In the year since the court case surrounding Cooper Union began, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has stepped in to investigate, Jamshed Bharucha and much of his administration have been ousted, and five pro-tuition Trustees have resigned. Bharucha...

In the year since the court case surrounding Cooper Union began, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has stepped in to investigate, Jamshed Bharucha and much of his administration have been ousted, and five pro-tuition Trustees have resigned.

Bharucha left a disastrous legacy. The amount of time, money, and energy he spent coercively implementing tuition could have gone towards bringing the community together to make better decisions. Instead, Bharucha created a toxic environment that stifled any sort of cooperative movement. The feeling that there is nothing to be done and no room for involvement is a creation of his administration. In spite of that, people have come together over-and-over to take the actions they feel are necessary, demonstrating the ability of the Cooper community to work against the odds.

The Court and the Attorney General have the authority to rule on Cooper’s situation, but litigation sets the community up for a binary of victory or failure. We must accustom ourselves to working with the multiple nonlinear threads of a campaign such as Cooper’s. It’s all too easy to flatten the experience by remembering only the standout moments. Instead, hold the times of despair, anxiety, and hopelessness. The challenge is to emphatically remember where we were, how we felt, and what we wanted.

Interim President Bill Mea has stepped up, but no one person will ever deliver the visions of Cooper which the community has been striving for.

Whatever the ruling may be, the important thing is to become stewards of Cooper Union in the years to come. What’s happening here is one small part of a larger defense of the public good in the face of limitless financialization, a battle that often seems lost. What does it look like to work durationally, cooperatively, compassionately, and earnestly? The community came together in a crisis, working across groups, disciplines, generations, and ideologies. To prevent the same thing from happening again, this work has to continue.

Cooper does not have to be an institution merely producing professionals in art, architecture, and engineering. It could be a school that alters lives, shapes systems, and flips paradigms. This is what is at stake. Waking up from this nightmare, our community is in a more workable position than ever before. Making the school may well be better than saving it.

NONSTOP COOPER

COMMUNITY RESIDENCY @ 31 Third Ave.

nonstopcooper is a community residency at 31 Third Avenue. It will serve as a workspace for community engagement and a platform for public outreach. Opening on September 7th, Nonstop will feature a wide variety of programming, and drop-in hours from noon to midnight. Community members are welcome to host and attend happenings.

nonstop cooper whatsgoodmiley
Free Cooper Union expresses solidarity with the USC Roski community and joins the call for Dean Erica Muhl’s resignation MFA programs across America are compromised by their high cost of attendance. There is an implicit expectation that students can...

Free Cooper Union expresses solidarity with the USC Roski community and joins the call for Dean Erica Muhl’s resignation

MFA programs across America are compromised by their high cost of attendance. There is an implicit expectation that students can simultaneously take on massive debts, hold down jobs, learn, advance their practices, and reemerge intact. USC Roski is known for holding out against this paradoxical mentality, foregrounding the intrinsic value of education. The program’s focus on time, space, and proximity exists in opposition to a surplus of diploma­mill style programs that churn out credentialed art professionals into a saturated market. We see the Roski community as having taken on the work of standing against a broad financialization of culture and dispelling the notion that the model of education we share is anachronistic.

Under the auspices of cost reduction, USC’s administration initiated a reinvention of the Roski program, drastically eroding its unique character. Crucial information was withheld from the community as the administration drove stakes for austerity and expansion. Students were treated as collateral in a bait­and­switch, privileging a corporate restructuring over the sacrifices of students and faculty to be there.

When an entire Roski MFA class withdrew in May of 2015, Dean Erica Muhl undermined the potency of their action by recasting it to the media as a “voluntary leave” that she had granted. The students’ absence may be minimized by damage control consultants, but their actions inspire and speak louder than the business­as­usual mentality of MFA programs that pretend they’re not founded on the precarity of those they ostensibly serve.

