Open Letter to RMIT 2017
This letter was co-written in response to the experiences of me and other students at RMIT in 2017, and was posted as an action letter on the graduation night opening. It was also forwarded to all heads of schools and staff with this email message:
We are a group of recently graduated students from the Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) program at RMIT University. Reflecting on our experiences this year we have decided to use our collective voice to raise some specific concerns about our program that may be of some relevance to you. We have chosen to remain anonymous both for privacy reasons and because this letter is not about us as individuals, but about the need for structural change.
An Open Letter to the General Public and RMIT University.
Written and edited by a group of concerned Honours students (2017)
This letter is to address the ongoing issues of structural inequality and oppression within RMIT University, including but not limited to racism, sexism, ableism and classism. As students who have just completed the Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at RMIT, we wish to address the lack of diverse representation in the lecturing and technical staff within the School of Art.
This letter is coming from a genuine concern for the future of the School of Art and its community.
Although this year we have had access to an amazing and knowledgeable group of teaching and technical staff, we have observed the persistence of a lack of diverse representation, which does not reflect the diversity of our student cohort.
We do not intend to make personal criticisms toward any of the current staff, but instead to emphasize the need for structural change. This would include: making the studios accessible to people with disabilities and hiring people of colour, people of diverse sexual orientations and gender expressions, and people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds.
This letter also seeks to express concern for future students, and the negative impact that a lack of diverse staffing will have on their professional future and personal experience at university, as it has had on ours.
As emerging artists, our professional opportunities such as mentoring and networking are restricted due to the homogeneity present within the current staff group. This also compromises the quality of teaching because of a lack of diverse critical perspectives on our work.
The personal cost of this structural inequality is greater for some of us who have already experienced much adversity in even reaching university. For those of us from marginalized groups, in terms of personal, cultural, and intergenerational trauma, the effects of this lack of representation are severe. This statement is an expression of our collective voice: some of us have experienced adversity and others wish to express our solidarity with their experiences.
There is not a lack of talented, well qualified, and highly experienced indigenous people, people of colour, trans people and women who could be lecturing options for this university, but RMIT continues to decide otherwise.
As students we are distributing this letter alongside our work at the grad show, because we feel that we have not been taken seriously or listened to by the people who run this institution and profit off of our community. This is an important action to take in our last public exhibition as a group, to send a message not only to this institution but also to the general public.