From a group of students organized as Students for a Free Cooper Union:

Students for a Free Cooper Union
Monday, December 3rd, 2012

Students for a Free Cooper Union lock-in to Cooper Union’s Foundation Building to preserve free education

To The Cooper Union Administration,

We, the Students for a Free Cooper Union, in solidarity with the global student struggle and today’s Day of Action, have locked ourselves into The Peter Cooper Suite on the top floor of Cooper Union’s Foundation Building. This action is in response to the lack of transparency and accountability that has plagued this institution for decades and now threatens the college’s mission of free education.

We have reclaimed this space because we believe you are leading the college in the wrong direction. An expansionist strategy and lack of accountability have put this college in a financial deficit, and we reject the current style of governance that emulates those failures. We believe that all tuition-based revenue-generating programs are a departure from Cooper Union’s historic mission and will corrupt the college’s role as an ethical model for higher education. To secure this invaluable opportunity for future generations, we have taken the only recourse available to us.

Within this space we have taken all necessary precautions to ensure the fullest extent of safety, security, and expression. Entrances to the Peter Cooper Suite have been secured by wood and steel barricades designed to not damage the building and be easily removable from the room’s interior in the event of emergency. A first aid and CPR certified student is also present in the room. We have taken all preventative measures in securing the banner. It does not endanger the building, surrounding area, or persons inside and out.

We will hold this space until action has been taken to meet the following demands:

1. The administration must publicly affirm the college’s commitment to free education. They will stop pursuing new tuition-based educational programs and eliminate other ways in which students are charged for education.
2. The Board of Trustees must immediately implement structural changes with the goal of creating open flows of information and democratic decision-making structures. The administration’s gross mismanagement of the school cannot be reversed within the same systems which allowed the crisis to occur. To this end, we have outlined actions that the board must take

• Record board meetings and make minutes publicly available.
• Appoint a student and faculty member from each school as voting members of the board.
• Implement a process by which board members may be removed through a vote from the Cooper Union community, comprised of students, faculty, alumni, and administrators.

Hope to see you all there!

From a Good Magazine cause:

Students for a Free Cooper Union have reclaimed a space in the Cooper Union Foundation Building to preserve the college’s landmarked tradition of “Free Education to All.” Support their actions by taking back the discussion on higher education and demand the Cooper Union president reaffirming this mission.

Email President Jamshed Bharucha at president@cooper.edu or call 
(212) 353-4250

Interact with this cause at Good’s website!

We, the Students for a Free Cooper Union, who reclaimed The Peter Cooper Suite from the current Cooper Union administration yesterday at noon, have established base overnight. We will continue holding this space until our demands are met or we are otherwise removed: we will not negotiate. To this point we have publicly presented our terms and principles and reached out to the broader community and press, but we have yet to be contacted in any capacity by the president. Faced with ideological opposition to the expansionist model, Jamshed Bharucha has withdrawn from public view and shirked his responsibilities overseeing the college.

We denounce our president’s repeated absence in the face of community organizing. Last year, while the New York City Police Department arrested our students, our administration was nowhere to be seen; and chants of “Where is our president?” still echo today. We need transparency, not invisibility. In contrast, the public has come together in support of our principles and demands. Displays of solidarity—from tweets all around the world to a candelit vigil eight floors below—resonate our rejection of the global system of student debt and articulate aggravations that are felt worldwide.

Yesterday, an anonymous source shared a report with us detailing the results of a committee convened to analyze the feasibility of implementing undergraduate tuition in the School of Engineering. The research concluded that within 10 years, students could face between $40,000 and $80,000 in tuition fees. Since we received and shared this document, other members of the community have stepped forward to clarify the nature of the report. It is our understanding now that this committee was one of many tasked to research revenue generation for the school. We struggle with the fact that all of this information has come to light solely from a leaked document, and not the from our expectations of transparency and candor.

In response to the undervaluing of student voices and the continuous dismissal of community organizing, Students for a Free Cooper Union are holding a press conference on Tuesday, December 4, 2012 to address the aforementioned points. We are organizing our fellow students as public intermediaries to speak on our behalf while we retain the Peter Cooper Suite.

We invite everyone to this press conference in front of Cooper Union at 7 East 7th Street, New York, New York at 2:30 PM.

After the board meeting, balloons with messages of support were lifted up to The Peter Cooper suite.
Photo by Lina McGinn

Students for a Free Cooper Union
Wednesday, December 5rd, 2012

We, The Students for a Free Cooper Union—having received innumerable solidarity documents from Cooper Union faculty, the School of Art student council, the School of Architecture student council, The New School, and individuals from around the world; and a public signing of such a document—renounce President Bharucha, his administration, and their authority. Jamshed Bharucha and The Board of Trustees no longer represent The Cooper Union and its community. The Cooper Union students have removed Bharucha’s portrait from the boardroom walls and replaced it with a portrait of Peter Cooper.

We support the larger community that has come together on the ground as they continue to take back the discussion on higher education. From The Peter Cooper Suite in the Foundation Building clock tower, we have seen performances, lectures, free classes, and the public display of the principles we promote—all in solidarity. Students have asserted their presence in today’s board meeting where they have previously been barred, taking transparency into their own hands. The students have independently enacted our demands, recording and publishing board minutes and livestreaming video of the meeting.

The Students for a Free Cooper Union, as well as the larger Cooper Union community, have made a call for written documents of solidarity, declaring support for The Students for a Free Cooper Union, for transparency and integrity, and for free education. Please send all documents to CooperUnionSOS@gmail.com.

At 3:00 PM today, Wednesday, December 5, 2012, student actions will surround Cooper Union, including a play about the Board of Trustees, a Transparency Parade, and a performance by The Students for a Free Cooper Union projected on the Peter Cooper monument. Join us as we proclaim, “We are not a loan!”

