A professor has caused stir in a school after he ordered the students to show up for their final examinations totally naked or risk failing the course.
The professor would also show up naked for the exam in the school located at UC San Diego, in the United States.
Associate Professor Ricardo Dominguez, who takes Visual Arts 104A: Performing the Self, said the bizarre exam conditions have been the same for 11 years.
He claims everyone knows the deal from start of term and those who don’t like it simply shouldn’t take it.
However, a mother to one of the students under the exam condition is absolutely pissed over the professor’s rule.
She claims that her daughter was forced to perform nude for her final in the class, or risk getting a failing grade.
Speaking anonymously to ABC 10, the woman said, “It bothers me, I’m not sending her to school for this.
“To blanket say you must be naked in order to pass my class. It makes me sick to my stomach.”
Meanwhile, the professor confirmed that students indeed have to be nude as one of the criteria to passing the final exam.
He said, “At the very end of the class, we’ve done several gestures, they have to nude gesture. The prompt is to speak about or do a gesture or create an installation that says, ‘what is more you than you are.”
He explained further that 20 students strip down, including him. He calls it a performance of self, in a dark room lit only by candlelight.
“It’s a standard canvas for performance art and body art.
“It is very all controlled.”
Dominguez said that students know what to expect from the first day of class.
“If they are uncomfortable with this gesture they should not take the class,” Dominguez said bluntly.
However, the anonymous mother countered that this was not true.
“Nothing was ever explained, nothing was ever stipulated prior to Thursday, May 7, 2015″ she said.
In Dominguez’s 11 years teaching the class, he says he has never received a complaint.
The Chair of the Visual Arts Department, Dr. Jordan Crandall, released a statement on Monday, May 11, 2015 where he explained that the class is not a requirement for graduation and that students are not required to be nude.
The statement reads:
“The concerns of our students are our department’s first priority, and I’d like to offer some contextual information that will help answer questions regarding the pedagogy of VIS 104A.
“Removing your clothes is not required in this class. The course is not required for graduation.
“VIS 104A is an upper division class that Professor Dominguez has taught for 11 years. It has a number of prompts for short performances called “gestures.” These include “Your Life: With 3 Objects and 3 Sounds” and “Confessional Self,” among others. Students are graded on the “Nude/Naked Self” gesture just like all the other gestures. Students are aware from the start of the class that it is a requirement, and that they can do the gesture in any number of ways without actually having to remove their clothes. Dominguez explains this – as does our advising team if concerns are raised with them. There are many ways to perform nudity or nakedness, summoning art history conventions of the nude or laying bare of one’s “traumatic” or most fragile and vulnerable self. One can “be” nude while being covered.
“There are many comments from former students that are visible online. These comments clarify the matter quite directly. It is important to listen to students who have actually taken the class. Again, the concerns of our students are our department’s first priority.”
