This is a letter to the people who we, the students, believe have the power to fix what is broken at the Glasgow School of Art. It is written not in malice towards any individual or group of individuals, but in the hope that in the coming together of students, staff and governors, a brighter present and future might be built for the people who make up the Glasgow School of Art.

 

This letter comes at a crucial juncture in the relationship between the undersigned and the Glasgow School of Art as an institution. We do not believe the GSA Student Voice system is functional, efficient or transparent enough to enable institutional change. Despite the hard work of many within the system of student representation the processes of decision making and communication within the GSA are stifled by layers of bureaucracy that make these roles unnecessarily onerous and frustrating. We outline below our collective concerns regarding the quality of the current education provided by the GSA, and propose actions to resolve each of these concerns.  Should this letter be ignored, disparaged or treated in a similar way to previous complaints against the School, alternative and direct actions aimed at addressing our concerns will be taken without hesitation.

 

Fundamental to the self-directed nature of many of GSA’s courses are the workshops and technicians, the utilisation of a studio space and environment, peer and tutor contact within the GSA community day to day, library facilities, the project spaces of the GSA Students’ Association and the public spaces in and around Glasgow that the GSA has external links with.

 

In this difficult time the health and safety of students, staff, and the surrounding communities must be prioritised. We ask GSA to acknowledge that in pursuing this priority, access to all of the above mentioned facilities has inevitably been restricted, and the quality of our education consequently compromised. The required level of access to these resources varies from course to course at the GSA and in the current situation certain courses are being disproportionately affected; these currently seem to be from within the School of Fine Art, Silversmithing & Jewellery, Fashion Design and Textile Design, although the experiences of individual students will vary. In writing this letter we recognise that there is a disparity amongst courses, and some students have had markedly better experiences than others this year. This inconsistency across the institution troubles us, and is something that the GSA needs to address for the good of all students. 

 

The Covid-19 pandemic, and the resulting strains on higher education, are the fault of no individual or group of individuals. However, the institution had over five months to confront the fact that students would be returning to campus in September 2020.  Neither studios, nor workshops, nor library were prepared for a socially-distanced return to action at the start of the semester. This is unacceptable and symptomatic of an institution that is understaffed and lacking the integrity to deal with the current situation while providing the necessary emotional and practical support to its students and staff. The notion that it is acceptable to continue charging full price for a practice-based fine art course that is no longer studio- and workshop-based, and which provides no financial or physical alternative for students to access the aforementioned missing components, is immoral and indefensible.

 

For the first three weeks of this academic year students were without any campus access. For students on undergraduate courses, this amounted to £182 of an EU student’s annual tuition fee, £924.99 of an English student’s annual tuition fee, and £1,880 of an International student’s annual tuition fee. For students on postgraduate courses, this amounted to £456.93 of an EU student’s tuition fee, £1152.69 of an international student’s tuition. The aforementioned payments were made in return for zero access to any artmaking environment. For the first ten weeks of this academic year the majority of courses will have had zero workshop access and less than a week’s worth of studio access at a price of £606.67, £3,083.30 and £6,266.66 for undergraduate EU, English and International students, and £1523.10 and £3842.30  for postgraduate EU and international students respectively. For many Scottish students, they feel their educational time is being spent without the implementation of the course they enrolled upon, and despite the fact that for Scottish students their fees are paid by the government, this is still money being paid to GSA for a promised education that it feels as if they are not providing. This state of affairs is not educationally viable, our degree programme is not being delivered, and we believe what’s taking place is an unjust transaction.

 

In the GSA Covid-19 Response Student Guide an attempt to ‘reconceptualise’ the definition of a studio is made, outlining the ‘Virtual Teaching Studio’, ‘Safe Physical Studio’, ‘Civic Studio’ and ‘Cross-GSA student community virtual studio (GSA Engage)’ as the distinct components of this newly-defined studio. Firstly, the idea that an Arts Education provider has the audacity, let alone the capacity, to attempt to ‘recontextualise’ a learning component as critical as the studio is frustrating – and ignores the fact that Artists and Students at the GSA have for years incorporated the city, the GSA community, and virtual programmes as key parts of their studio-based practices. This appears to be an attempt on the part of the GSA to appropriate the natural creative endeavours of its student population  in order to avoid accountability for the unavoidable fact that students are receiving a lower standard of education than previously provided. It seems that the only time the GSA was willing to be imaginative in its response to Covid-19 was in imagining its way out of accountability. 

