Summary
- Emails that SOAS administration sought to conceal have now been released by order of the UK government watchdog for Freedom of Information.
- The newly disclosed email from Dr. Peter Sharrock reveals the regressive agenda and outrageous professional attacks attached to the sudden limitation in 2016 of the Alphawood Southeast Asian art programme to “premodern” art. Colonialist approaches to Southeast Asia are echoed in that agenda and in recent programme decisions by SOAS administration. This is antithetical to the Decolonising SOAS campaign.
- The disclosed email from Prof. Anna Contadini confirms her complicity in lying to cover up the unethical conduct of herself and others in the Alphawood Scholarships 2016-’17 awarding process.
- SOAS administration’s poor management of this £15 million programme threatens to warp the academic research the donation aims to support.
Each point is elaborated below.
1. Emails that SOAS administration sought to conceal have now been disclosed by order of the UK government watchdog for Freedom of Information.
In March 2016, at the behest of SOAS administration, Prof. Shearer West, then Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University, conducted an external review of the organisation and activities of the Alphawood Foundation-funded Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme (SAAAP). Prof. West’s report, publically released in July 2016, exposed the “failure of leadership at several levels” and other problems of SAAAP and made a number of recommendations. I filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request for email messages exchanged by four members of the SAAAP Board in relation to Prof. West’s review. SOAS disclosed the emails of two Board members but refused to release the emails of the other two, Prof. Anna Contadini and Dr. Peter Sharrock. I filed an appeal against this refusal. The Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK watchdog for FOI, ruled in my favour and ordered SOAS to release the emails, which are now available here.
2. The newly disclosed email from Dr. Peter Sharrock reveals the regressive agenda and outrageous professional attacks attached to the sudden limitation in 2016 of the Alphawood Southeast Asian art programme to “premodern” art. Colonialist approaches to Southeast Asia are echoed in that agenda and in recent programme decisions by SOAS administration. This is antithetical to the Decolonising SOAS campaign.
Background
SAAAP was inaugurated in autumn 2013 “to support, cultivate and expand the preservation and advancement of Southeast Asian Buddhist and Hindu art,” as the Deed of Gift governing the Alphawood Foundation’s £15 million donation declared. However, in early 2016, SAAAP managers, in a sudden turn, began to restrict the programme to exclude modern and contemporary art. They swiftly applied this limitation by rejecting applicants to the Alphawood Scholarships, applicants who had in fact been invited to apply to study modern/contemporary art. They neither informed the applicants of this change to the published criteria, nor, apparently felt any ethical unease about rejecting the applicants. Ms. Valerie Amos, the Director of SOAS, excused the unfair actions by citing “an administrative oversight” for the failure to communicate the restriction. She has never given students the apology they deserve.
According to SOAS administration, the Alphawood Foundation had wanted to limit funding to art of “antiquity” and exclude modern art since the origin of SAAAP and that it was only years later that the “oversight” was realized. This claim is based on shaky evidence, as an analysis of information obtained through Freedom of Information has revealed. For two years beginning in 2013, as SOAS itself attested, the Alphawood Foundation received numerous, regular updates from SOAS on SAAAP, including weekly phone calls. Alphawood had in fact approved the awarding of scholarships for the study of modern/contemporary art in both years. It is thus surprising that in December 2015, James D. McDonough, Executive Director of the Alphawood Foundation, sent a letter to the Director of SOAS stating that Alphawood had an earlier and continuing wish to exclude modern art. He wrote,
“it was not our intention that art created in the modern era would be the subject of study by the faculty or scholarship recipients funded with the Alphawood grant.
“I have been advised that the SAAAP, as implemented under the supervision of the Program Board, may have deviated somewhat from this charge by including contemporary art studies in the curriculum that is funded by our grant.”
Mr. McDonough then requested that SOAS commission an external reviewer “to render a judgment regarding the fidelity of the program as implemented to the donor’s intent.”
In the above excerpt, a disturbing complaint is made about faculty members. McDonough is referring to the three chairs endowed by the Alphawood Foundation’s donation: the Hiram W. Woodward Chair in Southeast Asian Art (held by Prof. Ashley Thompson), the David L. Snellgrove Senior Lecturer in Tibetan and Buddhist art (Dr. Christian Luczanits) and the Pratapaditya Pal Senior Lecturer in Curating and Museology of Asian Art (Dr. Louise Tythacott). In the letter, McDonough indicates that he has heard that they have been studying contemporary art, which would not be acceptable to Alphawood. This is unexpected, as no special obligations to Alphawood had been placed on the teaching and research of the postholders. Thus, the statement from the Alphawood Foundation’s director would appear to challenge academic freedom.
