink celebration of local businesses while filling your belly with only the neighborhood’s top delectables.

JULY 27 – 28

NYC POETRY FESTIVAL

BRUNCH AND SHOP – LADIES DAY AT THE GRAND BAZAAR NYC’s weekly curated indoor and outdoor market is magical every Sunday, but especially so when an entire day is dedicated to women! Shop small businesses owned by women offering artisanal treats, crafts, vintage clothing, jewelry and food. Bring your girlfriends, chat with new ladies and meet the women who help keep NYC creative! For more information, visit Grand Bazaar’s website. Time: 10:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Price: Free Location: 100 West 77th Street

With five different stages and over 250 poets, you are bound to be (or not to be) entertained! There will also be local food and drinks, books, crafts and activities to really nourish your stomach and soul! If you apply soon, you could even read your poetry for thousands to hear! For more information, check out www.newyorkcitypoetryfestival.com Time: All day Price: Free Location: Governner’s Island

AUGUST 24 – 25

AFROPUNK FESTIVAL Jill Scott, FKA Twigs, Leon Bridges, Toro Y Moi… Just a few of the artist’s performing at this two day music festival in Brooklyn! Gather your friends and get your tickets for culture and music galore!

Learn more and get tickets at the Bushwick Starr website.

To learn more about the festival, visit the Afropunk’s website.

Time: 6:30 p.m. - 9 p.m. Price: GA Admission Location: Brooklyn Cider House, 207 Starr Street

Time: 12 p.m. Price: $60 Location: Commodore Barry Park

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WHERE DOES MY GARBAGE GO?