 

The decision to present students with no legitimate choice besides a return to a lacklustre iteration of studio and workshop access is a symptom of a deeper problem that existed long before the Covid-19 pandemic and will outlast it should radical change not occur. One need not look far into the recent past to find countless examples of student dissatisfaction at the GSA.  If any recipient of this letter requires enlightenment on this front, we will provide a document outlining these cases. We accept that the new Director is owed a clean slate and an opportunity to effect change in a manner accordant with their vision for the school. The installation of a new Director and, hopefully, a new direction for the School, is seen as positive by most. However, it has come too late and, for a large section of the undersigned, real substantive change will only occur after graduating from the GSA.

 

It is disgraceful and damning of the current state of affairs that students are paying the price for an institution that has proved incapable of quick change or of detaching imaginatively from the prevailing dogma that has rotted at the heart of the Glasgow School of Art for years.  We, the students, feel in the current circumstances that our ‘education’ constitutes an intolerable financial and emotional burden, and we request that this is recognised in the form of tangible support. 

 

What follows are the issues raised by this letter in list form. Also provided, signposted after each numbered point, are specific solutions that we propose the GSA adopt. We request acknowledgment and responses in order to achieve complete transparency on the issues stated below. 

 

1) There has been no workshop access for students on most GSA courses despite months of opportunity for workshop preparation. There has not been a consistent approach from the GSA institution over this issue.

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 Solution:

a) Offer continued workshops and studio access to students upon the end of the academic year 20/21 to make up for the months of lost workshop/studio access time. If appropriate, lobbying should take place in order to ensure that adequate funds for staffing and maintaining the studios during this period are available.

b) Refund students in a manner that reflects the drop in educational standards caused by reduced workshop access.

c) Give a public explanation as to why workshops were not open in time for students’ return to campus, despite technicians’ work in preparation.

 

2) For many students, the provision of studios for only one day a week has meant that the standard of education has deteriorated beyond a tenable point despite the best efforts of tutors and staff, a fact that has not been addressed whatsoever by the institution. Students cannot maintain a studio-based practice for one day a week, and the GSA has facilitated no alternative access to what it refers to as the ‘Civic Studio’, due to increased restrictions from the Scottish Government.

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Solution:

a) Offer continued studio access as outlined in Section 1a) of this letter.

b) Communicate directly with students to determine person-specific requirements for quantity of studio/workshop access. Rearrange studio and workshop access accordingly, considering the differing demand from GSA’s range of schools, courses and individuals. We, the students, need GSA to be flexible in the facilitation of campus access. Acknowledge that the appropriate approach per school/course/individual is not necessarily ‘a one size fits all’ one.

c) Provide a fund to each student to enable them to pay for studio access in Glasgow. Many students who can afford to do so have already been forced to take this extra financial burden upon themselves. This undermines any equality in the current state of studio provision and is unfair on those having to pay for something their art school has legally undertaken to provide, and on those unable to pay and thus left at a disadvantage due to matters outside of their control. If the GSA is decided upon not allowing access to studios (outside of the singular, weekly day allocated) then it should open up dialogues with arts spaces across the city, all in need of funding at this moment and providing a safe and socially distanced programme of events, so that students can truly begin to access the city of Glasgow as outlined by the ‘reconceptualised’ “Civic Studio”.

d) If the above options have been exhausted and not-achieved, then the GSA should provide a refund to students reflective of the drop in educational standards caused by reduced studio access.

