E-Mail This Article to a Friend STUDENT-BODY POLITIC Emerson heats up BY DEIRDRE FULTON

Student boycotts must be more fun when you attend a school known for its communication and performance curriculums. Take the lively, multimedia affair on the Common last week, where about 200 Emerson College students joined with a few dozen faculty members to protest almost two years of stalled, acrimonious negotiations between the faculty union and its administration. In addition to inventive chants (one favorite invoked the nicknames of Emerson’s vice-president and president: "Hey hey, ho ho/Rob and Jackie have got to go") and thumping bongo-drum beats, there were three giant puppets (Miss Management, Miss Communication, and their archrival, Miss Unity) and a full-fledged fake funeral to honor "the death of academic freedom."

Then there’s the bizarre behavior of President Jacqueline W. Liebergott. Two weeks ago, she locked down the entire 14th floor of 120 Boylston Street, where her office is located, and started having security guards escort only pre-approved guests to her lair. "There was a significant increase in people showing up randomly, without appointments, and demanding to see the president," explains David Rosen, Emerson’s vice-president for public affairs.

But Liebergott hasn’t completely cut herself off. In fact, on Emerson’s Student Government Association (SGA) Web site, the president posted her own criticism of recent student actions: "A student boycott of classes does nothing to promote trust, the needed dialogue, or resolution." So there.

As for the 3700 undergraduate and graduate students, who pay more than $30,000 per year for an Emerson degree, the jury’s still out on how effective the protests have been. On the SGA Web site, students have been debating their role in what is really their teachers’ fight. Whatever position they choose, it seems they’ll be welcomed across the generational line.

"It’s one of those ideal alliances everybody yearns for," says visual-and-media-arts professor Tom Cooper, who, at Thursday’s protest, was smiling from ear to ear at the sight of so many orange shirts and scarves — the color Emerson has adopted in "the spirit of solidarity."

For his sake, one hopes the creativity keeps flowing.