FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NAROPA INTENDS TO SUBSUME JACK KEROUAC SCHOOL, FUTURE SEEMS DISMAL FOR STUDENTS
Boulder, Colorado July 2, 2010 - Naropa University has been hit pretty hard by economic uncertainties, as most businesses have in the last decade, but the current administration headed up by former Dartmouth transfer President Stuart Lord seems to have something in for the little school within the school founded by two of the most infamous poets of the 20th Century, the late Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman.
The Summer Writing Program, dubbed The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman after Ginsberg’s relationship as founding poet of The Beat Generation - coined by Kerouac - and Waldman’s relationship with Emily Dickinson’s otherworldly poetics, was founded at the initiation of The Naropa Institute in 1974. Then a summer program, the school itself founded on the principles of contemplative education and Buddhist practice and direct action activism and the premise of Tibetan transplant The Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche. Trungpa himself was a poet in the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and asked Ginsberg to come on board for the founding of The Naropa Institute, thinking a element of right speech was forthright for the founding of a whole school.
Recent events at the now Naropa University have found layoffs, condescending responses from a paranoid administration, and a plan designed by a creationist Christian that does not understand the original principles of the Buddhist inspired learning institution. A plan that, if implemented, would remove control of The Jack Keroauc School from the poets that founded it and put the creative direction, and finances into lesser known and developed programs.
The Writing and Poetics Department runs two MFA programs, and helps host the core faculty of the summer writing program, still referred to as The Keroauc School. The program has inspired similar programs in Prague, Czech Republic and Vienna, Austria and has ties with avant-guard writing programs and communities in California, New York, and this year co-hosted the AWP program in Denver.
Current students and concerned alumni from around the world are meeting on Facebook, Twitter, and a blog to rally and save the Jack Kerouac School. Current students have an impromptu early meeting with President Lord at 10AM today on Naropa’s Arapahoe Campus, called by the President to address concerns over the restructuring - which is during Kerouac School’s scheduled intenstive summer schedule, and will likely be unattended. 6PM today, Friday July 2, 2010 on the same campus a “Creative Action” is planned.
Statements from students and Alumni have been posted on the website and blog. The current students, because of financial and administrative secrecy, are keeping a low profile. Fear and wonder on this small campus based on contemplative right action, and communication is unheard of.
For further up to the minute information, please visit the website/blog atÂ
http://www.twitter.com/savetks
http://www.facebook.com/pages/SAVE-TKS/135691433116582
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