Open Letter from Instructors to Bluprint and NBC Universal
Craft and Cooking Teachers Demand Apology to Students
22 May 2019
John Levisay
CEO and Founder, Bluprint
Todd Tobin
CTO and Co-Founder, Bluprint
David Howe
President of Strategy and Commercial Growth, NBC Universal
Dear John, Todd and David,
Yesterday, we instructors received an unsigned email from Bluprint alerting us to a new feature like the dashboard we use to manage our interactions with students.
It was presented as something to celebrate, but in reality it’s a collection of a year’s worth of student comments and questions we had not previously been notified of.
Instructor access was a key selling point of the Craftsy classes we filmed over the last several years. In addition to being contracted to engage with our students, we were directed while filming to encourage students to show off their progress and to ask questions of us.
We now know that since these classes were incorporated into Bluprint a year ago, our experience of having fewer comments and questions was not, as we suspected, due to the shift to streaming from a la carte class distribution, but rather to Bluprint not showing us our streaming students’ attempts to engage with us.
This is an extraordinary disservice to our students, who have been left hanging for months. And this poses an egregious erosion to our integrity as instructors. Scrolling through hundreds of unanswered questions and seeing them addressed to us by name is heartbreaking and frustrating. We would never intentionally ignore our students.
We will accept nothing short of a full and sincere apology to all Bluprint students, including an acknowledgment that we instructors did not knowingly disregard their attempts to engage with us, and a clear explanation that we have not been given an adequate way to go back and address their unanswered questions and comments.
This is not only a matter of Bluprint corporate communications; each of us as an instructor is implicated in this disservice to students. You owe it to them and to us to take responsibility, and to make it right.
Sincerely,
Kim Werker
Shannon Bond
Miriam Felton
Alasdair Post-Quinn
Kate Atherley
Lindsey Stephens
Stephannie Tallent
Beth Whiteside
Susan Guagliumi
Patty Lyons
Gwen Bortner
Edie Eckman
Andi Smith
Kellie Nuss
Lesley Wright
Christa Watson
Myra Wood
Kate Gagnon Osborn
Rob Spiece
Amy O’Neill Houck
Jacquie Gering
Lori Crawley Kennedy
Natalia Bonner
Sarah Eyre
Kelly Ashton
Donna Druchunas
Rosemary Hill
Sara Delaney
Annie Unrein
Sarah Fielke
Nancy Ellen Thompson
Angela Finke Pingel
Allison Aller
Etty van Urk
Chrissie Boon
Beth Ferrier
Lee Monroe
Alison Smith
Wendi Gratz
Stevi Fransen-Auble
James Rosselle
Loren O’Neill Ebert
Franklin Habit
Rick Mondragon
Lindee Miller Goodall
Esther Rodgers
Chris Bylsma
Pattie Otto
Janet Dawson
Amy Lindenberger
Marilee Rockley
Anna Dalvi
Amy Detjen
Dédé Wilson
Amanda Murphy
Iris Schreier
Janelle MacKay
Marty Miller
Marjie Riordan Kemper
Robbi Eklow
Deborah Jarchow
Jackie Kunkel
Grace Akhrem
Marina Sousa
Jacqueline Butler
Michelle Green
Alana Chernila
Kate Colleran
Christina Cameli
Sharlena Wood
Pat Delaney
Weeks Ringle
Vicky Papaioannou
Susan K Cleveland
Gudrun Erla Gisladottir
Pam Miller Damour
Andrea Gianchiglia
Joi Mahon
Elizabeth Dackson
Jill Draper
Cat Bordhi
Deborah Robson
Beth Graham
Meredith Arnold
Cathie Rigby
Kate Ferrant Richbourg
Raewyn Read
Mary Jane Mucklestone
{Edited 22 May 2019, 4:56PM to remove email addresses in an effort to avoid spam.}