Both the public board meeting minutes and the livestream can be found on the Free Cooper Union website at CUsos.org: http://www.cusos.org/cooper-union-students-take-demands-in-own-hands-publicize-board-of-trustees-meeting/

This morning, Cooper Union students, beyond frustrated with the administration’s direction for the college and in solidarity with The Students for a Free Cooper Union, entered a closed board meeting.

While over sixty students gathered outside the boardroom chanting “Jamshed step down!”; “We are Cooper Union, who are you?”; and “We are the occupation!”, three students entered the meeting. Two students took over the center of the room, crying and expressing their fears of the future Cooper Union.

Student Ryan Cullen crying at Jamshed’s feet, expressing his fears for the future of Cooper Union
Photo by Ian Langehough

Another student blocked the door, refusing to let the Trustees escape student voices once more. While inside, one of the three replaced Jamshed Bharucha’s portrait with Peter Cooper’s portrait on the boardroom walls. The same student then took a seat with the Trustees and took notes that were made publicly available on Google Documents. At the same time, the meeting and student gathering outside was livestreamed to an online public audience. These publicized board resources are available below.

Student Initiated Board Meeting Resources

• Public board meeting minutes
• Livestream of board meeting

Cooper Union faculty affirming the mission statement of free education

Students for a Free Cooper Union
Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

We, The Students for a Free Cooper Union, more than 24 hours after reclaiming the Peter Cooper Suite, have yet to receive any direct and/or formal contact from President Jamshed Bharucha, or his administration. At 2:30 PM on Tuesday afternoon, students held a press conference with faculty and community members to make their voices heard and establish solidarity with us. Meanwhile, President Bharucha and Assistant Director of Public Affairs Jolene Travis surreptitiously released “official” documents to the press, refusing still to address us directly. As a result of their negligence, we the students occupying the Peter Cooper Suite only received these documents secondhand and by word of mouth. We have made every attempt to be available and transparent with the President and his administration throughout this lock-in. Their repeated incivility reflects the extent of the administration’s ineptitude in running the college.

President Bharucha’s email to the student body is an exceptional farce. His response rejects our principles, demands, and our collective identity, referring to us as just “11 art students” and marginalizing our voices by diminishing the gravity of student debt. There are hundreds of students on the ground that are rising to take action in solidarity. Jamshed Bharucha and the current administration perpetuate dismissal not discussion.

The Students for a Free Cooper Union maintain our authentic representation of the Cooper Union community, citing signed solidarity documents from the Cooper Union faculty, School of Architecture student council, and School of Art student council, as well as a written letter of solidarity from The New School. It is time the administration stops this misrepresentation.

Below, we have analyzed Jolene Travis’ press release on a point by point basis to comprehensively expose the fallacies and misinformation present in the document.

“Our priority is for the safety of our students, and to assure that the actions of a few do not disrupt classes for all.”

Our priority is for the safety of the future students of the Cooper Union, and to assure that the actions of the administration do not disrupt free education to all.

“The eleven art students who have locked themselves in the Peter Cooper Suite do not reflect the views of a student population of approximately 1,000 architects, artists and engineers.”

We’re not “the eleven art students”, we are the Students for a Free Cooper Union, and we are greater than the eleven in the Peter Cooper Suite. From the more than thirty Cooper students in all three schools who participated in planning the actions of the past two days, to the hundreds of New Yorkers who have shown up in solidarity, to the thousands around the world who continue to follow these events online, our numbers are far greater than those in the room.

“President Jamshed Bharucha has held informal meetings with various groups of students on campus throughout the morning.”

This framing of President Bharucha’s “informal meetings” is tactically misleading. In actuality, Bharucha’s meetings were prompted by students actively pursuing dialogue after his notable absence over the last twenty-four hours. Students surrounded Bharucha at his first appearance and demanded a response in the lobby of the New Academic Building.

“Vice President of Finance T.C. Westcott is in contact with the students’ designated spokesperson, and we understand that they have access to food, water and sanitary facilities.”

We question the relevance of the Finance Office to the situation. These concerns should have been addressed twenty-six hours earlier when we released our first administrative communique, which outlined the precautions we had taken.

“The effort to develop and implement a financially sustainable plan is critical to the institution’s survival.”

This administration is fighting to sustain its expansionism, lack of transparency, and unaccountability. It is not fighting to economically sustain the invaluable educational philosophy of the college.

“We remain fully engaged in an open process to achieve a sustainable future while maintaining the highest standards of access and academic excellence.”

Any discussion between the administration and students is part of a feigned, illegitimate process. Thoughtful discussion does not exist between the administration and Students for a Free Cooper Union, and it does not exist between the administration and the Cooper Union community.

“We are committed to transparency. President Jamshed Bharucha and Vice President T.C. Westcott have held more than 80 informational meetings and sessions with the Cooper Union community, students, faculty, alumni and staff. The institution’s website, www.cooper.edu, provides detailed information on the planning process, its deadlines and its progress.”

The Deans and faculties of the degree granting schools will be presenting their proposed revenue generating plans for their individual schools; the proposals will be reviewed by the Board of Trustees with a decision slated for early 2013.

“Full tuition scholarships at The Cooper Union are currently valued at $38,550.”

The distinction between “full tuition” and free education is only being used as an effort to ease the administration’s transition from the college’s original philosophy of free accessible education to education offered as a commodity.

This statement was leaked to the Students for a Free Cooper Union in the Peter Cooper Suite by students on the ground who intercepted the administration’s public relations staff as they handed it directly to members of the press. This is a perfect illustration of the administration’s handling of events in the past year, and exactly the type of governance we reject.

Students for a Free Cooper Union working through the night
Photo by Kali Hays from the New School Free Press

The Cooper Union president and administration think the Students for a Free Cooper Union are just “eleven art students” that have locked themselves in a building. They insist that we don’t represent anyone but ourselves, but this is a global student debt struggle.

The Students for a Free Cooper Union need signed statements of solidarity from students, student organizers, and student groups! You can message them to us Facebook, or Twitter or send them to cooperunionSOS@gmail.com

The Peter Cooper Suite has received solidarity statements from the Cooper Union faculty, The Cooper Union School of Architecture Student Council, The Cooper Union School of Art Student Council, and The New School. Help us grow this list. Show Solidarity with Students for a Free Cooper Union and support Free Education!

