University dean responds to students asking for tuition back with bizarre video of her dancing to REM

Look, we’ll all admit the self-isolation and quarantine regimes required by the coronavirus pandemic has probably gone to our heads.

Everyone’s feeling a little… off the wall.

But there’s feeling quarantine disjointed and then there’s the Dean of New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

Tisch, as it’s known, is a very prestigious performing arts school in America.

Alumni include the likes of Lady Gaga, Angelina Jolie and Martin Scorsese.

Think Fame-type vibes.

Which might partially go a way to explaining the reaction of the dean, Allyson Green, in response to students who’ve asked for a partial repayment of tuition fees in light of coronavirus.

Students have been moved to remote learning for the rest of the year, and in response they’ve asked for some of the $58,552 they pay in yearly fees to be refunded, via an online petition that’s attracted over 2,000 signatures.

However, according to NBC News, Green emailed students and said she doesn’t “have the authority” to refund tuition and it was “challenging” for any repayments to be given right now.

She then attached a two-minute video in which she performed a dance (which students described as “awkward” and “going on too long”) and lip-syncs to R.E.M’s 1991 hit “Losing My Religion”.

According to students who received the email, she invited them to “dance along” with her.

Apparently, it was very much a sincere act.

“This was not an accident, this was her sort of way of trying to reach out to the student body," senior Michael Price – who posted the clip – told NBC News.

He also called the video “ridiculous and "tone deaf."

Some students say the contents of the email actually made sense – it was just the video that was a particularly bad look.

Others, however, were less impressed by the advice handed out in lieu of refunds.

And a few wondered exactly where their money had gone.

Lesson learned: absolutely no situation can be improved via the medium of interpretive dance.