Antwerp Academy Student Suicide Calls Teaching Methods into Question
The fashion programme at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, led by Walter Van Beirendonck, is one of the most prestigious in the world. But after a recent suicide, current and former students have come forward with accounts of depression and drug abuse, calling teaching methods into question.
By Lauren Sherman April 26, 2018 05:25
ANTWERP, Belgium — On the evening of March 21, 2018, Karine Rotsaert, an administrator in the fashion department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, sent an email to students, requesting their presence at the school at 10:15 a.m. the next morning.
On March 22, when the students arrived on campus, they were greeted by counselors, including Sophie Hiels, a school psychologist. As the teachers trickled in, Walter Van Beirendonck, head of the fashion department, lead instructor for the third-year students and a member of the Antwerp Six — a clique of agenda-setting designers who studied at the school in the 1980s — addressed the room, saying simply: “Something bad has happened.”
The psychologists went on to explain that a third-year student, originally from South Korea, had committed suicide. (BoF has decided to honour a request made on behalf of the student’s family not to include his name in this story.) After the announcement, teachers mingled among the students, expressing disbelief that the young man could have taken his own life. “They were looking for reasons that could lead to this dramatic ending,” said one current student, who wished to remain anonymous.
By this point, Van Beirendonck had left the room, but classmates and friends of the deceased were encouraged to remain. A psychologist said the students had to take care of each other, adding that “students from fashion never show up to the school’s psychologists and don’t take help that’s there.” (The fashion department is just one part of the wider Academy, although most of the fashion classes take place at a separate location — 15 minutes away from the main campus — that also houses the school’s fashion museum.)
At 2:00 p.m., a second meeting — a group counseling session — took place. “Students were herded into a room and asked if anybody had questions about what happened, background information about [the student] or if they knew if he had issues in his personal life,” explained another current student, who asked for anonymity for fear of being passed over for potential jobs and internships because of the emphasis put on the prestige of belonging to the Antwerp community. “After a long period where nobody would speak, they split the students up in smaller groups and asked them again.”
In the coming days, the student’s family arrived in Antwerp. On Sunday, March 25, the school held a memorial for him that was attended by his parents and his brother. On Monday, March 26, students gathered for a school assembly, where they observed a minute of silence for him. Van Beirendonck did not attend the memorial or the ceremony.
“Mr. Van Beirendonck could not attend for personal reasons. But as head of the school I represented him and gave a short speech as a tribute to [the student] and as a comfort for his family, friends, fellow students and teachers,” Johan Pas, the newly appointed dean of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, wrote to BoF, with input from Van Beirendonck, who declined to respond to a direct request for comment.
On March 27, a story was published in local paper De Morgen, reporting that the university had posted signs on campus directing students to a suicide hotline where they could seek help. “We are taking additional measures following the suicide of one of our students,” the signs read. “With 12,000 students, young people, you can hardly prevent it. Luckily it happens rarely, definitely not yearly,” Marijke De Bie, a student services spokesperson, told De Morgen, adding that although the school was prioritising the student’s third-year classmates, there was “help for everyone.”
The recent death may have come as a shock to some — one close friend in particular said he did not “see this coming” — but student suicides are more commonplace than one might think. In the US, suicide is the second-leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with the majority of those deaths occurring between the ages 20 and 24.
In Belgium, suicide is the number-one cause of death among 15-to-19-year-olds, the second most common cause for men aged 20 to 24 (after car accidents) and the most common cause of death for women aged 20 to 24, according to a 2016 report from the Unit for Suicide Research at the University of Ghent. South Korea’s suicide rate is the highest of all 35 industrialised nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
And while many friends insisted that the student suffered from depression related to his studies at the Academy, others mentioned personal reasons that may have been a factor in his suicide, including his possible return home to South Korea to serve in the military there.
In the wake of the suicide, current students were told that anyone contacted by the media should not respond and instead forward the query to school administrators. But in the following weeks, BoF spoke via phone with 14 students — three current students and 11 former students whose tenures go back all the way to the mid-1990s — two fashion industry professionals and one professor who each work at the school. BoF also corresponded via email with 11 other students including multiple current students who offered testimonials about their experiences at the Academy.
A Toxic Culture?
To know Antwerp is to know it offers a challenging course that delivers results. In BoF’s Global Fashion Schools Rankings 2017, it placed #3 among bachelor’s degree programmes and #4 among master’s degree programmes. The department first earned its sterling reputation under the supervision of former head Linda Loppa, who spent 25 years there before exiting in 2007 to join Italian fashion school Polimoda as its director. Along with the Antwerp Six — Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs, Marina Yee — famous fashion department alumni include top designers Martin Margiela, Kris Van Assche and Demna Gvasalia.
