Dear Dean Swearer:
When we first heard of the Print Shop closing. we did not believe it. Now. that the news turned out to be true and imminent. we are hastening to appeal to your senses of right and wrong, important and trivial. During your tenure so far, you have made many decisions that have bettered the school you have been entrusted with. Unfortunately, we believe that closing down the Print Shop at Parsons would be a momentous mistake, marring all of the achievements so far and quite possibly into the distant future.
While we understand the desire to improve the school, we feel that the victim of proposed actions is a wrong one. Your letter talks about bettering student communication, about creating classes and environment that is conducive to experimentation and mutuallv beneficial experiences. Since Print Shop is an embodiment of all these virtues, we thought that our fears are unwarranted. In fact, we were hoping that the Print Shop is not getting closed, but is instead being expanded to the rest of the fourth floor. However, our enthusiasm was misplaced.
Allow us to make a plea for the future of the Print Shop. It is a vital microcosm that has inspired our, and countless other, children to become better artists, craftsman, people. Can one truly compare design abilities of a discrete automata to that of a human? Has anyone ever heard of "monitor texture"? If students are to become better artists, they should not only experiment with tools provided to them by software companies, but with tools that are only waiting for eager hands and brave minds to use. You have wonderful teachers in the Printmaking department. You have wonderful students. You have dialog between these teachers and their students, and between students and their peers. It sounds like all the things Parsons is trying to achieve are already there and prospering on the 4h floor of 2 West 13'h street. Why not keep the Print Shop, nurture and develop its strengths, supplement its weaknesses with those of other departments. Let's work towards a first-rate art school instead of a second-rate graphic design school.
Sincerely,
Gregory Volchok Natalya Miklavskaya
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