Two Questions
(1) What (or who) prompted Mr. McDonough to write the letter? He stated: “I have been advised” about the inclusion of contemporary art in the curriculum. Who ”advised” him? What was said? How did the misunderstanding about academic freedom arise?
(2) Alphawood could have simply informed SOAS of a change in its objectives and have a new remit promulgated for the scholarships and other activities going forward. Instead, Alphawood linked the change with a need to formally investigate past actions. Why did it insist on applying the restriction to art “in antiquity” retroactively?
With these questions in mind, let us now turn to the information from Dr. Peter Sharrock that SOAS has now released.
The Newly Disclosed Information: The Regressive Agenda and Nastiness Linked to SAAAP’s Change in Remit
Dr. Peter Sharrock’s opinions are especially significant to understanding SAAAP because he prompted the donation through his personal friendship with Fred Eychaner, the wealthy Chicago collector of Asian art whose fortune funds the Alphawood Foundation. Dr. Sharrock has been for some years an ad-hoc, part-time lecturer at SOAS. Mr. Eychaner is a former student of the Diploma in Asian Art programme at SOAS. Mr. Eychaner has ascribed the origin of his decision to donate as a conversation he had with Dr. Sharrock while they were on a trip together in Myanmar. After SAAAP was established, Dr. Sharrock was selected as Outreach Manager, a position paid by the donation, responsible for liaising with Southeast Asian institutions, recruiting scholarship applicants and publicising SAAAP’s activities. Dr. Sharrock was also appointed a member of the SAAAP Scholarships Sub-board.
Dr. Sharrock and Mr. Eychaner continued to be in contact regarding the programme – an ongoing conversation that created tension between personal and institutional needs at SOAS. As Prof. West wrote in her report,
“the friendships between some members of academic staff and the donor are valuable for stewardship and the maintenance of good relations; however the donor’s inferred intentions, as translated through these friendships, should not become the basis of decision-making, which is perceived by some members of SAAAP to have happened in relation to decisions relating to the expenditure of outreach and research funds.” (p. 2)
Prof. West also wrote,
“Communication between the Alphawood Foundation and SOAS appears to rely officially on weekly calls between the Director of Development and Jim McDonough at the Alphawood Foundation and unofficially on personal contacts between two members of the Project Board and the donor. Clear communication channels and mechanisms for engagement with Alphawood need to be agreed and adhered to.” (pp. 5-6)
The disclosed email message and an attached “Report” by Dr. Sharrock are dated to early 2016. At that time, the SAAAP Board was preparing for the review prompted by Mr. McDonough’s letter and commissioned to Prof. West. On 2 February 2016, Prof. Gurharpal Singh, Dean of Arts and Humanities and Chair of the SAAAP Board at the time, informed SAAAP Board members of the drafting of a “brief self-assessment document of SAAAP’s progress” which would be provided to Prof. West. He invited Board members to send him any contributions. On 9 February, Dr. Sharrock emailed his Report to Prof. Singh. It presents Dr. Sharrock’s view of the goals, management, and activities of SAAAP since its beginning. This is the document SOAS administration attempted to conceal from public view.
Dr. Sharrock’s writing casts light on the vision of SAAAP expressed by the individual who arguably has had, and may still have, more influence over the direction of SAAAP than anyone else at SOAS. Given the relationship between Dr. Sharrock and Mr. Eychaner, parallels between the Alphawood Foundation’s letter and Dr. Sharrock’s report cannot be summarily dismissed as unrelated. The report is filled with blame and criticism for other SOAS staff and promotion of his own activities – perhaps not a surprising range of content for anyone’s ‘self-assessment’ – but Dr. Sharrock’s accusations are not backed by evidence, and indeed, being easily disproven, must be characterised as unscrupulous and nasty. Reading the report in view of the history of SAAAP, one is also struck by the reasoning and conceptions underlying the statements. Dr. Sharrock’s comments parallel the imperative for retroactivity and disregard for academic freedom expressed in Alphawood’s letter. Like Mr. McDonough, Dr. Sharrock used the limitation to art “in antiquity” as a basis for criticising other SOAS academic staff.