Cooper Union Faculty

On this day, December 4, 2012, the undersigned faculty of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art unreservedly support its mission statement:

Cooper Union Architecture Student Council:

STATEMENT FROM THE ARCHITECTURE STUDENT COUNCIL

December 4, 2012

December 4, 2012

The Architecture Student Council is committed to the preservation of merit-based full-tuition scholarships, as outlined in the published Cooper Union mission:

“The College admits undergraduates solely on merit and awards full scholarships to all enrolled students. The institution provides close contact with a distinguished, creative faculty and fosters rigorous, humanistic learning that is enhanced by the process of design and augmented by the urban setting. Founded in 1859 by Peter Cooper, industrialist and philanthropist, The Cooper Union offers public programs for the civic, cultural and practicable enrichment of New York City.”

This mission is fundamental to our education, a rigorous dialogue between students, faculty, and our work. We continue to engage in this dialogue and in our work, confirming our commitment to the principles of this institution.

In response to the recently released Press Statement from The Cooper Union, the Architecture Student Council voices its support for any effort by any student, faculty, staff and administration that seeks to protect The Cooper Union’s Mission, including those of the 11 students occupying the Peter Cooper Suite

Outside Schools and Organization

The New School

New School Students Stand in Solidarity with Cooper Union Occupiers!:

We, students of the New School, stand in solidarity with Cooper Union students who are currently occupying the 4th and 8th floors of the Foundation Building to protest threatened tuition implementation. At the New School, we are by now very familiar with tuition increases to fund enormous new
development, a lack of financial transparency, and the barring of student participation in decision making.As the 60 5th Avenue building continues to rise we are sinking into more private and federal debt.

We support Cooper Union’s Save our School’s demands:
1. Cooper Union maintains its commitment to free education
2. Cooper Union immediately implements increased financial transparency
3. That President Bharucha step down.

Standing in front of the CU occupation, we are reminded that nothing will change unless we continue to fight together and show solidarity across schools and universities. We see this struggle in the context of the privatization of education and the crisis of capitalism.

President Bharucha told CU students today that CU has reached a limit for free education. How is it that an institution like Cooper Union, which survived for 159 years (through other crisis) suddenly faces an insurmountable crisis that challenges its core principles of education ‘as free as water and air’? In our struggles as student and workers, we resist the idea that shouldering their debt is the solution.

The way the administration chooses to deal with this crisis has been to push this burden onto students, workers, and faculty. How is it that while the students around the world (Canada, Mexico, Chile, Puerto Rico, Italy, Greece and many others) continue to fight for free, accessible education, we in the United States are expected to accept a fate of limited exclusive education and ever increasing debt?

We support Cooper Union students who have taken necessary measures to make their voices heard. When the administrators prevent access to information, when the board members decide the future of students behind closed doors, it becomes clear that we as students have no choice but to occupy behind barricaded doors. Students and workers should not depend on leaked documents about the financial future of their schools. It is absolutely necessary, in all schools, that we directly participate in the discussion of budgets
and projects through action.

SOLIDARITY WITH COOPER UNION// WE WILL NOT PAY FOR YOUR CRISIS//
ALL POWER TO THE OCCUPATIONS!

UCLA in Solidarity with Students for a Free Cooper Union:

The New School Disorientation

Dear Cooper Students,

We are members of the New School Disorientation Team, a group of students dedicated to fighting for transparency and accountability on our own campus while opposing tuition hikes and endless debt nationwide. We would like to extend our support and admiration for what you are attempting. This is a clear and profound demonstration of student power in New York City! As per the recently released letter of solidarity between our schools, we would like to know if we can be of assistance to you in any way. Furthermore, we would be interested in exploring the possibilities of future collaborations in our respective struggles.

In solidarity,
The New School Disorientation Team

Kritische Studenten Utrecht

We stand in solidarity with the students of Cooper Union who are currently protesting and actively resisting the introduction of tuition fees at their university. We believe free education should be the rule, not the exception – and should like to express our deepest concern with the board of directors regarding their policy plans. We strongly urge those involved in the decision making process to withdraw their support for the introduction of tuition fees and to stand with the students in order to safeguard education for future generations.

If human knowledge and skills are the product of the generations that came before us, any particular individual or institute should be able to claim ownership. Any form of knowledge is our collective property, and everyone has a rightful claim on it on basis of a shared humanity.

We must claim our right to be educated in our shared heritage and build upon it to improve our collective future.

Education is NOT a commodity.

In solidarity,

Kritische Studenten Utrecht
(critical student collective based in The Netherlands)

http://www.kritischestudenten.nl/

Bradley Action Committee

Hello,

On behalf of the Bradley Action Committee, we would like to share our solidarity with your cause. We share the common goal of free education for all students as we believe it’s a human right. It’s not right students like myself and others have to be in debt $100,000 just to get an education. We wish you good luck. We hope this is just the beginning and that students everywhere realize what’s at stake. Now more than ever, the students of the United States of America need to stand in solidarity and form a student union nationwide.

Solidarity,
Andrew Englebrecht
Bradley Action Committee
Peoria, IL

The Free University of New York

We, The Free University of NYC, openly support the Cooper Union student occupation. We believe that Cooper Union and all education should be free!

We recognize the occupation of the Peter Cooper Suite by The Students for a Free Cooper Union as a vital effort to defend access to a free education for future generations. Their occupation serves as an inspirational, positive, and productive example of resistance in the broader struggle for access to education in NYC and around the world.

We see clear connections between the struggles that students at Cooper Union face and those of students across New York City and students struggling everywhere. The lines between private and public education in this city have separated us for too long. We will not be divided by institutions, claims to prestige, or profit margins. Public schools are becoming clandestinely privatized, while private schools are increasingly run and financed by our collective student debt. Our grievances are connected and our struggle is necessarily collective.

