Reinstate Lars and Miles to their normal working hours

ACCD Shop instructors Lars Jorgensen and Miles Elledge are being forced out of the shop.

For nine years Lars has been one of students favorite instructors. His hours are slowly being cut, term after term. His normally consistent 24 hours a week have been dwindling, term after term. Averaging three hours a week last term and now has not worked as a shop instructor for two weeks.

Miles has recovered from an injury and attempting to get back on the schedule.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with both Miles and Lars for more than 7 terms now. They have been invaluable as instructors and Integral to the Art Center experience.

On Tuesday, November 13th, I'll bring this petition along with my open letter to the shop management.  

An open letter to Art Center College of Design shop management:

I met Lars Jorgensen  in my second term of Art Center. I was lucky enough to have my first shop class waived from previous experience. I still remember our meeting, I was working on the product replication assignment in Design Fundamentals 2. I had asked him about different ways to build it, trying to discover the most efficient way. Immediately I noticed that he didn’t tell me how to build it, instead he encouraged me to think through some different ways of doing it. Encouraging me to discover the best process. Thus empowering me to be more successful in the future, when I won’t have a shop staff around. At the end of our conversation I remember him telling me that this is the type of thinking he looks for in students, to see how they think and what process they use.

Over the next seven terms we worked together on many projects. However, as the terms advance I spend more time on the computer and less time in the shop.

After returning from an internship Lars has informed me that both himself and Miles Elledge are slowly being forced out of the shop. His normally consistent 24 hours a week have been dwindling, term after term, averaging three hours a week last term and now has not had any hours the last two weeks.

So my questions to the shop management are the following:

1. Why are Lars and Miles not working? People who I feel are the most influential in my shop experience at Art Center.

2.What will you do to fix this?

3. What system will you put in place to avoid this situations like in the future. Where students like myself feel you’re not putting our best interest first. And influential instructors feel disrespected and undermined?

My view on this issue is not without bias or substance. It comes from a student perspective. I realize not the only perspective, but without doubt the most important. As, ultimately you answer to myself and the rest of study body. I have been a student in four educational shops, my highschool shop, CCS(transportation), MCAD (furniture design), and now Art Center(transportation). I have never worked with instructors as attentive, compassionate, and empowering as Lars and Miles. It will be a travesty if Art Center continues to drive away instructors like Miles and Lars.

Regards,
David Fischer

Breaking News: Miles has just been fired today, (11/9/2012)

Update: (11/16/2012) 
http://dfishdesign.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/enter-the-silence/ 

Tell Art Center College of Design Management that we want Lars and Miles to be In the shop where they belong, teaching, inspiring and empowering students.