In a rare twist of fate, the students leading the protest of the so-called “disgusting” and “vomit-inducing” conditions of the University’s Studio Arts building have decided their program is too well-funded and they will now shift the focus of the protest to funneling their hefty budget to underserved programs like engineering.
DeVon Roubillard, an avid supporter of the protests, has worked for years to gain the attention of both the University’s administration and Louisiana’s legislature, and in February his efforts finally gained exposure from various media outlets.
Roubillard’s intentions were largely met with support and solidarity, and supporters of the protest responded with comments expressing their appreciation of the role art plays in their lives.
The additional exposure did garner some negativity, however. Initially, Roubillard and his crew ignored the aggressively contrarian opinions of anonymous posters on the Internet, but one post in particular deeply affected Roubillard.
Roubillard cited the eloquent posts of GeauxPwnies1977, an avid poster on Tiger Dropping’s OT Lounge, as the source of this change of heart.
“Those dumb arts kids should pick a real major instead of whining about their building, which is probably OK,” GeauxPwnies1977 said.
According to Roubillard, this poetic complaint opened his mind to the realities of the art program’s situation.
“When you think about it, there’s no real reason to fix our building when art and tourism only generate hundreds of millions of dollars in state revenue,” Roubillard said.
According to Marie Daneels, one of Roubillard’s partners in crime, convincing his colleagues to support his new vision was “super hard,” but they came around quickly after reading the revelatory post on Tiger Droppings.
“How can we even consider making the building handicapped-accessible when the engineering program has only received $100 million this month?” Daneels said.
Joseph Bonaparte, landscape architecture senior, also now views the program and the building from a new perspective.
“People complain about crumbling ceilings and asbestos, but suffering is part of the artistic process. Besides, I’ve made friends with the rats that live in the basements, and I would feel really sad if they had to leave,” Bonaparte said.
Architecture senior George Quibedeaux said the building’s decaying walls and cramped unisex bathrooms were excellent ways to show visitors how much the University’s administration truly values the arts program.
“Do you think Nari Ward was anything less than impressed when he found rat feces encircling his installation? Checkmate, protestors,” Quibedeaux said.
When asked how the University’s top-ranked architecture and interior design programs could thrive in a building plagued by leaks, wasp colonies and decaying animal corpses, Lynda Heigel, interior design sophomore, shrugged.
“I mean, you really want the people designing your house to have some kind of perspective,” Heigel said.
Roubillard said he hopes the protest will persuade the University to transfer funds from the studio arts program to the College of Business and the College of Science, which have received meager sums of tens of millions of dollars this past year.
“I hate that we art majors live in such luxury when rat diabetes hasn’t even been cured and 2 percent of engineers aren’t employed after college. It’s time for a change.”
“People complain about crumbling ceilings and asbestos, but suffering is part of the artistic process. Besides, I’ve made friends with the rats that live in the basements, and I would feel really sad if they had to leave.”