We know that access to education is our path to empowerment, agency, and success. We continue to fight for the opportunities to affect change in our communities and we believe that accessible education for all New Yorkers is an important step to achieving a more equal and just society.

We stand with the students of Cooper Union as they pressure their administration to recognize and respect the mission of the Cooper Union and hold them accountable to honor the history of their institution and the founding vision of Peter Cooper.

We also see the occupation of university spaces as a legitimate recourse for students to express their discontent over the existing governance structures in their universities. For too long students have been purposefully excluded from decisions that affect their future and the future of their universities. Students and faculty should have more control over their institutions. Students should not be treated as passive consumers of educational commodities; faculty should not feel compelled to act as dutiful enforcers of policy they do not write. Both students and faculty should be recognized as powerful and active members of educational communities, which they build with their own voices. The Cooper Union Student Occupation is a powerful expression of this demand for respect and a demonstration of student power.

The Cooper Union Student Occupation is an inspiration for students and educators across the greater New York City region who are struggling on their respective campuses against austerity measures, against the privatization and corporatization of the University, and against the commodification of learning.

In fierce solidarity,
-The Free University of NYC
December 5th 2012

Sublevarte Colectivo

México D.F. December 7, 2012

To the Student in the Struggle of Cooper Union:

We are a collective of audiovisual producers formed during a student strike in defense of public education, free and quality in the highest seat of learning in Latin America: the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México
(UNAM). For nine months, we occupied the university facilities and avoided the imposition of authoritarian management decisions to charge tuition. We strive to maintain a public higher education for students without charges and of the highest quality for the Mexican people.

Public education is one of the rights that people pay with the tax of all of
todos (us), the taxpayers, logically resulting to be of no cost to the students, however, it is a financial problem for the neoliberal system, even though it represents a small percentage of the taxes, not comparable to the cost of salaries of government and bureaucracy, or equivalent to those proposed by international organizations.

We believe that education should be accessible to everyone, not just for
some who are privileged. We believe in an education that generates conscious
individuals and humanism and not in the model of university that produces
technical heads and based their “quality” on competition. We remain attentive to the struggle for public universities and social struggles against the capitalist system while, also, accompanying social movements in Mexico.

Universities that currently make a new generation of teachers have been
in the scope of deletion by the government of Mexico, recent events proves this, as it is the case of the Normal Schools in the states of Guerrero and Michoacan. A transdisciplinary education model, unique in Latin America, has tried to be removed and modified by its leadership, so students have taken the premises; as you, the students of the Universidad Autonoma de la Ciudad de México (UACM) held a strike for three months, from the inside, resistance remain in its educational model.

Our struggles and resistances for free education of students happen in a constant basis and as it faces against a global model, a multitude of struggles have sprung up in different geographical areas. These resistors are always discredited in the educational level of the public universities, not so with the private college run by companies.

We welcome student protests throughout Mexico and the world.

We express our support for the Cooper Union students of New York for the struggle and resistance that remain within their university, aware that education is defended and demanded, not to be charged or delivered as a product. It results in a constant struggle. Nosotrxs (we) accompany this movement because we have also participated in a similar episode in Mexico.

To keep humanistic education in public universities is something that does
not make sense in the logic of capitalism. The resistors (us) should come
together and recognize it as our own struggles. Acknowledge a brotherhood
between the problems of education in Chile and you. We oppose the demise of
education. Knowledge retraces the history and recognizes the diversity and
generates conscious individuals and humanists. Individuals that generate change and are not governed by the market and skills.

We know it’s a difficult time full of many doubts and uncertainty, with this
we can only say to all participants: Recognize diversity and organize in an antihegemonic manner. Recongnize, within yourself, as individuals and as a
movement that asks something possible and fights for access to education in a
world that increasingly impedes recognition to others and promotes individualism. Generate links with other movements, and by all means spread your resistance
to provoke as many echoes in our world as possible, and understand that you are part of many movements that still resist due for provoking new links with new
individuals and new worlds.

We embrace the struggle and applaud the desire to want to change the
reality in which we are, we give our thanks to each unx (one) of you and we thank you for continuing to believe and be a resistance against the education in the cradle of the capitalist system.

Nosotrxs (We) are in solidarity.
Sublevarte Colectivo
México

University at Buffalo Coalition for Leading Ethically in Academic Research (UB CLEAR)

The General Assembly of Occupy Albany

The General Assembly of Albany, NY supports the students who are occupying The Cooper Union Foundation Building in protest of the proposed plan to begin charging tuition to the students of The Cooper Union and we support the student struggle to retain a free education at The Cooper Union.

Individuals

Dear Cooper Union Administration:

I stand in solidarity with the students occupying Cooper Union and with the many students and faculty at Cooper Union who support them. I know faculty at Cooper Union personally and have been informed about the developments unfolding there over the past year. People are legitimately concerned about major changes without their permission to the culture of the institution. You need to treat protesters and all students with respect, and resolve the situation through more democratic governance that materially addresses their concerns.

Sincerely,

Rei Terada
Professor of Comparative Literature
University of California, Irvine 92697

The Students of a Free Cooper Union have my Solidarity. Thank you for persevering our Cooper Union.

Melanie Paterson

To whom it may concern,

I stand in solidarity with Cooper Union students demanding free education and accountable governance of their university. They are far from alone. The commodification of education by un-representative administrative elites is opposed by a growing majority of university students, faculty, and staff in New York City and around the world.

In solidarity,
Owen Toews
CUNY

Dear Occupied Cooper Union,

We were inspired to hear of your occupation and see the red fabric unfurled from your windows, so near our own. We have visited, hung around, and we will continue to do so and offer whatever we have that you might need. The past 48 hours have energized us, have challenged us to seek the places we could revivify our struggle on our campus, have helped us to remember fully and to refocus our attentions. But even as we are prompted to look back and recognize the many student struggles that feed your occupation, we equally recognize the absolute urgency of today. We hope this occupation will be infectious. We need it to be so. December 2012 is a tipping point for Cooper Union, but Cooper Union today must be a watershed for our student movement. We are grateful and excited.

