Art Center Unites! (or, trying to keep my diploma from becoming worthless)

I attended the ACSG meeting today. It was very gratifying to see the turnout of people coming to show their support, voice their concerns, and find out what is going on at school. I think this is especially wonderful because as a student at art center, you are so focused on your work-its difficult to take your head out fo the sand to see what is going on around you that is not involved with your projects. I was surprised to find out when the proceedings got under way- for a number of reasons. It seems that the student government was under the impression that everyone was keeping up with this blog and had read every post-and was coming to the meeting to voice their particular concerns. I was a bit concerned about this-but it soon became evident to everyone that students were there to be told what was going on and to find out what facts were generally known. This was a bit frustratingly handled by the student government representatives, who were very adamant about only wanting to hear the students complaints and nothing more. This point even became a bit muddled at times-and unfortunately it seemed to be in part to a lack of communication and understanding within the student government itself, with the vice president tagging along the phrase "only about Nate Young's resignation" to everyone's questions about what will be presented to Mr Koshalek at the scheduled meeting between ACSG and Mr Koshalek. This confused many about whether ACSG will only be presenting our questions about why Nate Young resigned or whether they would be presenting other grievances aired. This was only a symptom of what was breeding contempt for the members, as some of the ACSG at times seemed combative and to be talking down to some people in response to their questions. It might have been a bit brash of the members to expect people to leave what I will call a bit of "passion" out of their remarks, after all-that is what they are for-to be a sounding board that can refine what the general students say into a format appropriate for consumption for our president. All in all, I was very happy that most of the students were able to present their problems in a mature and appropriate manner that was very productive. In the end, I mention this aspect of the meeting to remind the council that we respect them, support them, and would like them to make sure they know who they are representing and have an adequate representation of that passion when they make their voices heard for us to the president. I would humbly ask that they bring their "A" game to the table this Friday. The rest of the meeting held some great moments, especially when Nate Young's former secretary rose to speak. With a voice which sounded on the verge of tears, she bravely proceeded to tell everyone why Nate resigned from Art Center. I could feel a collective breath being held as someone was finally going to tell us some bit of truth. Let us all hope that she will not face any consequences for sharing that information with us.
We are on the verge of some important milestones in this conversation-Mr. Koshalek's contract renewal and a meeting with him this Friday. With all of the passion wrapped up in this issue, it might be easy to lose sight of some things as we move along. Richard Koshalek was hired to do what he is doing now-raise money. The board of trustees wants him to do what he is doing. To really affect what is going on, we have to address what Art Center's business model is now and should be to the people who really control that vision-the board of trustees. Right now, we are controlled like a business model-a business that does not realize that its product it is marketing is suffering. You can do all the advertising, but if what you are selling is tarnished and in disrepair-people will stop buying. Making Mr Koshalek into a monster is an easy way to go to make us feel better-Im sure he is definitely not without fault. I am also sure everyone else within the ruling class at Art Center has things we can blame them for. We need to address the structure of Art Center before we can address which one of the parts within it arent working properly and need to be replaced.
One thing we can all fault Mr. Koshalek for however, is a complete lack of transparency and availability. Where was he today? I think we all need to make sure we have a say in where he will be after 2009.
I was able to film the proceeding of the meeting in its entirety and without editing. I apologize for it being cut into so many pieces, but I couldnt get it onto youtube any other way. As of now, this is just half of the meeting, the second half will follow shortly.
http://youtube.com/user/robatokintaro