 

3) Students were not provided sufficient information on the reduced nature of their studio and workshop provision prior to their enrolment in September, and the school made no effort to alter this informational imbalance. Essentially a large proportion of students enrolled onto a course that was mis-sold. On top of this, at no point in the decision-making that preceded the return to campus were students contacted or consulted regarding these drastic changes to the provision of their education.  This is despite the fact that the GSA Covid-19 Response Student Guide identifies “Integrating the student voice into (…) delivering the learning experience” as a core and defining principle within its procedures.

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Solution:

a) This fact requires a re-evaluation of the way that GSA communicates with its students. Students feel distant and alienated from the decision-making processes within the hierarchy of the GSA. This is symptomatic of a lack of powerful student representation at the GSA, an issue with deep and complex ramifications. It is the opinion of the undersigned that the existing student representation apparatus at GSA is ineffectual and unresponsive, where efforts at change are bogged down in layers of bureaucracy and the student voice progressively sidelined as issues of concern ascend the decision-making hierarchy.

b) We call for a monthly meeting between students and the Director of the GSA in order to maintain a healthy dialogue between students and director.

c) The Board of Governors should also meet monthly with students in order to create a dialogue that allows students to hold those making decisions accountable for said decisions.

 

4) Students were told that they were unable to defer enrolment for a year if Covid-19 was cited as a reason. The logic provided by the school in making this decision was founded on the understanding that full-time education would still be provided. However, as this letter has outlined, ‘Full-time education’ in this instance has been lacklustre and insufficient in dealing with the core requirements of studio-based courses.  Students have therefore been denied any real choice in the progression of their academic studies: they either return to a course knowing that the quality of their education will be lower as a result of the impacts of Covid-19, or they forfeit their degree completely.

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Solution:

a) The GSA must reflect on the illegitimacy of this decision forced upon students and allow students the opportunity to defer this year of study 20/21 with Covid-19 cited as a reason.

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​5) For those courses disproportionately affected, the digital ‘solutions’ provided by the GSA have been at best unimaginative, and at worst non-existent. We have yet to receive a single SoFA Friday lecture, despite these occurring on every Friday of the first Semester last year. The only digital space provided by the school has been padlet – an online virtual bulletin board. 

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​Solution:

a) The GSA should endeavour to at least begin a school-wide lecture programme – and this programme should continue across the year in order to reflect the fact that, at the time of writing, no SoFA lectures have taken place.

b) The lecture programme should be representative of the student population and should incorporate a selection of visiting lecturers that have been selected by students.

c) The current period provides an unprecedented opportunity for digital engagement with artists globally; the GSA’s virtual teaching studio should include frequent interactions with practising artists and virtual workshops.

d) The suggestions above have not been implemented by the GSA prior to this letter, and the GSA have not met their promise, outlined in the “Re-orienting definitions of studio for Covid-19” section of the GSA Covid-19 Response Guide, that the ‘Cross-GSA student community virtual studio’ will include ‘cross-GSA online curated interactive activities’. There have been no cross-GSA activities, nor have there been any creative virtual responses by the GSA. The GSA must therefore provide a refund to students that reflects the fact that there has been no adequate ‘Virtual Studio’, and that in fact the virtual components of the course, outside of the provision of Zoom and Adobe, have in actuality decreased in quality and quantity.

 

​​6) There has been a well-documented push from art students across the country for institutions to substantiate a stance on ‘Pause or Pay’ – a student-led initiative that asks art schools to either allow students to pause their education in order to allow the quality of courses to return to that which reflects the course they enrolled upon, or to reimburse fees. The GSA has yet to announce a formal position in relation to this nationwide call. This is because of one of two reasons: either the school is unaware of the ‘Pause or Pay’ campaign (despite a large proportion of its graduating students last year calling for its recognition and implementation), or it is simply attempting to ignore it.

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Solution:

a) The GSA must release a formal response to the ‘Pause or Pay’ campaign.

 

​7) Students have yet to receive any transparency regarding the decision making that preceded the current iteration of studio and workshop access that sees students having paid full price fees for, as described in this letter, a reduced quality of learning.

