Because of the fear of Covid-19 transmission, most students across the United States are learning online. Fair enough. It’s necessary. In the case of university students, they have paid tuition and board in advance. The universities are not delivering the promised product as contracted. The students would like, and deserve, a refund. NYU students at the Tisch School of the Arts made this request and received a “No” and a dance video from Dean Allyson Green.

For the Spring 2020 semester, students at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts paid $29,276.00. On March 18, 2020, halfway through the semester, Tisch moved to remote learning. Remote learning is great. Except that, students in the arts need access to studios and equipment that would be cost prohibitive to own and because of social distancing, impossible to share. NYU student Matthew Harnick launched a petition on Change.org requesting a partial refund. Any responsible and ethical business would agree to a refund if they were unable to fulfill the contract made with a party. But, we are talking about bureaucratic and authoritarian universities here.

This is happening all over the country. My husband is the President of the Housing Corporation for his fraternity at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The university has dithered and changed course numerous times. They went to online learning weeks ago. Then, they issued an order that students must move out of University housing. My husband had to make a plan. Two students were allowed in the house during each two hour time slot. The University had to approve the plan.

Students at a St. Louis college were given two days notice to move out. If they were unable to make it to St. Louis to pick up their household items, they are now locked until the college reopens. This story is being repeated all over the country.

This brings us back to NYU and Dean Allyson Green. The New York Post has the story and calls Dean Green tone-deaf. Oh, if only she were tone-deaf. No, she is a condescending, arrogant bureaucrat academician. They don’t call them Ivory Towers for nothing. From the NY Post article:

School dean Allyson Green emailed the student body on March 18, saying that they would not be getting a tuition refund, and later sent another email on the matter in which she attached a video showing her dancing and singing to “Losing My Religion” in a living room, students said.

The awkward 2-minute and 16-second clip has since been widely circulated on social media.

So, NYU Tisch School of the Arts broke the contract and the Dean insults the students. No refund for you and here is my interpretive dance of no.

Insulting. Awkward. According to her NYU biography, Dean Green is a choreographer and visual artist. I have seen better dancing at a Westport, Connecticut wedding reception. I wish Green were tone-deaf. She is a typical prototype academician.

Law professor Jonathan Turley captured the right phrase:

Dean Allyson Green at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts is facing quite a backlash for her dance response to the demand for a refund from students. Indeed, the backlash is so great, they may be soon calling Emperor Nero the Allyson Green of ancient Rome. https://t.co/nOfiEnTNni

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 28, 2020

These college professors and administrators, like Green, have been taking the money of naive students and parents for the last four decades, at least. Kids, and their parents, saddle themselves with debt on airy-fairy promises that the education at these esteemed institutions of higher learning would lead to respectable careers and major dollars. Respectable white collar careers. Ask the barista at your local coffee bar about her top dollar education and student debt. Elizabeth Warren, who taught at Harvard, and Bernie Sanders, whose wife destroyed an entire college, have made their careers on wiping out student debt.

Maybe there is a bright side to the Coronavirus pandemic. Maybe, just maybe, it will rip the bandage off of the fraud that has become the university system. Maybe, it will help bring back common sense. You can learn just about anything online. You don’t need to go into debt to have an education or rewarding, respectable career.

If this is the case, then we can thank Emperor Nero/Dean Green.

Featured Image:

“Vintage Tap Shoes” by Renee Silverman is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0