Stand in solidarity with the 2015 graduating class of the USC Roski MFA program in calling upon USC to remove Dean Erica Muhl.

On May 15th, 2015, the entire first-year class collectively withdrew from internationally-renowned USC's MFA program due to significant breaches in funding and curricular contracts enacted by Dean Muhl's administration. She continues to alienate students, faculty and alumni and offers convoluted and untruthful information to the public obfuscating the devastating impact of her actions and the failure of her administration.

USC is sheltering a highly paid administrator who has operated unethically by breaking funding and curricular promises to its students. In continuing to protect Dean Muhl, USC is demonstrating that it does not honor its commitments to its students, and that it considers one administrator more valuable than its obligations to its community and educational mission. We demand the university be held accountable for Dean Erica Muhl's dismantlement of the formerly renowned studio arts program.

We see the destruction of our program as alarming evidence of an increasingly corporatized system of higher education that prioritizes profit margins and inflated administrative salaries. In continuing to allow Dean Muhl to maintain her position, USC is demonstrating that is does not honor its commitments to its students. The university must rededicate itself to the mission of education rather than the business of education.

USC Fast Facts:

• USC Top 8 Executive Compensation has more than tripled since 2001 (255%) 
  Source: IRS 990 Forms FY 2001-2007, Part 2, Item 25, and Schedule III and IRS 990 Forms FY 2008-2012,Part IX, Line 5
  
  

• Tuition has increased 92% since 2001 
  Source: “Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System,” Final Release Data, National Center for Education Statistics, accessed January 2, 2015.
  
  
• We're Number 5! -- in graduate student loan debt
  Led by for-profit colleges, a handful of institutions received one-fifth ($6.5 billion) of the total amount of loans the government gave graduate students in the 2013-14 academic year. Those schools, however, only educate 12 percent of all graduate students. USC joins NYU as the only two private universities to top the list. 
  Source: Center for American Progress analysis of U.S. Department of Education data
  
  
• The largest single expense category in 2013 is "Other Salaries and Wages," which has increased twice as much as faculty salaries over the last four years. 
  Source: USC Audited Financial Reports FY 2010-2013.

-- The USC Roski MFA graduating class of 2015