The term “antiquity” is not conventional for Southeast Asian art and was not defined by Alphawood’s letter – nor has it ever been publically defined by SOAS. In Dr. Sharrock’s report, perhaps what is most troubling and most detrimental to SAAAP is the regressive and self-serving conception of art “in antiquity” he expresses. This conception of art is now being supported, perhaps unintentionally, by SOAS administration’s poor management of the programme. Disturbingly, it parallels colonialist approaches to Southeast Asia.
Dr. Sharrock’s report claims at the outset that SAAAP’s scholarship and outreach activities (Dr. Sharrock’s purview) are successful while teaching and publications have failed to meet SAAAP goals. The blame for the latter is placed squarely upon the three Alphawood-endowed postholders, Prof. Ashley Thompson, Dr. Christian Luczanits and Dr. Louise Tythacott. They are accused of neglecting to teach about Southeast Asian art “in antiquity” and about Southeast Asian art in general and for drawing too few Alphawood Scholarship awardees to their classrooms.
Dr. Sharrock alleged, “They have so far failed to adequately bolster SOAS teaching and publications on the ‘Hindu-Buddhist art of Southeast Asia in antiquity.’” (p. 1) Setting aside for the moment the matter of the quality of this opinion, let us first consider the logic behind it. If the limitation to “antiquity” had been only recently declared (or rediscovered, as SOAS claimed) at the time this statement was written, then the three couldn’t have lectured on what they didn’t know they were supposed to lecture on. The attack against the three entails the retroactive application of the limitation to “antiquity,” as in Alphawood’s letter.
Dr. Sharrock’s statement above is followed by further explanation:
“The Woodward Chair [Prof. Ashley Thompson] has not yet taught classical Hindu-Buddhist art and is proposing to teach gender and contemporary. The Pal lecturer [Dr. Louise Tythacott] has introduced popular museum courses but not yet adapted them to SEA museum and issues. The Snellgrove Lecturer [Dr. Christian Luczanits] has yet to extend his Tibetan teaching to his broader remit for art in Asia.” (p. 1)
The accusations are repeated and elaborated in the section of the report that follows. Like Mr. McDonough of Alphawood, Dr. Sharrock falsely asserts the existence of conditions on what the three are required to teach. The accusations lack any basis or evidence and in literal terms are easily refutable, as Prof. Thompson, a world-renowned expert on Angkor, teaches “classical Hindu-Buddhist art;” Dr. Tythacott’s museology courses address issues relevant to Southeast Asian museums and curators, and Dr. Luczanits explores with his students Buddhist art from a range of areas and historical contexts. The accusations are wrong and unconscionable. It is to the credit of Prof. Singh that he didn’t include them in the final “Self-Evaluation Statement” sent to Prof. West.
However, something perhaps much more pernicious was retained in SAAAP: Dr. Sharrock’s exclusionary and regressive conception of what art is. In the statement quoted above, Dr. Sharrock made plain his belief that discussion of gender could not be applied to “classical” Southeast Asian art. His report further states,
“New theoretical gender courses have been proposed, which focus on Buddhism as a vehicle for phallocentric domination. These do not focus on the art of Hindu-Buddhist SEA in antiquity, as required by SAAAP. This HAA-supported proposal therefore fails the requirement that Alphawood funds for academic posts are only used to promote work and activities in the specifically defined SEA antique art area. These theoretical courses should be reviewed with a view to replacement.” [All bold font in original] (p. 2)
This statement apparently refers to Prof. Thompson’ course, ‘(En)gendering Southeast Asia: Aesthetics and Politics of Sexual Difference.’ It is telling that Dr. Sharrock provides no explanation for why he believes “gender” and the “theoretical” are not “art” but resorts to caricaturing the course.
Another course also came up for his censure:
“One theoretical course on the Buddha image and related philosophical concepts was introduced. It focused more on early South Asian Buddhist material than on SEA. It should be reviewed for its relevance to SAAAP.” [All bold font in original] (p. 2)
This apparently refers to another course taught by Prof. Thompson, ‘The Figure of the Buddha: Theory, Practice, and the Making of Buddhist Art History.’ Dr. Sharrock not only denounces the course as faulty because theory is supposedly irrelevant to Southeast Asian Buddhist art, but also, incredibly, invokes the SAAAP remit as a reason to forbid teaching about South Asia, the birthplace of Hinduism and Buddhism.