In the president’s meeting today, some in the crowd shouted that to expect free tuition is incomprehensible. This position – that education without tuition is ludicrous – is often bolstered by comparing no- or low-fee institutions like yours to those like our own, whose undergraduate fees amounts to a sum more or less equal to the median yearly income of NYC households. Somehow, our situation, in which the entire yearly earnings of a family would be spent on one students’ tuition, in a city in which income and work are so thoroughly striated by gender, race, and legal status – this is somehow more plausible.

What logic makes something that was possible in June seem unthinkable in December? Cooper Union was free, just as CUNY was in 1970 (following an occupation by Black and Puerto Rican students demanding open admissions). Why not now? Administrators claim spikes in tuition are a natural offshoot of the crisis, as if it wasn’t the administrations’ plans that made the university vulnerable to the vicissitudes of capitalist crisis in the first place. Jamshed Bharucha rehearses an argument typical of adminstrators’ euphemistic austerity boosting: Cooper Union’s funding structure was “shortsighted.” Cooper Union is a relic in an age of student debt, that mechanism that perpetually defers the crisis by deflecting it onto working class futures. We do not let pass without notice the deep irony of calling free education shortsighted while the average trade of financial equity brokers lasts a matter of microseconds.

As we roam through the rubble of financialization’s impact on higher education, it is clear that pressuring administrations to find new investors for endowments is not a solution. Should, then, we press for a reclamation of the welfare state, and recenter public education in the production and stabilization of a fully-employed working class? Let us be clear: there is no going back. Industrialists like Peter Cooper founded free schools in capitalist societies, and we live this contradiction coming to a head. So, we turn away from administrators, from capitalist benefactors, from the talking heads and the haters. We turn to your occupation, recognizing it as the only kind of place in which we can think through and construct the education, and society, we want.

Yours,
Some feminist faculty and students at NYU

As parents of a Cooper Union senior art student participating in the lock-in we strongly support keeping Cooper free and addressing the disaster that awaits this nation and the world with regard to student debt. Debt is a burden that breaks the backs of those who possess a creative spirit, of risk takers and of those who want to participate in the world as humanitarians, fixers and givers.

With our mighty support,

Elise Blumberg Graham
David Graham

Dear Cooper Administration and Board of Trustees,

I am writing to offer my full support for the Cooper Union students
who are occupying part of their building to protest against tuition
increases. They are connected to a vast network of activists from
Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Sandy, Strike Debt, Arts and Labor, Free
University, All in the Red – a student activist collective, Labor
leaders and scholars and activists throughout New York and abroad.

I have worked with some of the students and fully support their
decision to make the unfair and gratuitous tuition increases at Cooper
Union known to the media and the rest of the world. Their story is
connected with the striking students from Montreal, Students for a
Free CUNY, New School student activists and everyone who cares about
free education and debt.

As a founding member of Strike Debt, I am pleased to see issues around
debt and education in the news and exciting people again. I encourage
the administrators of Cooper Union to act fairly toward the students
and listen to their demands. I spoke last Friday at a symposium at the
Murphy Institute of CUNY about Strike Debt and organizing around
debtors of all kinds. There is lots of interest in this subject. It
would be a mistake to act carelessly.Tuition at Cooper should remain
free for all students. I believe that the board and administrators can
find wealthy donors and other ways to pay off their expensive new
building. Leave tuition free.

Sincerely,
Leina Bocar
Artist, writer, activist
Strike Debt and Arts and Labor

Just wanted to say that I wholeheartedly support what you all are doing.

Dylan Vandenhoeck
Cooper Alumnus

Hello–

I am writing to express my solidarity with the students and faculty of the three schools of Cooper Union who stand with the founder Peter Cooper to sustain the vision, tradition and core value of FREE TUITION for ALL UNDERGRADUATES.

Anything less is NOT COOPER UNION.

Sincerely,
Caitlin MacQueen, ART, class of 2008

To the students supporting free education at Cooper Union -

You are an inspiration. For too long every facet of our society, and our future, has been mortgaged in order to finance basic needs. Your actions are part of a global movement that says “Enough!” No to austerity, no to supporting the projects of the rich on the backs of the poor, no to treating every single aspect of our lives as a commodity. The whole world is looking to you and standing with you in your occupation. You are not merely “eleven art students.” You are a cry for sanity from the heart of the planet, we are more than mere vehicles for debt financing.

You are not a loan, and you are not alone.

Thank you for standing up for us all.

-Aaron Bornstein, NYU

As a student of the school of art, I fully support the 11 student protesters and stand with the majority of of alumni, faculty, staff and students who are in solidarity with the larger protest to preserve Cooper Union´s full tuition scholarship and the academic excelence it makes possible.

Emmanuela Soria Ruiz, School of Art 2014.

As a current student at Cooper Union’s School of Art, I can attest to the fact that the students locked in the Peter Cooper Suite are not acting alone. They are joined by masses of students, faculty, alumni, and even unaffiliated supporters, many of whom convene on Cooper’s doorstep each day. The student body, in particular, has been incredibly vocal: all of us support a tuition-less model, and almost all of us support the organized protests which are occurring even as I write this. We speak and act as a multifaceted, complex, and highly individual group, but we are all linked by a rejection of tuition at Cooper and an affirmation of the original goal of this institution: outstanding higher education for all, not just those who can afford it. Education is a right, not a good to be purchased or sold. The students locked in the Peter Cooper Suite understand this and have been willing to risk their own full-tuition scholarships to ensure the continuation of Peter Cooper’s vision. I, and many of my fellow students, are willing to risk the same. We stand as one, opposed to sale of education at the Cooper Union and everywhere else.

Ethan Shippee (A’15)

Education is a right! CUNY used to be free, Cooper’s always been free! Let’s keep up this struggle for free accessible education for all!