In multiple conversations in recent weeks, students and alumni spoke of the Academy’s notoriously rigorous programme. The fashion department's own website states that "through an intensive personal guidance by the team of teachers, they are continuously driven to push their limits. That way they are...able to maximise their abilities, ideas and imaginations."
But students say this is only part of the story. Van Beirendonck is “perceived as being some kind of god,” according to one former student. “To be honest, I think this school resembles a cult.”
To be honest, I think this school resembles a cult.
While students, both former and current, spanning several different countries and cultures, were forthcoming on the details of alleged conduct by school faculty, perhaps emboldened by recent reports exposing the culture of abuse and bullying in the wider fashion industry, the majority wished to remain anonymous for fear that speaking out would ruin their industry prospects or threaten their chances of graduating. For this reason, BoF has agreed to grant them anonymity.
A few students chose to speak out publicly, including Wilton Gorske, an American who left the school after one year. "It wasn't until I left the Academy that I realised how incredibly misguided the intentions were of the professors in how they treated us as students,” he said. "There’s a difference between constructive criticism and manipulation. The professors had good intent, namely pushing the students to be their best, but the culture at the Academy as a result was very emotionally damaging."
Gerald Spiesl, a former student who spent three years studying in the programme — he repeated his first year twice and then exited in 2017 after his second year — considers the teaching methods at the Academy as the root cause of the problems faced by students. “Several students developed serious depression and drug addictions in order to keep up with the workload,” he claimed, “Or they simply decided to quit their dream of studying there because the pressure was unbearable.”
Hiels, the school psychologist, acknowledged in a recent email seen by BoF that teachers in the fashion department have “unrealistic expectations” and that she hopes “things will change.”
In a detailed statement responding to the allegations, Johan Pas said: “As you know, the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp is highly esteemed and is counted among the most highly ranked institutes of its kind.” He continued: “The untimely death of [the student] came as a shock to the students and faculty of our school. This tragedy has given some of the slumbering criticism against the institution — which, like every other school has its qualities and its faults — a momentum.”
Pas added that the cult allegation is a “strange description, and yet I can see the point: high-end fashion in itself sometimes resembles a cult, and for some students the Antwerp school has a cult status. However, there is no such [thing] as cultic practice in the school. It really looks and feels like an art school,” he wrote. “Walter is a well-known designer and radiates a certain charisma. He is respected, but certainly not treated like a god. However, as the head of the fashion department he is in charge of decisions regarding the strategies to be followed. Of course, the ultimate responsibility lies with me, and I am planning to take this responsibility fully.”
In what some attribute to the Belgian way of education, there are many more students accepted into Antwerp than actually graduate. Unlike American schools, which often make it challenging to gain acceptance to a top school, Belgian institutions tend to have higher acceptance rates but are more ruthless about dismissing underperforming students. The fashion department at the Royal Academy accepts 60-to-70 students to its bachelor's programme each year, but fewer than 20 typically graduate and, on average, 10 or less graduate with the master’s degree that most BA students hope to complete when they matriculate at the Academy. (The official graduation rate of the undergraduate class is 23 percent, according to BoF’s 2017 ranking. At Central Saint Martins, another lauded fashion school known for its rigour, the official graduation rate is 99 percent.) At Antwerp, many students repeat years, although they are only permitted to repeat each year once.
“It seems as though Walter doesn’t want classes in third-year that exceed 20,” one student explained. “Typically, there are between 16 and 20, but in some cases a little over 20 students make it.” There are 18 active students in 2018’s third-year class. There were 22 at the beginning of the year. Some are asked to leave, others leave on their own accord. Many students complete their third year but are not awarded a degree at the end of the course.
The steady shrinking of class sizes over the years leaves many students feeling isolated and alone, especially as they can only work in the classrooms until 5:00 p.m., almost always having to take work home with them. (Pas said the school is investigating how to keep the doors open later even though classes are hosted in the fashion museum, which closes at that time.)
Not everyone deems the process negative. Some students — even a few of those who were asked to leave and did not receive a degree — believe that the highly critical nature of the school, where the onus is on the student to “fix” his or her shortcomings without the guidance of an instructor, is good preparation for the real world. They also say that just having Antwerp on one’s resume — even without an actual degree — is beneficial because of the school’s reputation and network.
“If you come out and you’re a fashion designer, you will always struggle with journalists judging you,” said one working alumnus who attended the programme but was not awarded a degree. “With other schools, you never get any critique.”
Others are less convinced the methods are effective. “They don’t teach you anything, basically,” another student said of the Academy. “You have to find out why your work is not good. If you don’t already know how to make a pattern or sew, you have to learn yourself.” As a result, many students who enter Antwerp already have bachelor’s or master’s degrees.
. This is *in stewie's voice* hilarious .. I will definitely register for that exam in September now..
Thanks sooooo much ChristianThomas! 
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