Cleveland parents in fresh uproar
NewsDissatisfaction with the Cleveland Institute of Music has now boiled over into a parents revold. Here’s what they tell slippedisc.com:
Dear Mr Lebrecht and Slippedisc,
We are a group of concerned parents of Cleveland Institute of Music students. As you know, CIM has been in a downward spiral for the last few years under its current leadership, but especially this past academic year with the resignation of trumpet faculty member Michael Sachs in the fall, the 91 percent faculty vote of no confidence in President Paul Hogle and Provost Scott Harrison, the mid-semester termination of viola faculty member Mark Jackobs and the ongoing controversy surrounding Carlos Kalmar.
The culture at CIM has become toxic, and students are bearing the brunt of the fallout. Many people are afraid to speak out because the administration, with board approval, has made it clear that dissent will be frowned upon or worse, punished. We will not stand for the way the leaders of the administration and the board continue to hurt our students, their teachers, and the reputation of the school.
While we know that many parents emailed the CIM board individually, our group sent an email expressing our concerns on April 5, 2024 to board members and emeritus members ahead of the April 9 board meeting. We asked that the board respond to us by April 19, giving them ample time to acknowledge our concerns. Board leadership has chosen not to answer us. Our concern as parents extends beyond the future of our own students to encompass concern for all the students, parents, and faculty who are understandably scared to speak up, and we will not meekly let go of this matter.
It is important to note that Board Chair Susan Rothmann is on record as saying that the anti-administration complaints at CIM are the work of a troublemaking minority. (https://slippedisc.com/2023/10/cleveland-hunkers-down-to-virtual-civil-war/) This is false. After all, within the halls of CIM, 91 percent of the faculty voted no confidence in President Hogle and Provost Harrison. Where Ms. Rothmann sees a minority of people looking to make trouble, we see a majority of people who want CIM to succeed and know that under the present course, its reputation is declining rapidly and at risk for more serious damage in the future.
Because administration and board leaders are not willing to engage with differing opinions, and in some cases, will not speak at all to parents and students who are trying to get answers, we want to publicize the letters sent to the board by our group, by students, by faculty, and by graduates and current students of Mr. Jackobs and Mr. Sachs. In them, you will see more concretely the problems facing the school, problems which the administration and the board are content to ignore. Students, faculty, parents, and alumni are frustrated, angry, embarrassed, and genuinely worried about CIM. Ignoring complaints and trying to suppress dissent is a sign of weakness, not strength, and in the case of the Board of Trustees, it is literally part of the job description to represent the institution as a whole, not just blindly rubber-stamp what the administration and board chair want.
Many stakeholders have sounded an alarm and we are doing our best to amplify it.
Very kind regards,
Concerned CIM Parents
What exactly are the problems? Why can’t the parents be more specific about their complaints?
I think they plan to / at least it sounds that way from this note above.
This letter mentions the group wishes to publicize letters from faculty, former Sachs and Jackobs students, etc. Perhaps those will be sent at a later date?
How much more specificity do you want? Perhaps you haven’t been following the situation, but the letter from the parents summarizes it.
So, they want to publicize the letters they sent to the board? Go ahead. What’s stopping them?
Dapplegrey, why can’t people who post on this site not use their real names?
In my case, because I’ve got a very unusual name – both forename & surname – and could easily be traced.
As a retired orchestral flutist, there is no way that I can recommend CIM as a potential music school for any of my promising students or my colleague’s students.
I would never send my kids to a music conservatory. Send them to a regular university and get a well-rounded science and liberal arts education. (Bernstein did not get a music degree.) Otherwise you’ll end up with a good musician who knows only music and little else, and ripe for prey by predatory conservatory teachers.
Yep.
I know someone who currently a student at CIM. They’re transferring out at the end of the semester because the school is imploding, and they’ve realized that they can get a BA in a field that will enable them to get a white collar job as well as continue private instruction, giving recitals, and participating in a youth orchestra. They still intend to pursue a professional career, but want options if tenure becomes elusive.
Bernstein studied at Curtis (with Randall Thompson) and had this to say about it:
“The following spring, both men left Curtis, Bernstein as a graduate and Thompson to accept a position at the University of Virginia. Although their paths then diverged, Bernstein spoke fondly of his former teacher 35 years later, demonstrating that his respect for Thompson, and what he had tried to accomplish, had not waned:
“The school at the time was like a virtuoso factory… interdisciplinary it was not. Something had to be done, and something was done; they engaged a new director, Randall Thompson, a composer, an intellectual, and—good Lord!—a Harvard man. He was engaged to change this school from a conservatory into a true school based on the axiom that there is truth beyond virtuosity… to create a scholarly, questing atmosphere. Oh, how he tried. There had to be broader horizons at Curtis—and now there are.”*
*from Leonard Bernstein’s speech given at Curtis’s 50th anniversary, 27 February 1975”
Why not go to a school where you can get both? CIM offers a dual degree program with Case Western Reserve University (with whom they share a campus).
“We asked that the board respond to us by April 19, giving them ample time to acknowledge our concerns. Board leadership has chosen not to answer us”
The Board’s failure to respond is disgraceful.
One reason these students might feel entitled is because CIM is expensive and notoriously stingy with scholarships, and many pay a lot of money to attend.
I sympathize with the paying students, but I feel that this is ultimately a lost cause, and minimal time and energy should be devoted to fighting this battle against management.
Having a disruption in your studies will not be the reason you don’t win an orchestra job someday.
Tuition and fees at CIM is $66,000, with total estimated cost $75,000 a year. After spending $300,000 for four years, students and their parents can look forward to an additional two to four years of graduate school possibly doubling the cost. All that to have a chance at landing a job that may pay only $50,000 a year, more if they are among the select few. How many CIM students win these auditions?