Naked Art Class?

[Rageaholic]

link

This professor requires students to pose naked to pass his class. It's not a required course and seems like an elective if anything, but I'm wondering how common classes like these are. Would most professors require this or is it just this guy?

Here's the course description.

The class description on the Department of Visual Arts website reads, "Using autobiography, dream, confession, fantasy or other means to invent one’s self in a new way, or to evoke the variety of selves in our imagination, the course experiments with and explores the rich possibilities available to the contemporary artist in his or her own persona."

Doesn't say anything about posing naked.

[Andara Bledin]

Well, it is a high-level elective art class.

Plus, the only reason people think it's perverse is, itself, the perversity. The body itself just is.

And I think the more relevant quote from the article is this:

“We had a choice between being nude or doing something emotionally ‘naked’ and every student but one chose to do the nude performance,” one commenter said. “It was uncomfortable for some of us but we were adults and knew what we were getting ourselves into from day one of the class.”

So, not only are you not actually required to get naked, but it's something that's known from day one.

[Panacea]

I posed nude once, for a friend taking an art course who needed to do a nude sketch for a class.

It was very tasteful. He drew me from the back. It felt weird at first, but after awhile I got used to it, and the finished product as I said is very tasteful.

[HYHYBT]

If it's a requirement for the course, it is unreasonable not to make it known BEFORE Day 1.

[Hyena Dandy]

So they were required to either unclothe, or be emotionally vulnerable, and were told about this on day one of the course.

This sounds fine to me.

[XCashier]

Most life drawing classes use paid, professional models. They don't expect the students to pose nude. That should've been made very clear before the students signed up, and it doesn't look like it was.

[Canarr]

It looks like people making a mountain out of a molehill. Andara already quoted the relevant part; nobody is forced to get naked.

[Andara Bledin]

Most life drawing classes use paid, professional models. They don't expect the students to pose nude. That should've been made very clear before the students signed up, and it doesn't look like it was.

1) This isn't a life drawing class
2) They weren't expected to pose: They just had to expose themselves, either physically or emotionally
3) A number of life drawing classes actually use volunteers, sometimes other students earning credit for posing

[Aragarthiel]

The requirement should still have been announced before the class started. There are any number of reasons why someone might not be comfortable exposing themselves physically, and for some people (namely trauma or abuse victims), emotional exposure could end up too painful to be worth the class credit. Anyone who doesn't think they could handle it should be able to opt out, if only for their own mental health.

[Rageaholic]

If it's a requirement for the course, it is unreasonable not to make it known BEFORE Day 1.

Pretty much this.

[s_stabeler]

I would say there are two possible ways of handling this: 1. inform students WHEN THEY ARE PICKING CLASSES that this one requires posing nude ( or being emotionally exposed) 2. offer an opportunity to drop the class, with a full refund of any fees charges for the class, after the student is informed of the requirement to pose nude

[Hyena Dandy]

Most colleges have the ability to drop for at least a few days after the first class. I suspect this one would too.

[Andara Bledin]

This is a course titled "Performing the Self."

If the idea of baring either your body or your emotions to the class is too fraught with peril, one wonders why you would take the class at all.

[Greenday]

It's a good thing the professor announces what the final is the first day of class giving the students a chance to drop the class with no penalty if they refuse to do it.

[NecCat]

A quote from a former student “It was uncomfortable for some of us but we were adults and knew what we were getting ourselves into from day one of the class.”

It doesn't sound like there has been any complaints about this the last eleven years until one of the adults (students) mom got upset about this and went to the media. If the student needed her mom to go argue about this for her, she wasn't adult enough to be in post secondary education. If the mom is complaining because she still wants to run her childs life, she needs therapy. Either way, the headline of the article should have read 'Crazy helicopter parent tries to interfere with a college course'