For Dr. Sharrock, even teaching Buddhism to students studying Buddhist art is too much. Criticising the work of Dr. Luczanits, he wrote:
“As for the broader remit of the Snellgrove post, which is Tibetan and Buddhist art in Asia in general, it has so far inclined to Buddhist theology rather than to Buddhist art. These courses, by an Alphawood post-holder, should be reviewed and modified in order to contribute more value to the SAAAP mission and to the Alphawood scholars.” [All bold font in original] (p. 2)
Dr. Sharrock strips away contexts of art in an arbitrary, academically indefensible fashion. His attack on teaching of South Asia and Buddhist theology suggests a willingness to carve away even essential contexts of Southeast Asian Buddhist and Hindu art “in antiquity.” The report never states in explicit terms what conception of this art he is advocating, but he is clear about what he believes it is not: “gender,” “theoretical,” “contemporary.” It is no small thing to shut off art from theory, thus denying the exploration of multiple dimensions of art and the critical engagement with interpretation enabled by theoretical rigor. For those of us who are art historians, the notion that gender and other theoretical approaches can have no bearing on the consideration of art of any period is frankly shocking in this day and age. Even to deny the relevance of the “contemporary” is problematic because Hindu and Buddhist art is subject to constant renovation as part of regular religious practice, complicating the separation of “modern” and “ancient” and the definition of “heritage.” Moreover, our engagement in the present with the art of the past must be constantly critically examined. In dismissing contexts of Southeast Asian art and rejecting multiple aspects of interpretation, Dr. Sharrock’s report parallels colonialist approaches to the region’s art. Indeed, the limitation of the remit of SAAAP to promoting art “in antiquity” recalls the colonialist claim that Southeast Asian art’s (and civilisation’s) apogee is long past and has been in decline since. The unsubtle implication of Dr. Sharrock’s report is that it is his conception of Southeast Asian art, and his alone, which should be taught at SOAS. The undefined, exclusionary formulation of art “in antiquity,” endorsed by Alphawood, provided a means for Dr. Sharrock to try to exalt his own work and denigrate that of colleagues.
Despite the problematic activity by Dr. Sharrock identified by Prof. West in her review, and his part in the unethical conduct in the Alphawood Scholarships, he has retained his position thanks to the head of the university, Ms. Valerie Amos. Prof. West’s warning about the interference of personal friendships in programme decision-making was apparently disregarded. Prof. West had also cautioned about the “unclear” position of the Outreach Manager and the “conflict of interest” arising from Dr. Sharrock holding that post while also being a potential beneficiary of the donation (p. 5 of her report). However, when Ms. Amos restructured SAAAP in July 2016, she backed Dr. Sharrock to continue as Outreach Manager, even as she structurally downgraded Southeast Asian art academic expertise in the supervision of SAAAP. It is embarrassing that SOAS’s outreach in Southeast Asia is inflected with regressive, colonial-era approaches to the region.
It is terrifying that SOAS permits this academically bankrupt view of art to be taught to students. Dr. Sharrock’s approach is especially concerning in view of the campaign by students and staff at SOAS in recent years to decolonise the curriculum by promoting academic scrutiny of common assumptions and critical awareness of the contexts in which knowledge is produced. These goals seem to be well-supported by the courses taught by Dr. Luczanits, Prof. Thompson, and Dr. Tythacott. On the other hand, the rejection of contextual grounding and theoretical inquiry expressed by Dr. Sharrock’s report are in opposition to these objectives of the university. The spurious professional attacks in the report, and his rigging of the Alphawood Scholarships, are contrary to the values of SOAS. However, through the donation he secured a platform, and SOAS administration worked to protect his position and to hide his correspondence from public disclosure. Obtaining a large donation to the university is admirable but should not license a waiving of the university’s principles and standards.
Ambiguity and Power in the Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme
In September 2016, the Deed of Gift of SAAAP was revised to state: “The aim of the Academic Programme is to support and advance the understanding and preservation of Southeast Asian Buddhist and Hindu art and architecture from ancient to premodern times.” Thus, the academically ambiguous reference to Southeast Asian art “in antiquity,” latterly modified to art of the “premodern” era, is now officially enshrined at the core of SAAAP.
