In the perennial discussion of which of the several distinguished art schools in Los Angeles is the best, the Roski School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California has always been a contender.

Until now.

This year the Roski School, with its late-model studios and its dozen-odd full and associate professors and as many more lecturers and adjunct professors, will minister to a single student. The seven second-year students enrolled at Roski quit the program en masse in May, and in the turmoil that followed, all but one of the incoming MFA candidates declined their acceptances.

The second-year students withdrew from the program due to changes in funding and curriculum that were instituted during the course of the last academic year. In particular, the MFA students were dismayed to learn that they would have to apply for paid positions as teaching assistants, when such positions were formerly considered automatic for MFA candidates—and promised as an inducement for recruiting.

Roski administrators will spend the year trying to rebuild a program renowned for its generous funding, intimate atmosphere and accomplished alumni, but a year without a student body—well, with just one body—promises to make that task an uphill climb.

In the meantime, the departed students plan to proceed with their work and training on their own. They’ve been meeting through the summer, making art and collaborating on critiques. “We want to continue our education in the context of our togetherness,” former MFA candidate Sid Duenas told Artillery. “We’re working on a program for the coming year.”

At issue in the USC imbroglio is the regime of Erica Muhl, dean of the Roski School since May of 2013. An accomplished composer for symphony and chamber music, Muhl spent most of her 20-plus years at USC teaching music. She was also an associate dean at the School of Music.

Moving in at Roski, first as interim dean and then as the confirmed head of the school, Muhl brought an approach that matched the other graduate programs at the university, but not the established practice of the arts program. Muhl pressed faculty members to monitor students more closely, and introduced the requirement that candidates apply for teaching assistantships.

At the same time, Muhl allegedly brought to the Roski School an increased reliance on adjunct faculty, and a reduced emphasis on the core professors whose stature was one of the principal reasons students chose to attend the MFA program.

Nor did Muhl limit her activities to the Roski School. The same year she took over at Roski, Muhl was named executive director of a new Academy for Arts, Technology, and Business Administration, a flashy new multidisciplinary program funded by music giants Jimmy Iovine and Andre “Dr. Dre” Young. In 2014, Muhl added another venture to her USC portfolio, a collaboration with WIRED magazine to offer an online graduate program that will feature classes from USC and residencies at WIRED’s offices in San Francisco.

While these new initiatives were being launched, the program Muhl presided over at the Roski School was coming apart. One early casualty was Frances Stark, a California artist whose work has been collected at MOCA, LACMA and the Hammer, and who received tenure at the Roski School in 2012. Stark was outspoken in her frustration with the administration; she took a leave of absence, returned, and then resigned last December. That same month, eco-feminist artist and MFA Program Director A.L. Steiner stepped down. In February, graduate coordinator Dwayne Moser departed, citing “institutional politics.”

Growing consternation among the students led to a series of meetings beginning in January. But instead of clearing the air, the students felt demeaned. According to a statement issued by the students, “We feel betrayed, exhausted, disrespected and cheated by USC of our time, focus and investment.”
The students made public their decision to quit the school by issuing a “Collective Drop-out Statement” in May. That was followed by a bracing “Statement of Solidarity” from current and former faculty—including A.L. Steiner—denouncing the USC administration for failing “to engage productively with the students it recruited.”

The statement juxtaposed USC’s rich endowment with the increasing reliance on part-time professors who get less pay than tenured professors, and limited benefits. “The university’s glaring focus on profits over quality education shows an administration disconnected from its own mission, as well as the needs and realities of its students and faculty.”

This was followed in July by a statement from the 2015 graduating class. This put the focus of the protest directly on Erica Muhl. “Dean Muhl has alienated students, faculty and alumni… USC is sheltering a highly paid administrator who has operated unethically by breaking funding and curricular promises to its students. In continuing to allow Dean Muhl to maintain her position, USC is demonstrating that it does not honor its commitments to its students.”

Officials at the university have made no comment on the apparent collapse of its MFA program, and calls seeking comment for this story were not returned. However, Dean Muhl did post a statement on the Roski School’s web site. Muhl said she believed the issues presented by the students had been “resolved,” and that the students’ decision to leave left her “saddened more than I can express.”

Dean Muhl went on to tell the departing students that she was not accepting their letters of resignation. “Instead, we have granted each of you a two-year leave of absence,” and would “celebrate your return.”

At this point such a reconciliation appears unlikely, at least in the case of Sid Duenas. “My answer is no,” Duenas told Artillery. Duenas said that rather than being despondent over the end of his formal art studies, he and his fellow MFA walk-outs have been surprised and gratified at the strong showing of support they’ve received from the full range of the USC art family—alumi, faculty, and former teachers. “We learned there’s a community out there that supports us,” Duenas said. “I didn’t expect that; it feels pretty empowering.”

That sense of empowerment prompted the decision to continue their joint effort to develop skills and experience in making art. “It was a great experience to meet all these people (at the Roski School) and we’re going to continue working together.”