Steve McFarland
CUNY Grad Center

To the students supporting free education at Cooper Union, in New York City, in the United States, and around the world,

A people’s movement is coming together to support education, healthcare, housing and well being outside the debt cycle. The commodification of higher education has jeopardized people’s ability to contribute to our international and local communities without shackling the following decades of our future wages to student debt. You are part of an international movement resisting and refusing immoral debt and austerity. From Spain, to Chile, New York and Montreal, our struggles are connected. Our numbers are far greater than 11 bodies. We are an army of defaulters striking debt around the globe Forcing change out of a broken and predatory system. We are an international community unified in our cries of “No!” to a predatory system of debt reliance while raising up a million cries of “Yes!” for alternative structures, directly democratic processes, open educational, medical and housing systems framed in social justice and the interconnectedness of our struggles.

Free Cooper Union – the many are with you today in the Board of Trustees meeting room. We are with you on the 8th floor of Cooper Union. We are united in our struggles. Our struggles are one, and so must be our resistance.

Keep Cooper Union as Free as Air and Water!

Suzanne Collado
The Graduate School of Arts and Science
Strike Debt and the Occupy Student Debt Campaign

To the Board of Trustees,
As an alumna of the school of art and former staff member, I want to
express my support of the 10-point plan.

Sincerely,
Cora Fisher

To the Cooper Union Board of Trustees:

When I went to Cooper Union, my choices for a college were clear: Anything that was free. There was no money for tuition, and I lived at home during my four years at Cooper Union. This was a similar situation to many of my classmates. Over the ensuing fifty odd years as an artist, I have gone through good years and lean, but what has enabled me to continue to paint, and exhibit, and sell my work, has been a personal policy of keeping my overhead low, and knowing what was/is most important to me.

I strongly oppose tuition of any kind at Cooper, as once it begins, it will probably not go away. Instead, tighten your belts and do what need to be done to maintain Peter Cooper’s vision.

Sincerely,
Ellen Koment A ’65

Here’s my message of support: “Cutting costs and raising funds is the fundamental way to fight a deficit. The 10-point plan looks sound. Tuition for graduate studies is never going to work. Everyone I know who went to graduate school in engineering was PAID for it, in Research and Teaching Assistantships. Cooper’s graduate program is not what the school is known for. It doesn’t have the size and resources to compete with the programs of larger schools who are paying students to be there. No one is going to pay out of pocket for a graduate degree from Cooper Union.”

Ron Laufer (EE ’97)

This is my signed statement of solidarity.

Asia Tail

I am currently a high school senior student who has applied to CU early decision and is waiting for the home test and other materials to be considered for next year (which would be class of 2017). It’s quite terrifying to think of the amazing opportunity of a free education to completely disappear. I strongly appreciate the students who are protesting for their future and the future of students, like me, to come. As a prospective student hoping for an arts college I can afford, I completely support a free education and the (not alone) eleven students protesting.

- Delaney Clark

I support you for the following three reasons, from the comments section of a NYT blog post on this matter.

“1. It is the primary responsibility of the board of any nonprofit is to secure its finances, through personal contributions and fundraising. Why hasn’t the CU board stepped up in this crisis? Where are their contributions? Why aren’t they out there scouring the city for new sources of funding? And if they haven’t got the money themselves and can’t be bothered to find it, then why don’t they step aside?

2. The most important role of a university president is fundraising. This may be sad but it’s certainly true. Why did the board hire a president who has no interest in fundraising and thinks his role is to bring new ideas to a school that, precisely because of its free-tuition status, has always been wildly successful in attracting top-notch students and turning out extraordinarily impressive graduates.

3. The current crisis is not a result of the financial downturn, but the arrogant decision to construct an unnecessary, vanity building under egregious financial terms. The stupidity of this transaction makes it impossible not to ask if there wasn’t some hidden payoff for someone involved, somewhere along the line. Why hasn’t this been investigated?”

We need the board to go into fundraising overdrive mode, and I want their fundraising actions to be communicated. We should be cheering on an enthusiastic board making every effort to hustle. Not until I’ve seen someone go on public access T.V. and make the case publicly for donations to Cooper will I be satisfied that the administration has done everything in their power to raise money. There should be a telethon every month, or at least a visceral effort to raise funds and it seems the administration is sitting on their hands.

-Brandon Todder, current Arch student

Photo by Rachel Appel

Students for a Free Cooper Union
Saturday, December 8, 2012

We, The Students for a Free Cooper Union, having occupied The Peter Cooper Suite on the top floor of The Cooper Union Foundation Building for more than 100 hours, have chosen to reissue our demands of the Cooper Union administration and guiding principles to the citywide higher education community and general public.

Over the past five days, we have received amazing displays of solidarity from Cooper Union students, faculty, alumni, and supporters around the world. Meanwhile, the college’s deadlocked administration has been shaken by community action and presence. Cooper Union has received positive attention as an institution, and the community’s numerous creative responses to tuition-based, expansionist models have stressed the necessity and preservation of free education. However, Jamshed Bharucha and his administration have yet to officially respond to our demands. Rather than addressing the pressing issues raised by student, faculty, and alumni, Bhaurcha’s administration has attempted to marginalize our voices along with the vision and mission of Cooper Union: to provide free education to all.

We now find ourselves in a space of unity and true democratic discourse among students, faculty, and alumni. Our peers have taken this opportunity to come together across disciplines, forming a unification committee, carrying out guidelines for peaceful protests, and crossing institutional boundaries.

To move forward with the support of the Cooper Union community and an assembly of New York City high schools, colleges, and universities, The Students for a Free Cooper Union have published 2,000 copies of our original communique and list of demands to be distributed at the Citywide Student/Faculty Rally on Saturday, December 8. The rally will begin at 11:00 AM in Washington Square Park with student and faculty speak-outs, followed by a march to Cooper Union at 3:00 PM. This celebration of free education and the student reclamation of higher education will conclude with a dance party.

The march from Washington Square Park to Cooper Union will be fun, family-friendly, participatory, and welcoming to those not well-versed in protest.

