The Practice Room Wars

By JOEL AYAU

Joel Ayau

Since many Juilliard Journal readers are unfamiliar with the events that led to dozens of e-mails flooding the inboxes of the Juilliard community in late February, I will give a brief account of the largest controversy among students that Juilliard has seen since skirts became mandatory orchestra dress for women.

Of all the complaints on students’ lips, certainly the most frequent is the difficulty of finding practice rooms—which has become even more of a challenge now that construction is in full swing. When these complaints began escalating, President Polisi arranged a meeting to hear the students out. In addition to the president, school administrators in attendance included the directors of the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Residence Life. This meeting was heavily advertised, even catered, and scheduled during a time when very few classes or rehearsals were taking place. The result? On February 20, amid about 50 empty chairs and 14 pizzas, only four Juilliard students showed up to voice their concerns.

This low student turnout was consistent with the earlier Town Hall meetings that have been scheduled throughout the year as forums for debate about Juilliard’s mission. The president of Juilliard makes time in his schedule to be accessible to the student body and hear our concerns, yet almost no one shows up to participate. That’s not to say this particular meeting wasn’t productive. The problems discussed were addressed quickly and effectively. For instance, students complained that the building should be open longer on Sundays; the building hours were expanded the following week.
Another idea was proposed at the meeting to alleviate the difficulty of finding a practice room: create a sign-up system whereby students could reserve practice time on a daily basis. (A similar system is already in existence in the residence hall.) Those at the meeting decided that this was an idea worth trying; it would solve many current problems (such as non-students using practice rooms), though it might create new ones (say, by favoring resident students over commuters). After the meeting, the administration quickly worked out the details and announced the new policy via e-mail.

Complaining is easy ... coming up with productive solutions more constructive.

The reaction from the student body was swift and merciless. Over the next week, student after student hit “reply to all,” sending their objections to every student and faculty member in the School. A few students listed reasons they believed the new policy would be unfair or inconvenient; the vast majority of the other responses were simply one- or two-line replies saying “I agree.” Some angrily protested that they had not been consulted before this policy change went into effect.

There is not enough space here to debate the merits and drawbacks of the practice-room sign-up proposal. In any case, it has now been shelved, and the administration is currently looking for new solutions to the problem. Plausible ideas, however, are not forthcoming from the student body. Of the aforementioned e-mails, only one contained a feasible suggestion: create more stringent rules to prevent students from leaving their belongings in rooms for extended periods of time. (The sign-up policy would also have helped solve this problem.) Some e-mails stated that if the School is having a practice room shortage, it should simply build more practice rooms—which is exactly what the School is doing as part of the current renovation process.

Students who have forfeited their right (some might consider it an obligation) to speak out in a public forum should think twice before shooting down someone else’s idea without offering productive ones of their own. It takes almost no effort to sit in one’s chair and fire off an e-mail to 900 people. It takes only slightly more effort to go to a meeting and air your concerns in front of people who have the power to get things done.

Joel Ayau is a master’s degree student in collaborative piano.