Bellevue College’s president and vice president of institutional advancement are leaving amid a scandal over the alteration of an on-campus art installation on Japanese American incarceration during World War II.
The college, in Washington State, announced Monday that President Jerry Weber and Gayle Colston Barge, its vice president of institutional advancement, are leaving after an emergency weekend board meeting. But it did not say if they were being fired or resigning, The Seattle Times reported.
Barge was placed on leave last week and the college apologized after an artist’s description of a mural of two children at an incarceration camp in California was altered. The alteration removed reference to anti-Japanese agitation by an area businessman and details about local families who were incarcerated.
Leaders plan to make more details available at a Wednesday board meeting.
“The recent defacement of the ‘Never Again Is Now’ art installation was a deplorable act that has deeply impacted not only our students, but our staff, our faculty and our board,” said the college’s board chair, Rich Fukutaki, according to the Times. “And not only that, it has also damaged the reputation and credibility of our institution, and not just locally, not regionally, but nationally. This has been picked up all across the country.”
The college’s provost, Kristen Jones, will be acting president.