Any institution, program, or community in resistance to financialization will be cannibalized to maintain the dominance of market forces. In this, we’re together: the Cooper community continues to fight for the reinstatement and perpetual improvement of a culture that advances free education. Education without barriers is grounded in an intersectional understanding of the imperative to learn. It’s not just Cooper. It’s not just undergraduate. It’s not just higher education. We must continually evaluate how all institutions shape society and work to re­center them. Deep connections between our communities will be the foundation of this effort.

To quote the Roski 2016 class, “Our collective and interdependent force is energizing as we progress toward supportive and malleable spaces conducive to criticality and encouragement. These sites are more important than ever in the current state of economic precarity​that reaches far beyond the fates of seven art students. We invite everyone to reach out to us with proposals, invitations and strategies of their own, dreams not of creating a ‘better’ institution, but devising new spaces for collective weirdness and joy.”

You can read more from the Roski community at mfanomfa

USC Roski Free Cooper Union Solidarity MFANOMFA
Hoylman Statement on Cooper Union’s Decision to Seek New Leadership“NEW YORK — State Senator Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) said: “As the Senator representing Cooper Union, I’m very pleased the college has purged its leadership ranks of those responsible...

Hoylman Statement on Cooper Union’s Decision to Seek New Leadership

NEW YORK — State Senator Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) said: “As the Senator representing Cooper Union, I’m very pleased the college has purged its leadership ranks of those responsible for the college’s financial mismanagement and subsequent decision to charge undergraduate tuition, which directly contradicts Peter Cooper’s original intention of providing a higher education ‘open and free to all.’ I’m pleased that the college will soon have new leadership and I hope that new leadership will ensure this historic institution remains tuition-free. I commend Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman for his investigation into the cause of Cooper Union’s financial troubles and I will continue to work with all parties to ensure students don’t pay the price for the administration’s fiscal irresponsibility.“

Cooper Union Free Cooper Union New York Manhattan Education Senate Politics Eric Schneiderman Peter Cooper Brad Hoylman

Day 919: Bharucha Steps Down

Free Cooper Union
Wednesday, June 10th, 2015

On December 3rd, 2012, Free Cooper Union initiated a lock-in within the college’s clocktower, publicly issuing a set of demands and principles towards preserving the Cooper Union’s mission. Among the demands were a statement to the administration in support of free education, board reform, and President Jamshed Bharucha’s resignation. 919 days after the demands were first issued, Bharucha has finally stepped down, following the early termination of his contract and an ongoing Attorney General investigation.

Today, we celebrate the additional resignations of:

  • Mark Epstein, Trustee and Former Chairman of the Board
  • Francois DeMenil, Trustee and Vice Chairman of the Board
  • Catharine Bond Hill, Trustee
  • Daniel Libeskind, Trustee
  • Monica Vachher, Trustee
  • Teresa Dahlberg, Dean of Engineering and Chief Academic Officer

These departures mark a sea change, calling for the realization of a true Cooper Union: an institution worthy of the radical mission on which it was founded. This future will depend on the tenacity of the community and continued public engagement, through cooperative oversight, committed participation, and honest critique of our own shortcomings. We must rebuild Cooper, not towards a nostalgic notion of what it once was, but towards a fervent vision that shines in all directions.

Getting rid of key players will not be enough. Implementing rigid structures, best practices, and good leaders will not be enough. Adjusting the variables within an existing model of higher education will not be enough. Moving forward will require acknowledging years of bitter conflict, comprehensively assessing our present state, envisioning painfully distant ideals, and working cooperatively.

Direct action works. We know it to be true so deeply that no newspaper, no court, no president, no board, and no administrator could undo this conviction. Collectively, our community has scratched the surface of what it means to gleefully, painfully, patiently dismantle the societal conditioning which implores us to never step out of line. We stand to lose everything if we allow ourselves to regress to the type of thinking that allowed this crisis to ferment over a period of decades.

Envisioning the students who would occupy his school, Peter Cooper once said, “I trust that they will rally around and protect it, and make it like a city set on a hill, that cannot be hid.” As our administration disappears into hiding with petulant resignations, we affirm that now is always the time for principled action.

