Max Shea had been a part of UMass Amherst radio station WMUA 91.1 starting in 1993 — when he was an undergraduate student at UMass — until April 21, when he was escorted from campus by UMass police, banned from returning, and his beloved show, Martian Gardens, was permanently terminated.
Thing is, Shea says no one has explained what happened or what he did to provoke that action — though he has a hunch it may be a generational thing. When a group of Millenials zealous about fostering a politically correct work environment and an old radio-hand who likes to play devil’s advocate are crammed together into close quarters, missunderstandings will almost inevitably arise.
Shea is known nationwide for the show, in which he mixed contemporary classical, electronic, and experimental music. “His programming is highly unusual both in [its] diversity, its current-ness and his deep understanding of the music he programs — one of the few still contributing in this way to our national musical culture,” reads a letter to Advocate editors from Annea Lockwood, composer and emerita professor at Vassar College. This letter is one of several passionate communications the paper received this week regarding Martian Garden’s cancellation. And they weren’t just coming from the Valley — they came from all over the country; we even got one from France.
Despite the blow to the music world, the station and the university have been tight-lipped. Station officials issued no statement and have been sparse on details in the days since Shea was escorted from campus and handed a letter that said he was in “violation of WMUA’s Anti-Harassment and Discrimination Policy,” then told that his station membership was “permanently revoked,” that a no-trespass order had been issued, and his show had been “permanently terminated.” The letter makes no detailed allegations, nor does it refer to any specific incidents.
Shea wasn’t the only one to feel the heat of the student-run station. The letter states the decision to oust Shea was made “by a two-thirds majority” at the WMUA Executive Committee level. That two-thirds majority — WMUA General Manager Andrew DesRochers and Programmer Haley Chauvin, both undergraduate students — signed the letter. The remaining third of the Executive Committee was the station advisor, a full-time, non-student position formerly held by Glenn Siegel. It is unclear what Siegel’s current status is, though in an email shared by the Daily Collegian, DesRochers informs others at the station that Annemarie Seifert is “temporarily fulfilling the role of station advisor for Glenn Siegel.” That email is dated April 22. In an interview with the Advocate, Shea said Siegel had been suspended.
Siegel declined to comment for this article noting only that he feels like he’s been “caught in the crosshairs.”
Ed Blaguszewski, a spokesperson for the university, said last Friday that Siegel “assumed new duties in the division of Student Affairs and Campus Life.”
Blaguszewski declined to offer further detail on Shea’s ban from campus. “In regard to personnel matters, those details aren’t typically shared with the public,” Blaguszewski said.
Shea said he feels bullied by the young students at the station, and that this all boils down to him being that “weird old guy” at the studio.
Shea said the ordeal likely stems from an incident in February when Chauvin, then the news director, was having a “boisterous conversation about rape culture” in the WMUA office.
“Some people will always deny rape culture exists,” Shea recalled interjecting. Shea said Chauvin was upset by this. Shea said he promptly stopped talking. “I put my hands up to signify I was out of the conversation,” Shea said. He said he himself was not denying rape culture exists. Later that week, he said, Chauvin and Siegel called a meeting with him, during which Shea apologized for the misunderstanding.
Chauvin was elected programmer on April 13, said Shea, and a week later he was banned. Chauvin declined to comment.
Shea said he’s looking for a lawyer, but he’s “a man of meager means,” which makes it difficult.
Shea said the past year has been wrought with tension between himself and the “current crop of students.” His presence at the station, he said, won him so many dirty looks he began avoiding times he knew Chauvin and the others would be around, saving his work for odd hours in the evening.
“I was not welcome among their clique,” Shea said. “They’re not in the 10th grade anymore — their decisions have impacts on people’s’ lives.”
He said he “knew trouble was brewing” when, this winter, his CD cleaning kit — which included razor blades and lighter fluid — disappeared from the studio. When he asked DesRochers about the kit, Shea said he was told the implements “triggered” others at the station. DesRochers did not respond to Advocate requests for comment.
Shea refers to a history of tension between students and community members involved with WMUA. He said students often feel a sense of entitlement to the station, but he offers a reminder that the fund drive — a community matter — pays for a big portion of the station’s budget.
“It’s a philosophical contention we’ve always had,” Shea said. “There’s always been a kind of reconciliation. I don’t think these students ever really understood that.”
Shea said he understands why university officials take allegations seriously, but that more investigation should have been done before he was ousted. “If they can do this to me they can do this to anyone,” Shea said. “For all their talk about diversity, they were all too quick to get rid of someone they saw was different.”
Shea said WMUA has long felt like home, and he misses the vast library of music he built at the station and without a space to air his esoteric music. “WMUA has always been there,” Shea said. “You carve out a niche in the world where you can be yourself, and all of a sudden you’re cast out for no reason.”