SAAAP has never defined “premodern.” The term cannot simply be equated to the precolonial era. Allusions to the “premodern” must be accompanied by contextual references to the specific Southeast Asian culture. Absent such clarification, the door is open to the arbitrary separation of the art objects from their contexts and thus to efforts to exclude or delegitimise whole dimensions of scholarly research, as demonstrated by Dr. Sharrock’s report and Alphawood’s letter. I have written publically to SAAAP management several times since February 2016 to explain the issues and caution of the risks to the lack of definition. As the SOAS Students’ Union and I have previously suggested, SOAS should have brought together Alphawood Foundation representatives and SOAS academic staff, including Dr. Sharrock, to discuss the academic issues and jointly compose a clear statement of the “premodern” remit. Ambiguity and secrecy would then be replaced by academic credibility and transparency. Making such a statement of the remit public would also ensure that the same set of clear criteria would be made available to all applicants to the scholarships and other funding. As it is, applicants need to guess as to whether their understanding of “premodern” art is correct – even as staff members involved in SAAAP do not agree on its meaning, as will be described below.
SOAS administration has steadfastly resisted clarifying the meaning of the remit. The Chair of the SAAAP Board insisted to me in writing that it is “now quite clear” (Oct 2016) and “we do not think there is any need for further clarification” (Dec 2016). The ignorance and fecklessness behind these statements is now exposed.
The problem was illustrated by the SAAAP Board’s recent handling of some funding proposals. In addition to the endowed chairs and scholarships, SAAAP also manages an Academic Support Fund, to which eligible SOAS staff, students and alumni may propose projects to be funded. Each project proposal is first considered by one of two SAAAP Sub-boards, Research & Publications or Outreach, and if accepted by the Sub-board, it is then forwarded up to the Board for final sign-off. From December 2016, when the terms of reference of the Academic Support Fund were approved, through June 2017, the Board considered 20 proposals.
At the May 2017 meeting of the SAAAP Board, one item the Board considered was a proposal for a project entitled, “Pedagogies, Pleasures, Powers – a Critical History of the NMCPP [National Museum of Cambodia Phnom Penh].” The minutes (available publically on SAAAP’s website) report that Board member Dr. Ben Murtagh noted the strong support from the Research & Publications Sub-board for the proposed project, which he describes as a study ultimately centered on ancient objects in the museum’s collection. Dr. Tamsyn Barton, the Chair, acknowledged the importance of museology for SAAAP students, but expressed a concern as to whether the proposal fit within the SAAAP remit. (p. 3) Then, according to the minutes:
“TB [Tamsyn Barton] suggested that the Board consider referring to Alphawood for general advice regarding ASF [Academic Support Fund] proposals that involve a degree of mediation, interpretation or curation alongside their focus on the preservation and understanding of the objects of antiquity themselves. It was agreed that MG [Matt Gorman, Director of Development and SAAAP Board Member] would refer to Alphawood with a briefing of the issues and to seek reassurance as to whether proposals of this nature can be authorized as they stand, or whether they should generally be revised or rejected.” (p. 3)
Dr. Barton also suggested that two other project proposals, a “John Thompson [Thomson] Workshop” and a “PhD Research Trip to Singapore,” be set aside pending a response from Alphawood because they also relate to “mediation, interpretation and curation.” (pp. 3-4)
Thus the Board Chair, who has no background in either Southeast Asia or Art History, indicates that she is unsure whether “mediation, interpretation or curation” is included in SAAAP’s mission. This is astonishing because those three activities are at the very core of Art History – and indeed of human consciousness of what art is. Let me explain in brief. Art does not exist in a vacuum. It is presented, used and viewed by individuals and institutions through means and perspectives within specific circumstances: in other words, art is constantly being mediated, including in the lectures and books sponsored by SAAAP. Art itself can be seen as a form of mediation between humans and their environments. Moreover, art always has a context, actually, multiple contexts. One’s situation influences one’s interpretation of and interaction with art objects; the conditions of the art object’s historical and contemporary situation influence how one interprets it and interacts with it. Art historians study the interpretations and contexts of an art object among those who produced and used it as well as by other users and interpreters, such as archaeologists, art historians and curators, who have shaped the interpretation of that art. In the discipline of museology, considered a key element of SAAAP pedagogy, one of the main areas of study is in fact the curation of art objects in display settings. The Board Chair also apparently believes that preservation of art objects is separate from their interpretation and curation, but the care of art objects cannot be undertaken without answering basic questions such as which art objects should be preserved and why, who decides which objects should be preserved, and how should they be preserved.
