About 50 UNM students stood outside in the cold on Wednesday to circulate a petition describing their grievances with the UNM theater department.
Regard for student safety is a large one.” Harris said the students also planned a performance art piece to signify their lack of input in the theater program. “For part of the morning, we all had tape over our mouths, to say we don’t have voices,” she said. “But it’s hard to say ‘Come sign this petition.
Here’s what it’s about.’ when you have tape over your mouth.” Bowen said the complaints in the petition address department chair William Liotta and associate professor Bill Walters. She said one petition asked students to describe complaints they have against Walters. “We decided that we would gather the voices of all the students.
Just throw away the rumors. Find out what people are actually upset about, what they actually want changed and then bring it back to them and then maybe they’ll listen to us,” she said. Liotta said many of the complaints against the department were unfounded. He said the students may have had trouble adjusting to the addition of new professors to the program.
“There’s been a turnover of most of our faculty,” Liotta said. “The people that have come in to replace our retiring faculty are more professional.
They have more international affiliations than the previous faculty, so they have different standards, if that makes sense. So that’s part of it.” Student Leonard Hughes said students have tried to voice their concerns in the past, but the faculty didn’t listen. “I think that for most of the semester there have been a number of people that have gone personally to the professor or to the chair,” he said. Liotta said students met with him on Monday, but he didn’t realize that they were planning a protest.
“There’s obviously a communication lapse here,” he said. “They never told me the seriousness of it. They had several concerns that they laid out, but that was it.” Liotta said the students told him they were concerned about what they perceived as Liotta’s negative attitude, and they also raised questions of student safety. “One of the biggest beefs that the students have with me is that they say I’m negative,” Liotta said.
“He seemed really positive about what we had to say, and he set up a meeting with a few of us,” she said. “This is certainly what we wanted. We wanted some attention to be paid and we wanted to be listened to, and I think this is the beginning of that.”