He hopes things will get sorted out, somehow, and that everyone involved can all “walk away, shake hands, and be happy with one another.” And, obviously, he’d like his show back.•
Contact Amanda Drane at adrane@valleyadvocate.com.
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As your article alludes, Max Shea is a
huge figure within a small cadre of radio producers covering hugely
important, but not commercially viable, musical art forms.
Unfortunately, contemporary classical music, as well as electronic
and avant-garde music, is not the province of so-called classical
stations, though it really should be, being the contemporary forms of
the very narrow range of music chosen to be acceptable to listeners
and played on those stations. So, it is up to people like Max on
small non-commercial and college radio stations to do the good work
of allowing this amazing, modern music to be heard, by at least a few
of us. Max has made it his life’s work to bring this music to the
public who dare to tune in. The composers and labels that produce
this music also have responded to Max’s tireless campaign and
relentless playlist documentation, by continuing to ship him more and
more amazing music. Max has single handedly, at WMUA, created and
curated a massive library documenting the last 50 or 60 years of
these various, largely unheard and ignored genres.
Max losing an avenue of broadcast is a
loss to many constituencies and the possibility of the musical
library that he amassed to sit dormant or down the line be discarded
by an unknowing, elected for a semester, student ‘librarian’ is akin
to the burning of the library of Alexandria.
This unfortunate turn of events at WMUA
also resulted in the ouster of ‘resident adult’, student advisor,
Glenn Siegal, whose role in the world of jazz far exceeds the
broadcast range of the station. Glenn is the reason why there is
jazz programming on WMUA and has been singlehandedly responsible for
the most amazing jazz shows in western Mass, for at least 30 years.
Glenn’s radio program, most recently called Jazz In Silhouette, was a
living and breathing, up to the minute, take on what this incredibly
important, uniquely creative, American art form is currently about.
The loss of Glenn’s voice at WMUA is nothing short of a cultural
catastrophe.
Concerned listeners and supporters
should contact WMUA directly and also UMASS spokesman, Ed
Blaguszewski and express their concern about the direction that this
community and student run entity is heading in.
David Gowler
Formerly host of History of American Music on WMUA
Well stated David. I will give Max Shea much credit for his commitment to that aspect of WMUA’s mission to provide a voice for non traditional types of music and art forms but my praise to him stops there. Max was downright difficult to deal with and consistently aligned himself with a small faction of others who seemed to always have it in for someone. I am shocked to hear that almost 20 years after I first set foot in WMUA that these ridiculous shenanigans are still going on. As for Glenn, Glenn Siegel, Advisor is the glue that keeps it all together. With students coming and going year after year, Glenn was a steady source of knowledge and experience to rely on to get things done. He did a FANTASTIC job of being an “Advisor ” not a General
You can’t contact the station through the website. Conveniently, that page is “under maintenance.”
email: manager@wmua.org; programmer@wmua.org; edblag@admin.umass.edu
Dave, Could you write a letter to the Advocate (or the Gazette) about your view of Glenn?
Johanna Halbeisen
former programmer at WMUA
Well stated David.
pronoblem
Former AGM WCCH and host of Latex Solar Beef Experience
As yet another composer whose music has been heard by Shea’s listeners, my admiration for Max Shea as host of “Martian Gardens” and curator of the contemporary classical area at the WMUA music knows few bounds, and I am astonished at the turn of events at Umass.
Where was the oversight of the students at a taxpayer funded university with respect to such a serious violation of policy? We’re admitting that there wasn’t any when we say two students can oust a respected and valued member of the WMUA community for over 2 decades without recourse to appeal or even mediation!
Shea broadcasts incredible music and the breadth and depth of his knowledge and conveyance of the contemporary classical and electronic music culture is without peer in Western Massachusetts and as a radio host at WMUA he had few, if any, in America. The extraordinary loss of his contribution to that station is one that WMUA advisors and university officials should seek to right. There has been malfeasance.
But the loss to the international community of composers and artists like myself, who drew sustenance from the show and whose work was expertly presented and often championed, is frightening and potentially telling. It feels as if one of us has been kicked out of where we are all meant to be and we are all now powerless to appeal in any meaningful way.
Dean Rosenthal
Composer
Co-editor, The Open Space Magazine and Web Magazine
Martha’s Vineyard
What a disgusting outrage! Shea should be reinstated at once, and someone should break the nose of that little Chauvin punk.
No violence.
haha aren’t you real fucking hard?
He said he “knew trouble was brewing” when, this winter, his CD cleaning kit — which included razor blades and lighter fluid — disappeared from the studio. When he asked DesRochers about the kit, Shea said he was told the implements “triggered” others at the station. DesRochers did not respond to Advocate requests for comment.
This new issue of a “Trigger Warning” or being “triggered” in itself encouraging a victim mentality, that actively seeks victim hood from things that at most can be actually harmless. Do not confuse this issue: people can actually be victimized, but to be ‘triggered’ by a razor blade designed to clean CD’s is patently rediculous.