Of course, not everyone is an art historian, but this mistaken belief that mediation, interpretation and curation can be separated from the understanding and preservation of art is a grave error that reiterates a colonialist view of art. Since the mid-twentieth-century dismantling of colonial power and accompanying advances in the Humanities, it has been awareness of mediation which has propelled Art History. The pretense that it is possible to study art without any interpretive prism is characteristic of colonial scholarship, if not its very hallmark. The ease with which colonialist tropes could be adopted and acted upon by SAAAP is evidenced by the treatment of a funding application at the June Board meeting, described further below.
After the May Board meeting, the consultation with Alphawood was apparently completed within weeks, and the minutes to the next SAAAP Board meeting, in June 2017, state, “Upon further discussion, it had been decided not to approve these submissions as written.” (p. 1) The three proposals were declined but the proposers were permitted to redraft them, and in fact one had already sent in a revised submission by June. What was discussed between SOAS and Alphawood? Did Alphawood recommend rejecting the proposals? Or, say, did it suggest further criteria for the Board to consider? The minutes are oddly silent. But they report, without irony, that Dr. Barton stated that “the Deed of Gift should continue to be consulted as a form of guidance” for future funding proposals (p. 2). Naturally, the Deed could have been consulted at the May meeting: why then go back to speak to the donor?
At the June meeting, the Board approved the proposal that had been rewritten, which was for PhD fieldwork, with the minutes remarking on “the more articulated focus on the study of the objects of antiquity themselves rather than the legacy of their acquisition, collection and trade by colonial actors.” (p. 4) Thus, authorities of SOAS, an institution founded by and for “colonial actors,” apparently deny that the legacy of collection of this art by colonial actors has much to do with the art’s understanding and preservation. The irony is lost on the Board, which is surprisingly unaware of, or indifferent to, the well-publicised campaign to decolonise the curriculum at the university. Sadly, research into an important context for Southeast Asian art was thus denied funding. What other meaningful inquiries will be dismissed or warped by SAAAP?
Although the ignorance on display is striking, the main problem for SAAAP, in my view, is not so much ignorance as poor management. To be a good manager, one doesn’t need to be an expert. A good manager is one who knows when to seek the input of experts. The three project proposals had been approved and forwarded to the SAAAP Board by the Research & Publications Sub-board. The Chair of the Board questioned the Sub-board’s recommendation of what falls within the remit. The obvious solution would have been for the Board Chair and the Sub-board (and others involved in SAAAP) to have a discussion and come to a decision on the remit’s scope in order to inform ongoing decision-making at both the Sub-board and Board levels. The clarity would also enable funding and scholarship applicants to apply according to consistent, transparent criteria. This has not happened. Instead, the ambiguity prevails, allowing uninformed decisions to be made by SAAAP management, ultimately hindering the programme’s effectiveness.
The political aspects of management’s deliberate effort to maintain ambiguity around the remit must also be considered. The Board Chair has declined to define the remit while at the same time wielding the authority to determine what gets funded in this multi-million pound enterprise. Power at the core of SAAAP is integrally linked to the imbalance of knowledge: information about the remit is a resource shrouded in an ambiguity that enables those in power to approve and reject without opposition. Academic questioning has been rebuffed by the prevention of parameters of the remit from being viewed and considered. Perhaps this is unintentional on the part of SAAAP management, but it is notable that the Board Chair’s belief that issues of interpretation, mediation and curation can be separated from the study of “premodern” art resonates with Dr. Sharrock’s contention that theory and the contemporary are unrelated to this art: for both, the ability to strip away even the most fundamental art historical matters on an arbitrary basis is enabled by a resistance to academic rigor. In view of this, it is interesting that the Board Chair chose to go to the Alphawood Foundation for consultation on the three funding proposals rather than to the Research & Publications Sub-board. The Sub-board consists of seven members, of whom five are art historians and four are Southeast Asian studies specialists, including its Chair, Prof. Ashley Thompson, SOAS’s most senior Southeast Asian art academic. Surely, it would have been rational, and easier, for the Board Chair to ask the Sub-board members why they supported the proposals rather than to reopen discussions on the remit with the donor. But going to academic experts would have opened the door to the kind of debate on academic grounds that SAAAP management has resisted.