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Solution:

a) The students ask that GSA make public and transparent the risk assessment documents and reports made by the external company and the GSA authorities outlining, in detail, the decisions that were made in the lead up to the current iteration of education provided by the GSA. These decisions and documents are the source of the educational restructuring this academic year and we believe that the students ought to be privy to the content of said documents. 

 

​8) There has been no dialogue between 4th year or post graduate students and GSA authorities about the realities and practicalities of facilitating degree shows in a covid context. A degree show is a fundamental element to an art school degree and an integral aspect of launching a career following the end of the degree. It is important for GSA to understand that students will not settle for, and are not content with, solely receiving an online degree show.

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Solution:

a) Begin to prioritise facilitating open channels of communication about the logistics of a physical/online degree show. Begin forming a carefully measured plan of action that can contend with the potential government enforced lockdown/social distancing restrictions that might be in place by May/September. 

b)   There is the potential for GSA to house the degree shows across multiple buildings and spaces throughout Glasgow, therefore decreasing the volume of people in a space at any given time. 

c)   GSA could create a booking system to carefully control visitor numbers in Stow, which could consider an elongated period of time for the degree shows to span over.

d)   GSA could reschedule the shows to a time where there are less strict social distancing measures.

 

This planning should begin to happen now in order to prevent any possibility of a non-physical degree show.

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9) The GSA currently has a number of investments managed by Cazenove Capital that indirectly funnel students' money into corrupt industries including the arms trade, oil, gambling, tobacco and pharmaceuticals. Further information on this topic has been collected by students and is available here. The art school ought to be a centre of ecological and moral awareness that not only looks to the future with hope - but looks truthfully upon itself, constantly evolving in order to embody the values that are required to navigate a world in crisis - its investments should reflect this. 

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Solution:

a) Form a focus group of GSA staff and students in order to define a set of ethical values for the GSA to adopt. The focus group should be student and staff led, and will perform an integral role in the selection of investment companies/ funds.

b) Employ an ethical and green investment company to successfully divest GSA’s assets into a scheme which reflects the ethical and ecological values of its students and staff.

c) Actively support Glasgow University’s divestment campaign. Work together with GU authorities to reinvent the universities’ investment scheme.

d)   The GSA must assume responsibility for the values of a creative institution whose function is to prepare its students to enter into a world dealing with a climate and humanitarian crisis and redirect its current pensions and investments in order to reflect the values of its entire student and staff population.

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Thus, as mentioned above, we find ourselves at an important moment in the relationship between current students and the Glasgow School of Art; a moment that is sadly not new to anyone involved with the GSA. It feels as though we could be witnessing the final stages of the death of the university as a centre of critique, be it artistic or otherwise. The recent role of the GSA has been to service the status quo, not challenge it in the name of imagination, human welfare, the free play of the mind or alternative visions of the future. This letter asks, “Who is truly content with the state of the GSA?”, “Who can say that this is how things should be?”, and perhaps most importantly “Who is proud of the current Glasgow School of Art?”. To which we answer: “Not us.”

 

This is not about the ongoing global pandemic - and no student believes that the GSA ought to be exempt from the limitations placed on the entirety of society as a result of the global pandemic. Instead this is about an institution that records the lowest student satisfaction rate in the country two years in a row, while consistently ranking in the “top ten Arts universities in the world”. This is about a student body whose creativity has been mined, marketed, and sold for a global reputation, and whose welfare, at a vulnerable and crucial stage of their learning, has been ignored year after year.

 

The problems addressed in this letter will not be soothed simply by funding, but that is where change must begin. We will only truly be able to begin healing as an educational body by insisting that a critical reflection on human values and principles be central to everything that goes on at the university. We ask the Glasgow School of Art to demonstrate the integrity that befits its function as a centre of artistic brilliance, optimism and hope, and to acknowledge that an art education cannot be fully facilitated in the current set of conditions. We ask instead for empathy, honesty and fast change.

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Signed, 

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Lily Krempel

Joe Weisberg

Joseph Strang

Alfie Keenan

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Sign the letter below on your own behalf and/or in solidarity with GSA students who feel unsupported by their specific school.