Again, the new angle or being victimized has become so one sided now- that the accused is now no longer given a fair hearing. They now themselves- can become the Victim. This was in reaction to the overwrought process it took to prove abuse- (say, rape) but to be triggered by cd cleaning tools goes too far.
To be honest, I was a station DJ there, and I must state that due to my Jewish background, this mysterious firing (there is not explanation, Max himself says he wasn’t told) ‘triggers’ terrible associations of the Nazi Holocaust, with their book burning, and such. Again: censorship.
This boils down to a Freedom of Expression argument, and how one’s fear of being ‘triggered’ is over-riding one’s ability to express one freely, without recourse- and without the ability to defend one’s actions if there is a mistake in the ‘victim’s perception.
To be clear, one can be victimized but one needs a proper hearing. One can’t be ‘fired’ without explanation. What was Max accused of?
It’s all mysterious.
If I was a DJ there, I would be raising the spectre of the Nazi era, the book burningss, etc, being Jewish- this entire incident it ‘triggering’ me.
I am seriously not joking.
If you take that to be a joke- not serious- I feel threatened by you. God forbid you are an anti-semite.
If one can be fired for being ‘triggered’ for CD cleaning solution, what’s next, honestly?
This case needs to be made 100% transparent. The actual reasons for why Max “threatened” staff needs to be made 100% clear and spelled out- for the WMUA staff at large (not just 4 year student management) and the public at large. What constitutes ‘threatened’. Did one ‘feel’ unsafe/threatened without an objective threat? Do readers understand the difference?
If so, how does that constitute a threat?
Why on earth was Glenn let go? The decision seems to be made by the students- NOT Glenn. So it should be looked into whether Glenn be reinstated as well, and perhaps the students that made this decision be let go.
I see no evidence of a fair and balanced trial here.
Nothing is transparent here.
The public and WMUA and the university has the right to know.
fyi, rape is a crime even when the victim is a man.
I’d like to believe there is a law in place that says that, but I am led to believe that isn’t actually true. Sodomy is a crime- but that’s specific to homosexuality (the historic .. idea it’s a sin), but that’s not specific to rape of a male. (I’m not against gay people, i’m specifying the difference). Pedofilia is a crime- but that’s children- male/female alike. I wasn’t aware of a specific crime that males can be (I know they can be, but is there laws in place specifying this) I recall a mass health study indicating that (from memory, excuse my lack of reference, you are free to contradict with a reference) that 40-50% of rape (reported/unreported total) was male on male/female on male, meaning rape is about equal for both sexes, But there is a stigma about men coming forward. IF there is an actually law in place, in Massachusetts or federal or otherwise please point it out. To further the feminist argument (equality of the sexes as the ultimate aim) the Patriarchy as such… also effected men adversly. Men were supposed to be Manly, rugged… not complain. My understanding is that rape was considered an issue of Power- and one cannot historically rape a man, since he is the one with the power. I disagree with that analysis– men can be.
Long winded, but can you point out the specific law that says this. Maybe it’s new or I’ve overlooked it, but I’m learning about law more, and it’s rather complex…
This reads more like a gossip piece than an actual article. If there’s an ongoing harrassment investigation then of course the UMass bureaucracy won’t let the students comment on the situation. And if you only get comments from one side of the story you get sob-story articles like this one, and angry readers who don’t know what they’re talking about threatening students they don’t know personally.
Let it be clear that she was RE-elected as programmer on april 13. Its not as though she had just come on and made maxs removal her first order of business. So much wrong with this piece. It’s funny how Max says he feels bullied when I’m pretty sure he’s the only person who’s made students there cry from being screamed at…
SMH. This smacks of political-correctness run amok. It would be really unfortunate if impudent undergrads change the culture of WMUA for good – which could very well happen if these changes stick. I didn’t listen to Shea’s show much, but the loss of Siegel, especially, to the overall ‘vibe’ will be crushing. Are we, the community, and taxpayer, doomed to programming of the same ilk as that from the Smith, Amherst, and Mt. Holyoke campuses? Those, with only a few seconds to recognize, are clearly student-run and programmed, which is to say they lack what WMUA has, or has had: maturity and legitimacy. While I fully support students in positions of leadership, they could and should be able to benefit from more wisdom, and less self-importance.
Also, if what this boils down to is someone getting fired for playing devil’s advocate in a sensitive conversation, whatever the subject, I’m appalled. Doesn’t the First Amendment matter? Throw into this conversation, if still alive, that the program yanked a show in what ACLU lawyer Bill Newman called an incident of unconstitutional “prior restraint”. This is consistent with what seem to be the reactionary decisions to ouster Shea and Siegel.
Maybe they’ll come around. Here’s hoping.