It may also be that Board Chair Dr. Barton was afraid of what would happen if the Board approved the three proposals and the donor later voiced its opposition. This would be an understandable fear in view of Alphawood’s previous surprise change to the remit and the anxiety triggered at SOAS then by the displeasure of the university’s largest private donor. However, she chose the donor rather than academic experts as the authority over the activities of SAAAP, even as SAAAP is constituted within and operated by SOAS – an institution ostensibly chosen by the donor for its expertise. SAAAP’s remit is to “advance the understanding and preservation” of Southeast Asian Buddhist and Hindu art. If the Board is to be more than a clerical arm of the donor and fulfill its mission as a body responsible for a long-term vision for “advancing” this art, it can only do so by drawing on academic expertise.
Unfortunately, the denial of the value of academic expertise is unsurprising given the orientation to the programme of Valerie Amos, head of the university, who in July 2016 structurally relegated Southeast Asian art expertise from oversight of the programme and placed final funding authority – against the recommendation of Prof. West – in the hands of her administrator. SAAAP is an administrator-led apparatus in which the academic experts play a subordinated role. Is this the state of the largest privately funded initiative at SOAS (and one of the largest at a UK university) that the expertise of academics is discounted and/or mistrusted? Although Alphawood chose to donate to SOAS as the institution best able to carry out Alphawood’s goal to advance the study of Southeast Asian art, the academic experts are prevented from leading the effort.
3. The disclosed email from Prof. Anna Contadini confirms her complicity in lying to cover up the unethical conduct of herself and others in the Alphawood Scholarships 2016-’17 awarding process.
Prof. Contadini’s email with attachment which SOAS attempted to conceal dates to late February 2016, when the SAAAP Board was preparing its “Self-Evaluation Statement” to provide to Prof. West in conjunction with her review of the programme. The Chair of the Board at that time, Prof. Gurharpal Singh, circulated a draft Statement to Board members and invited them to make “factual corrections” (emphasis in original).
The email from Prof. Contadini is her response, with her comments on the draft Self-Evaluation Statement viewable in tracked changes. Section 5 of the Statement discusses the Alphawood Scholarships programme. As Prof. Contadini was at the time, and still is, Chair of the Scholarships Sub-board, she naturally could be expected to read this section with some concentration, and in fact she suggested edits to nine of the twenty-two paragraphs of the section. However, she made no change to paragraph 5.19, part of the description of the process of evaluating applications for 2016 entry. This process had taken place just a couple of weeks earlier. Paragraph 5.19 includes the statement, “No applicants were deemed to be of sufficient quality to be worthy of scholarships in the MA Contemporary Art and Art Theory of Asia and Africa.”
This is an outright lie. As emails previously exposed through Freedom of Information have shown, Prof. Contadini had specifically ordered Scholarships Sub-board members not to accept any contemporary art applicants, even though SOAS had advertised for such candidates to apply. The order was reiterated by Prof. Singh. Dr. Sharrock, a member of the Sub-board, said he deliberately gave “low” evaluations to the contemporary art applicants in order to “contain” them and help ensure all were rejected.
It was also Prof. Contadini who disregarded student rights in another case involving a Southeast Asian scholarship winner. Yet the Director of SOAS continued to protect and elevate Prof. Contadini, who is not only still SAAAP Scholarships Sub-board Chair but also Chair of the SAAAP Outreach Sub-board and a member of the SAAAP Board, the only member of staff to hold so many positions. This sends the unfortunate message that student rights mean less to SOAS administration than individual staff careers.
4. SOAS administration’s poor management of this £15 million programme threatens to warp the academic research the donation aims to support.
Because of SOAS administration’s decisions on the structuring and management of SAAAP, the academic credibility and integrity of the programme remains in doubt. The refusal to set out an academically sound, transparent statement of the remit has enabled questionable decision-making by the SAAAP Board on what kinds of research projects are funded. Colonialist approaches to Southeast Asia, echoed in a secret report last year by the individual who secured the donation and who has been continually cultivated by SOAS administration, are also, perhaps out of a lack of knowledge, being supported by SAAAP’s top decision-makers.
I suggest that the Director of SOAS, Valerie Amos, establish academic credibility and integrity in SAAAP through the following actions:
- Clarify the definition of the SAAAP remit in consultation with SOAS academic experts and the donor; then publically state the remit to ensure fairness for applicants to the Alphawood Scholarships and other SAAAP funding.
- Remove Prof. Contadini and Dr. Sharrock from the management of the programme as a consequence of their unethical actions.
- Replace the current administrator-led management of SAAAP with greater supervision and authority over the programme by Southeast Asia academic staff in order to support Alphawood Foundation’s aim to advance Southeast Asian art.
