Published Monday, February 23, 2004
HGSE Sends International Forum Off-Campus
Nienhuis Cites School's 'Professional Mission'
By Andrew K. Mandel
APPIAN STAFF WRITER

The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) instructed the annual student-run International Forum to relocate off-campus after organizers booked one of the “Guerrilla Girls” as a panelist for the event. 

While administrators and student organizers appear to disagree on the reasons for the move, one thing is certain: the International Forum, the culminating event of the Student Research Conference (SRC) on February 27, will take place at the First Parish in Cambridge instead of the Gutman Conference Center, the site of last year’s event. 

The Guerrilla Girls, a group formed nearly two decades ago to protest the lack of female artists showcased in museums and galleries, have written provocative books (including the recent Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls' Guide to Female Stereotypes) and created eye-catching posters (“Do women have to be naked to get into the Met?”) to challenge racism and sexism in the art and movie industries.  Its members choose to remain anonymous, wearing gorilla masks during public events and assuming the names of deceased female artists.

In November, “Frida Kahlo” was invited to serve as a panelist on the 2004 International Forum, titled "Standing Up, Speaking Up: Women Reaching Audiences and Changing Minds."

On January 12, the SRC co-chairs received an e-mail message from HGSE Director of Student Affairs Nancy Nienhuis, which they say instructed them to rescind their invitation to the Guerrilla Girls. 

According to HGSE doctoral student and SRC co-chair Rebecca Garland, Nienhuis indicated that she had read a January 4 article in the New York Times about the Guerrilla Girls and that she considered them an inappropriate choice for the International Forum.  According to Garland, Nienhuis said a member of the Guerrilla Girls might be able to participate in an on-campus panel if she removed her mask.

“The sudden request was totally unexpected,” Garland said. “It came late in the planning process, and we knew we would not have time to organize another panel.”

Rather than revoking the invitation, the SRC student organizers worked with the Office of Student Affairs to locate an alternate venue and secure outside sponsorship for the forum.  While her office would continue to fund the panel’s $1,500 budget and offer staff support, Nienhuis stipulated that the HGSE administration would not be a named sponsor of the event and that the forum could not be advertised in the conference program, according to Garland.

At issue, Garland said, is “what constitutes valid educational activity and what therefore constitutes serious scholarly discourse.”  The administration’s objections make the forum even more relevant, she noted, given that the panelists will be discussing the nature of their role as educator-activists working outside the academy.

“Academic freedom is vital to the health of any scholarly institution. We are troubled by the idea that one party may claim the right to determine what constitutes scholarly discourse,” she said.  “While it is clear to us that the administration has the best interests of the Ed School at heart, it is also clear that HGSE must remain a place where all educational issues, even unorthodox ones, be open for public discussion and debate.”

In an e-mail message to The Appian, Nienhuis said the organizers “must have misunderstood me,” indicating that “a mask wasn’t the issue.” 

She said the request to move the forum was not about limiting academic freedom, but rather streamlining HGSE’s purpose. 

“I requested the change in venue because the school is trying to align major on-campus activities and events with the school’s professional mission,” Nienhuis said. “We now have the opportunity to clarify the school’s mission and emphasize the academic program areas that best reflect society’s needs and are best supported by the school’s faculty.  With the mission of the school more focused on strengthening education policy and practice through the preparation of leaders in the field and on producing scientifically rigorous research, we are trying very hard to focus on-campus events on topics that further this mission.”

It is this sharpened focus that led conference organizers to develop their panel in the first place. 

“In past years, the International Forum has provided a venue for discussion of issues and ideas that are not currently being addressed at HGSE,” Garland said. 

With an all-but-closed masters program in gender studies and the administration’s decision not to proceed with plans to develop a Center for Gender Studies, conference organizers thought it was especially fitting to highlight issues of gender at the International Forum, Garland said.  The panel will specifically focus “on the ways that women activists educate through media and the arts to promote women's rights movements globally,” she added.

In addition to “Frida Kahlo,” panelists of the International Forum will include Judy Norsigian, founding member of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective; Caroline Pozycki (Ed.M. ’04), creator of Girltalkback, a performance-based program for female teens; Nurit Eini-Pindyck, an Israeli visual artist; and Susan McLucas, an activist working to end genital excision in Mali.  Each panelist will speak for 10 minutes, with an hour allotted to group discussion.

The Office of Student Affairs assisted conference organizers to secure the partnership of 10 co-sponsors, including the Women at Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government and the Committee on the Concerns of Women at Harvard.  The event, scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. at 3 Church Street, is free of charge and open to the public.

Though disappointed by her disagreements with the administration, Garland said that she and her peers planning the forum have been galvanized by these recent developments.

“The event has become much bigger than we ever anticipated,” Garland said.  “The church holds 600 people, and we plan to fill it.”

Andrew K. Mandel, an Ed.M. candidate in the Technology in Education program, is a member of the Appian Board of Editors.