Our demands as follows:

1. The administration must publicly affirm the college’s commitment to free education. They will stop pursuing new tuition-based educational programs and eliminate other ways in which students are charged for education.
2. The Board of Trustees must immediately implement structural changes with the goal of creating open flows of information and democratic decision-making structures. The administration’s gross mismanagement of the school cannot be reversed within the same systems which allowed the crisis to occur. To this end, we have outlined actions that the board must take

• Record board meetings and make minutes publicly available.
• Appoint a student and faculty member from each school as voting members of the board.
• Implement a process by which board members may be removed through a vote from the Cooper Union community, comprised of students, faculty, alumni, and administrators.

Photo by Paul Lomax for DNAinfo

The Huffington Post reports:

“It’s exciting to see students having a much wider scope in the struggle,” said Conor Tomas Reed, a CUNY student with his own student debt, “that it’s not just one flashpoint, that it’s not just a sprint — it’s a marathon.”

Around 200 people, mostly students, gathered at Washington Square Park in Manhattan on Saturday to participate in a citywide rally supporting the 11 Cooper Union undergrads who’ve been in the eighth floor of the school’s Foundation Building for the past five days. In the park, and after a march to the Foundation Building, speakers shared why they came: A World War II veteran said he met his wife when she was at Cooper, several students said they wouldn’t be able to go to college without Cooper’s scholarships, and CUNY students were hoping this may spark a citywide strike among college students.

Photo © Stacey Lanyon

Former professor and Cooper alumni Ben Degen writes:

The Free Cooper Union rally yesterday was a great success. The event was a completely peaceful gathering where people from many different groups were able to come together to express their strong support for continuing free education at The Cooper Union.

The success of this event was the product of hard work, very disciplined organizing and the cooperation of many different groups:

The Students: The Free Cooper Union movement has been led by the students. These are not anarchic rabble-rousers. The group of students that are currently occupying the Peter Cooper Suite and the students who organized and attended this rally represent some of the best and brightest at Cooper. These young people are Cooper Union’s student council representatives and top academic achievers. These are Cooper Union’s leaders. These students are the embodiment of Peter Cooper’s vision of education as a means to facilitate continuing generations of politically active, smart and socially conscious LEADERS for our democratic society.

Alumni: The rally was attended by alumni young and old. There were representatives from the class of 2012 through the class of 1946. Representatives of the CUAA were also present for the rally. My dear friends (and upstairs neighbors) Sheryl London A’46 and her husband Mel were in attendance. They used the human megaphone to amplify their voices to make an inspiring statement about the need for tuition free education at Cooper and their solidarity with the student protests at Cooper Union. Mel and Sheryl do not do email or internet, so if there is any information that people would like me to relay to them please let me know!

Cooper Staff and Faculty: There were many members of Cooper Union’s Faculty and Staff in attendance, both current and retired. It was great to see this support and student/faculty unity.

Cooper Union Administration: Vice President Westcott and Dean of Students Lemiesz were in attendance. They have been instrumental in ensuring the safety of the students and their presence was important in conveying a message of peaceful cooperation which was appreciated by everyone I spoke to.

There are two non-Cooper groups that, though on opposite ends of the protest spectrum, were both indispensible in the success of this event and both deserve great thanks.

The Community: This includes the East Village community, the citywide/nationwide/worldwide student organization movements, and the Occupy movement who were all present and very active at this rally. These groups voiced calls of solidarity with our struggle to preserve Cooper’s mission of free education. These groups connected our local struggle to a powerful global movement.

The New York Police Department: As a life long New Yorker I have attended events from the Thanksgiving Day Parade to Anti Iraq War Rallies and I have never seen a more professional and respectful police presence than the one we had yesterday. The police accompanied the marchers from Washington Square Park and facilitated their movement through the streets- stopping traffic to allow the marchers to cross intersections. When the rally arrived at Cooper Union the officers drew back to a respectful distance. As far as I know there were no negative interactions between the police and the event attendees. On the contrary, I heard that there were many positive conversations!

This rally was an example of what happens when well trained, smart, principled and disciplined individuals work cooperatively. I hope that it will serve as an example of what we can achieve together. Thank you everyone for doing your part and helping us to, collectively, do our best.

Atiq Zabinski of Occupy Public Access TV took video of the march and some of the speakers:

Rally arrives at Cooper Union:

Cooper student Sebastian Quijada reads the mission statement and Students for a Free Cooper Union’s Demands:

Cooper student Pete Halupka tells his story:

We, The Students for a Free Cooper Union, reclaimed The Peter Cooper Suite on the top floor of this building one week ago on Monday, December 3rd at noon. We installed physical barricades to secure the space and issued demands directed to Cooper Union’s Board of Trustees and Jamshed Bharucha.

In the Peter Cooper Suite we spent our time writing, strategizing, talking to press, holding the space, and standing our ground. Eight floors below, our fellow students spent the week creating direct actions around campus. In the fight to preserve free education at Cooper Union, our peers have rallied alongside us to give advice and amplify our collective voice. As a unified community we brought local, national, and global attention to the longstanding principles of Cooper Union.

The problems at Cooper Union strike a nerve with millions of others struggling with student debt, administrative bloat, and expansionist agendas. We live in a world where massive student debt and the rising costs of higher education remain unchecked, where students are treated as customers and faculty as contracts. Cooper Union’s mission of free education affords equality and excellence and offers an alternative for a better future of higher education.

For over a century, the Cooper Union has sustained the mission of providing free education to all admitted students. After decades of financial mismanagement, the administration now seeks to implement tuition-based programs. Rather than dedicating themselves to the difficult task of maintaining the promise of free education — Jamshed Bharucha’s administration and the Board of Trustees have chosen to pass the consequences of financial and institutional mismanagement on to the shoulders of the college’s students, faculty, staff, alumni, and future generations. They’ve taken the easy way out.

