NYU Dean Answers Tuition Refund Request With Bizarre Dance Video

GREENWICH VILLAGE, MANHATTAN — New York University art students asking administrators for some money back as they finish their dance, acting or film classes through a computer were instead met with a dean's virtual dance of her own — lip syncing to R.E.M's "Losing My Religion."

After a week or so of back-and-forth about tuition, NYU Tisch School of the Arts' Dean Allyson Green answered students by attaching a bizarre two-minute long video filming herself dancing to the song, along with a message that they wouldn't be getting a refund.

The video, which has since been seen 700,000 times on social media, was quickly blasted by students as "embarrassing" and "supremely, supremely stupid."

"We here at NYU Local would just like to say: what the f--- is this," student Eli Yurman wrote in an open letter to Green on NYU Local. "...We get it. You’re stressed. It’s a stressful time. People are mad, a lot of them at you. But what the f--- are you doing???"

Green contended that the video was meant to show students that "it is still possible to make art together" even amid social distancing and remotely-held classes, the dean said in a statement.

"Losing My Religion" is the same song Green uses to welcome first-year students at Tisch and was meant to be an uplifting message during trying times, she said.

"It is a piece that — as I explained in the accompanying email — speaks to frustration and disappointment, and that helped see me through the loss of 30 friends to AIDS — another difficult period for artists," she said. "I regret it if my email left the reasons for my dancing misunderstood — although I will note that I have also received many positive acknowledgments — but its intent was surely neither frivolous or disrespectful."

Yurman argued, though, that the video did little to move the conversation forward except "piss everyone off."

He and other students contend that classes via video chat, particularly for drama students where in-person exercises are especially important, are not worth the same $58,552-plus tuition the art school students pay per semester.

(To keep up with coronavirus news in the West Village, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

New York University officially closed its campus March 22 and is conducting all classes remotely for the rest of the semester.

More than 2,400 students from Tisch have also signed an online petition asking for the partial refunds.

"We get that you can’t just wave a wand and give people their tuition," Yurman wrote. "It might even be the case that those students are in the wrong. Let’s talk about it! But even if they are, how could you possibly think this would do anything but piss everyone off. Like, did you think about this for even a second?""

The request for refunds is one of a few ways students in New York City are asking for relief after they were forced to pack up and leave their colleges and universities because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Students at Barnard College and Columbia University have collectively been petitioning their schools to allow pass/fail options for courses as students struggle with time zones, financial strains and even dealing with the virus themselves while finishing the semester.