Tuesday, March 10, 1998
USC fires, UCLA hires maestro
ACADEMICS: Ex-professor says school dismissed him unjustly based
on rival’s false assertions
By Rachel Munoz
Daily Bruin Staff
As the principal violist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, any
university should feel privileged to have Evan Wilson teach their
students.
However, USC just fired him.
Wilson claims that he lost his job on February 26 because of a
mandate by competitive USC professor Don McInnes, saying that it
was either him or Wilson. According to Wilson, the dean of the USC
music department, Larry Livingston, felt that McInnes had too much
leverage, and he let Wilson go.
Livingston refused to comment on the situation.
Up until a couple months ago, Wilson has had a great experience
at USC. He thinks highly of the school, calling it "the Juliard of
the West." "USC was something important to me," he said.
Over the last five years at USC as a part- time professor,
Wilson has been teaching private string lessons. He will be leaving
eight students. Wilson also taught an orchestral repertoire class
and a string class.
The problems started to surface in December 1997. He was called
into the dean’s office to discuss a full-time professorship. After
this discussion, Wilson says he began to experience a cold
reception from McInnes.
Only one month after discussing a full-time job with the
university, Wilson was called back to speak with the associate dean
and the chairman of the music department .Their discussion focused
on Wilson being terminated from the school. "I was on the verge of
being released," he said.
According to Wilson, in that one-month time frame, three faculty
members alleged that Wilson’s students had not received their
lessons, and that he had been bad-mouthing other teachers. He
believes that the three professors were spearheaded by McInnes.
Wilson called the claims "complete fabrications."
Moreover, he claims that McInnes is actually a source of
students’ complaints. "Many of his students complain that they
don’t get their quota of lessons," Wilson said. He has also heard
complaints that McInnes does not teach for the full lesson period
and talks at length about his social life and career.
Wilson has also heard that McInnes would push students to buy a
certain instrument so that he would receive a monetary kickback. He
also claims that when McInnes took a sabbatical, he had an
inadequate graduate student fill in for him.
"Every student was up in arms," Wilson said. "All the kids were
begging me, literally, ‘You got to teach me, you got to teach
me.’"
McInnes would not return phone calls made by the Daily
Bruin.
After the meeting to discuss leaving USC, Wilson went to his 16
students to discuss the situation. The students expressed to Wilson
that they had no complaints about him whatsoever.
"No students went in to the dean’s office, faculty went in with
students’ complaints," said Melissa Tong, a second-year violin
performance student at USC. "No one had any complaints about
him."
Wilson’s students were as shocked as he was. In retaliation,
over 20 students – some of whom weren’t even Wilson’s – wrote
letters to the dean to express their feelings about the viola
teacher.
A week after the letters were submitted to the dean, some music
faculty alleged that Wilson had forced the students to write the
letters, even threatening them with withheld grades.
Only days later, Wilson actually heard the news that he was
fired. Because of his status as a part-time professor, he had few
rights. However, Wilson is considering pursuing legal action.
"(The dean) had to stop the friction in the string section at
the cost of losing me," Wilson said.
Apparently not all of the USC music department is against
Wilson. "There is one faculty member who sees it completely
plausible that it was a political move by another professor," Tong
said.
After Wilson was fired, students became even more upset,
visiting the dean and the chair of the string department in person.
However, their efforts have been to no avail.
Wilson only has one way of explaining why USC has asked him to
leave: somebody felt threatened.
"I am a player, and some people find that threatening," he said.
"My reputation speaks for itself."
But apparently, Professor McInnes has felt threatened before.
Wilson claims that during the past 10 to 12 years, two other viola
teachers were pushed out in a similar fashion.
In addition to being a threat, Wilson further believes that
bribery has been connected to his name.
Because of Wilson’s position in the Los Angeles Philharmonic,
free tickets are available to him, which oftentimes he likes to
pass along to his students. Wilson says he wants to expose them to
live music, as well as to hear many of the pieces they learn.
But as one USC professor interpreted it, Wilson was bribing his
students with these tickets.
Like the other accusations, Wilson insists that this is simply
not true. "I just try to do for these kids what wasn’t done for
me," he said.
The relationship between Wilson and his students goes far beyond
the lessons he teaches them every week. Last Tuesday, 35 USC
students discussed tactics to have Wilson reinstated. The students
had their parents call, wrote letters to the university president,
and an article about the scenario ran in last Thursday’s Daily
Trojan, USC’s student newspaper.
Despite gallant efforts, Wilson realizes that nothing is going
to happen. He will miss his job and admits that he will be losing a
large chunk of money per year, but what Wilson considers the
saddest thing is the loss to students. "It’s the issue of
somebody’s ego, and not the kids," he said.
For example, Dmitri Kourka, an advanced study viola student in
his first year, is considering leaving USC because of the decision
about Wilson. Kourka moved to New York from Russia three years ago,
and came to USC this school year just to study under Wilson. He is
now thinking about returning to New York; although he has a
scholarship at USC, because he cannot afford to take private
lessons under Wilson.
Coincidentally, three days before Wilson was fired, he received
an offer from UCLA for a part-time full professorship. Wilson has
been teaching private lessons to UCLA students for 11 years.
Wilson has accepted the offer, which will go into effect by July
1. This would increase the amount of private viola lessons Wilson
would be able to teach.
UCLA music department chair Jon Robertson is very excited about
the addition, noting the tremendous amount of experience and
abilities Wilson will continue to bring to UCLA. "It is hard to
find people of his caliber," Robertson said. "It is our gain to
have him."
Robertson is not familiar with all the details of what happened
at USC, but calls the decision "very foolish."