Demands

  1. Board votes to affirm Cooper Union’s commitment to free education, stop pursuing new tuition-based educational programs, and work to eliminate all ways in which students are charged for education.
  2. Reimbursement for all tuition payments collected to date.
  3. Offer to reinstate former Dean of Students Linda Lemiesz and former Security Supervisor Owen Solomon, who served the Cooper community for over two decades before being arbitrarily fired by Jamshed Bharucha.
  4. Re-establish official Working Group of elected constituents, who are provided unrestricted access to financial information, to continue investigating tuition-free financial models.
  5. Authorize an independent forensic accounting of the college’s finances, starting with the past three decades, to be presented to the community.
  6. Monthly community forums with interim president Bill Mea to review decisions, assess progress, and give feedback with an agreed upon stakeholder process.
  7. Structural changes to board operations with the goal of creating open flows of information and democratic decision-making structures:
    1. Record board meetings and make minutes publicly available.
    2. Create additional voting seats on the board, elected directly by their constituencies, for: students from art, architecture, and engineering; faculty from art, architecture, engineering, and humanities; and staff
    3. Implement a process by which board members may be removed through a vote of no confidence from the Cooper Union community, comprised of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and administrators.
  8. Resignations tendered by the following administrators, who failed to publicly stand up for the college’s mission in a time of crisis:
    1. Mitchell Lipton, Vice President of Enrollment Services
    2. Stephen “Dean” Baker, Vice President of Student Affairs
    3. Justin Harmon, Vice President of Communications
    4. Lawrence Cacciatore, Board Secretary and Chief of Staff
    5. Abby Davis, Assistant Director of Admissions
    6. William Germano, Dean of Humanities
    7. Bonnie John, Director of Computation and Innovation
    8. Anita Raja, Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Programs
Cooper Union Free Cooper Union Education Student Activism Jamshed Bharucha Mark Epstein Francois DeMenil Catharine Bond Hill Daniel Libeskind Monica Vachher Teresa Dahlberg Mitchell Lipton Stephen Baker Justin Harmon Lawrence Cacciatore Abby Davis William Germano Bonnie John Anita Raja Bill Mea

JAMSHED BHARUCHA STEPS DOWN.

Coverage:

Jamshed Bharucha Cooper Union free cooper union education

Jamshed Goes To Harvard

Subject: Presidential Transition
From: The Cooper Union <alumni@cooper.edu>
To: All community and alumni
Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 7:09 PM

Dear Members of the Cooper Union Community:

I am writing to let you know that I will be leaving my post as President of The Cooper Union at the end of June, 2015. Starting in the fall, I will serve as Visiting Scholar at Harvard University in the Graduate School of Education.

It has been an honor to serve as the 12th President of Cooper Union these past four years. The focus of my presidency has been to secure Cooper’s finances for generations of deserving students in the future, while preserving excellence and increasing socio-economic access.

The class completing its freshman year was the first to be admitted under the 2013 Financial Sustainability Plan, and the class just admitted will be the second. These two classes uphold Cooper’s unparalleled standard of excellence. With need-based financial aid, we have also been able to increase access to those who can least afford it, as shown by an increase in the proportion of students eligible for Federal Pell Grants.

Jessie and I want to thank all the students, faculty, alumni, donors, friends, and neighbors whom we have been privileged to meet during our stay at Cooper, and we wish you all the very best.

Jamshed Bharucha
President

On June 10, 2015, the Cooper Union Board of Trustees released the following statement:

The Board of Trustees is grateful to Jamshed Bharucha for his service as the 12th President of Cooper Union.

The financial exigencies with which he was confronted upon his arrival were not of his making and he deserves credit for sounding the alarm about the need to take urgent action to ensure Cooper Union’s long-term financial sustainability.

We wish President Bharucha all the best in his future endeavors, and have agreed to name him President Emeritus effective July 1, 2015.

The board has asked Cooper’s vice president for finance and administration, William Mea, to assume interim leadership responsibilities on July 1. In the fall, the board will form a presidential search committee that will include representation from the faculty, students and alumni.

Mea, who is currently responsible for financial planning and budgeting, the controller’s office, human resources, information technology, public safety, facilities and legal affairs, joined Cooper in September 2014.

Jamshed Bharucha Cooper Union Free Cooper Union