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Entire MFA Class At USC's Roski School Of Art And Design Drops Out Due To 'Unethical Treatment'

Jennifer Madison, CBS Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The entire first-year class of USC's Roski School of Art and Design MFA program has dropped out due to what they are calling the "unethical treatment of its students."

In a joint statement first reported on by ArtForum, Julie Beaufils, Sid Duenas, George Egerton­Warburton, Edie Fake, Lauren Davis Fisher, Lee Relvas and Ellen Schafer say they were misled about "faculty, curriculum, program structure and funding packages" and have decided to dissolve their candidacies before going into their second and final year.

"In short, due to the university's unethical treatment of its students, we, the entire incoming class of 2014, are dropping out of school and dropping back into our expanded communities at large," the statement reads in part.

The students say the funding model ultimately presented upon their enrollment included a partial scholarship for first-year tuition as well as a fully funded teaching assistantship, a stipend and other benefits. However, that model was not consistent with their initial offers during the recruitment process, the group says.

"We, the incoming class of 2014, were the first students since 2011 to take on debt to attend and the first students since 2006 to gain no teaching experience during our first­ year in the program," they continue.

The students also cite "drastic changes to our existing faculty structure and curriculum" upon their arrival in August.

Those changes included failure to replace Roski's MFA Program Director after she stepped down in December, as well as the loss of a tenured Roski professor that same month.

"By the end of the fall 2014 semester, we quickly came to understand that the MFA program we believed we would be attending was being pulled out from under our feet," the group states.

"As of 5pm on May 10, 2015, after four months, seven meetings that we held in good faith with the administration, and countless emails later, we have no idea what MFA faculty we'd be working with for the coming year; we have no idea what the curriculum would be, other than that it will be different from what it was when we enrolled and is currently being implemented by administrators outside of our field of study; and finally, we have no idea whether we'd graduate with t​wice​ the amount of debt we thought we would graduate with," they continue in part.

In a statement provided to CBSLA.com, the school's dean, Erica Muhl, said she "regrets" the students' decisions to leave the program over issues the administration "considered to have been resolved."

"The USC Roski MFA program remains one of the most generously funded programs in the country. These students would have received a financial package worth at least 90 percent of tuition costs in scholarships and teaching assistantships," Muhl continued, arguing that the school "honored all the terms" in students' offer letters, including scholarship support with an option to apply for a second-year TAship.

Muhl acknowledged "minor" changes had been made to the curriculum, but insisted such practices are not out of the norm.

"Changes are made to the curriculum on an ongoing basis," she stated. "I have met with the students at length and hope for an opportunity to continue engaging them in a full and open conversation."

That may no longer be possible, however.

Beaufils, Duenas, Egerton­Warburton, Fake, Fisher, Relvas and Schafer state they were told by members of upper administration "the communication we received during recruitment clearly stating our funding packages was an 'unfortunate mistake,' and that if the Program wasn't right for us, we 'should leave.'"

The class insists they have done just that and are prepared to move on, feeling as though they were the victims of a "bait-and-switch" and reluctant to "suffer any amount of lies, manipulations and mistreatment for those shiny degrees."

"We each made life-changing decisions to leave jobs and homes in other parts of the country and the world to work with inspiring faculty and, most of all, have the time and space to grow as artists," they continue. "We trusted the institution to follow through on its promises. Instead, we became devalued pawns in the university's administrative games. We feel betrayed, exhausted, disrespected and cheated by USC of our time, focus and investment. Whatever artistic work we created this spring semester was achieved in spite of, not because of, the institution. Because the university refused to honor its promises to us, we are returning to the workforce degree-less and debt-full."

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