Today’s Parsons Fine Arts Dept. Rally (photos)

Parsons Fine Art Dept. rally organizers, Peter Drake & Laurence Hegarty, said they were pleased with the turnout at today’s noon rally in Greenwich Village. They estimated the crowd of students, current and former faculty from various departments, union activists and political representatives at 300+. They said there was “very good energy on the part of the students” and no altercations with the police.

The organizers reported that New School president Bob Kerry was spotted slipping into the building earlier but no other administrators were visible.

And this (pre-rally) via The Village Voice:

Yesterday Tim Dunn [sic, see comments of this post], the New School Provost, released a memo apologizing for the lack of communication and spelling out that all faculty who were not given courses in the fine arts department would be offered “alternate teaching assignments appropriate with their expertise,” and that the school will “make every effort” to offer teaching assignments to the others who had been there less than eleven semesters.

…

Too little too late, says Hegarty. “What they’ve done is a public apology, but what they need to do is ‘un-fire’ the non-rehired people.”

All photos by Janice Faber