Final exam asks students to strip down to their 'naked self'

Mary Bowerman and Alexandra Samuels | USA TODAY Network

A quest for the naked truth turned into controversy for a California professor who asked students to undress for a final exam.

At the University of California-San Diego, students were asked to strip down to their birthday suits for a final exam in a visual art class.

Associate professor Ricardo Dominguez told USA TODAY College in an e-mailed statement that the students were given the option of a "nude gesture."

“It was clearly outlined in the first class (just like any other first day where professors go over the syllabus) that the final gesture would be a ‘naked’ one and what we could expect that day,'” Dominguez said.

He went on to say that the "history of the medium is crucial for them to experience.'

"The core canvas for many performance artists has been, and continues to be, the nude or naked body," Dominguez said.

Dominguez said he has taught Arts 104A: Performing the Self for 11 years without complaint.

"Removing your clothes is not required in this class. The course is not required for graduation," Jordan Crandall, chairman of the university's Visual Arts Department, said in a statement on Monday.

Crandall said that students are told from the start of class that the "nude/naked self" gesture is required, though they can do it in any number of ways that don't include taking off their clothes.

"There are many ways to perform nudity or nakedness, summoning art history conventions of the nude or laying bare of one's 'traumatic' or most fragile and vulnerable self. One can 'be' nude while being covered," Crandall said.

The final assignment has gained some negative attention from current students in the course.

However, Shanise Mok, a former student who took the course in 2012, says the gesture allowed her to “challenge (herself) intellectually.”

“We were not ‘forced’ to do anything,” Mok says. “I was only…forced to think about how I can take my own art to another level. We all had the choice to drop or to find our own creative way to meet the nude or naked prompt as artists should.”



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