From the outside, Juilliard appears to be a blissful sanctuary of the arts. Yet many insiders will tell you that Juilliard students are not entirely satisfied with their experience here. Many students express concerns about ongoing problems at the School yet feel powerless to effect any real change.

What is the cause of this ongoing gridlock? And, more importantly, what can be done to improve the situation?

During my two years at Juilliard, I have met numerous students who feel that school officials are distant and unresponsive to student concerns. To some extent, these students have a point. Apart from the occasional survey or open forum, there are few formal ways through which the administration solicits input from the student body. How many decisions that directly affect our experiences at Juilliard are made behind closed doors by committees that include no students?

For example, last year Juilliard engaged in a comprehensive review of its performance programs, classroom environment, and scholarship policy. To its credit, the review incorporated input from students’ class evaluation forms, and sponsored a meeting in which administrators described Juilliard’s scholarship policies to the small number of students who showed up. However, no students were invited to serve on the review’s focus groups, meaning that the review provided little opportunity for students to directly discuss policy with school officials. To be sure, most students probably remain unaware that the review process ever occurred.

However, it is too simple to blame the administration for this problem. Students are often too quick to assume that school officials will not seriously consider their comments. As a result, many students simply do not bother to express their concerns, leaving the administration with the perception that students are wholly satisfied.

Last month’s Journal included a telling article by Dean Clapp about the small return rate last year for questionnaires about studio teachers. As the dean wrote, we can only speculate as to the reason for the low number of the anonymous questionnaires that were returned. Perhaps students are so overwhelmingly satisfied with their lessons that they see no need to provide input. Or perhaps students feel so disenfranchised that they do not believe that submitting their responses will lead to any improvement. In the same article, the dean invited students to an open forum last month to discuss improving the studio evaluation process. The number of students who attended? Zero.

In preparing to write this column, I met with President Polisi and Dean Clapp for nearly an hour. Both expressed concern that even when students are given opportunities to play a role in decision-making processes, they often don’t take an interest. The aforementioned examples of the scholarship policy and studio evaluation meetings illustrate their point. Certainly, ignoring the administration’s request for feedback does nothing to improve the School. It is incomprehensible that students complain about the administration’s lack of interest yet fail to respond when the administration seeks to learn their opinions.

What is the solution to this situation? I would like to see the administration take an even more active role in creating opportunities for students to actively participate in policy-making processes. For instance, students could add uniquely valuable insights to a variety of committees throughout the School. Furthermore, if the administration takes student grievances seriously, it can demonstrate its responsiveness by being willing to genuinely consider creative solutions to improving the School.

In return for this, students must be willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt. It is not fair to complain about the administration’s disregard for student opinions without first taking the time to share these opinions. What we may consider to be obvious problems with the School are not always be apparent to members of the administration. However, this lack of awareness does not mean that school officials would not be willing to consider a constructive solution to the problem, if only it were brought to their attention.

Juilliard is fortunate to have so much talent among its students, faculty, and administration. I can only begin to imagine how much more rewarding the educational environment at Juilliard could be if we all worked together.

Ed Klorman is a second-year viola student of Heidi Castleman and Hsin-Yun Huang.

Voice Box is a student opinion column appearing regularly in The Juilliard Journal. To submit a column for consideration, please e-mail it to journal@juilliard.edu with “Voice Box” in the subject heading, and include a phone number where you can be reached. Columns should cover topics of interest to the Juilliard community, and be about 500 words.