Over the past week, Cooper Union’s community has recommitted themselves to the promise of free education. By refusing to address our demands, Jamshed Bharucha and the college’s board of trustees have publicly revealed themselves to be unfit to lead. In contrast, the students, faculty, and staff of Cooper Union have shown that they are engaged and willing to take on the challenge of keeping Cooper Union tuition-free. The future of this institution is in the hands of those who care most deeply for its mission.

The Students for a Free Cooper Union began our lock-in of the Peter Cooper Suite with a list of three demands. We’ve never counted on this administration to protect the college, but we gave them a chance. Now we feel empowered to meet these demands ourselves:

With regard to the mission. The students, faculty, staff, and alumni have publicly reaffirmed Cooper Union’s mission statement, which explicitly states that the college admits its students “solely on merit and awards full scholarships to all enrolled students.”

With regard to transparency. On Wednesday, December 5th, several students entered a meeting of Cooper Union’s Board of Trustees. They livestreamed and posted real-time, public minutes throughout the meeting. These actions mark the beginning of structural changes that will create open flows of information and truly democratic decision-making at Cooper Union.

Today we make a promise to the administration, the board of trustees, and general public: there will be student and faculty participation at the next board meeting, and the next board meeting, and the next. As we move forward we will implement a process by which board members may be removed through a vote from the Cooper Union community, comprised of students, faculty, alumni, and administrators.

And finally, with regard to leadership. Jamshed Bharucha’s absence and lack of direct communication over the past week has made it clear that he is a liability to this institution. We can declare without hesitation that Jamshed Bharucha is no longer our president.

These are not merely antics, they are a shift in power. Our only regret is that we didn’t lock-in sooner. There is more work to be done.

Thank you.

In December 2012, Students for a Free Cooper Union held a widely publicized and supportedone week lock-in within the school’s historic clock-tower to protest plans laid by the college’s administration and board of trustees. Upon exiting the Peter Cooper Suite we declared, “These are not merely antics, they are a shift in power…There is more work to be done.” Today, we’re excited to share a major milestone.

In the aftermath of our action, previously disenfranchised groups have stepped forward to voice their support of a free Cooper Union. Yesterday, February 1st, the Faculty of the School of Art issued an official statement condemning President Bharucha’s “subtly coercive” charge that faculty members create tuition-based programs at Cooper Union. To put their statement in context: the college is made up of just three schools (Art, Architecture, and Engineering), meaning that at this point in time 1/3 of Cooper Union’s faculty has voted to blockany tuition-related plans.

Faculty letter attached below:

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Steven Lam <slam@cooper.edu>
Date: Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 5:20 PM
Subject: From the Resident Faculty, The School of Art
To: Steven Lam <slam@cooper.edu>, Saskia Bos <sbos@cooper.edu>

TO: The School of Art, The Cooper Union
FROM: Resident Faculty, The School of Art

1 February 2013
New York, NY

VOTE:
On Tuesday, December 13, 2012 the Faculty of the School of Art voted to support the following statement to forward to Dean Bos that was prepared and voted on a week earlier by a quorum representing the resident faculty of the School of Art.

We, the undersigned, constituting a quorum of the resident faculty:

1. Hereby confirm the academic excellence of the proposals we developed this semester in response to your request.
2. Reaffirm our support of the Cooper Union Mission Statement as published in the catalog.
3. And in so doing, therefore, can neither propose nor vote on a motion that moves these proposals forward.

POSTSCRIPT:
In the spirit of transparency the Faculty of the School of Art has attached this postscript to the above vote to explicate the process of our reasoning:

In September 2012, Dean Bos, in response to a mandate from President Bharucha, asked the resident faculty of the School of Art to work with her to develop academic solutions that address the current financial short fall. We entered this process in good faith as both faculty and patriots of The Cooper Union, forgiving what was considered from the outset to be a subtly coercive charge that threatened to impose undergraduate tuition and/or close one of the three Schools. This could have been an opportunity for imagining an academic collective vision of the institution to solve the pressing financial crisis rather than a set of prescribed assignments.

As the faculty developed proposals for satellite programs, we found ourselves continually reassessing the mandate of our charge as it impacted the historical mission of The Cooper Union. We have now come full circle, reaffirming our belief that The Cooper Union is not only the last citadel of the social reforms movement of the 19th century, but is in fact the vanguard of the 21st century — a beacon of access to free education. In this soul searching process our commitment to this fragile and precious mission was reinvigorated. As faculty we are honored to be a part of and continue to support this radical social project that rejects consumer-driven learning in favor of merit-based access to free education where ideas are free to circulate because they are first and foremost free of debt.

This is a moment of crisis in higher education nationwide. The cost of institutions of higher education is expanding at an alarming rate, while chasing elusive revenues from a decreasing population of increasingly burdened students and their families. In the context of a national prevailing tendency, the expansion on the scale proposed by the current process seems neither prudent nor sustainable. Expansion through the development of tuition dependent programs depreciates the historic identity of The Cooper Union and sacrifices the institution’s most important asset: the mission.

In this light, at this moment, and under these conditions the Faculty of The School of Art opposes the very principle of generating revenue through tuition from academic programs. Any solution to The Cooper Union’s current financial crisis that depends, even in part on tuition compromises and irreversibly damages the ideals of art, education, freedom, and citizenship that faculty, students, staff, and administrators have worked so hard to uphold and maintain, generation after generation. The Cooper Union’s exceptional mission deserves to be protected by equally exceptional efforts, solutions and gestures. The reinvention process currently under way to address institution’s grave financial situation clearly falls short of such exceptional gestures, efforts and solutions. The current process has failed to live up to, let alone expand, the creative and progressive spirit that animated the very creation of The Cooper Union.

The Faculty of The School of Art remains steadfastly committed to the concept of a union that supports the academic and civic foundation of The Cooper Union. We look forward to continuing to work closely with our Dean, the President, the Board of Trustees, as well as administrators, faculty, staff, and students across the institution to imagine and implement creative and exceptional solutions that are equal to the financial challenge, but more importantly, preserve the mission and progressive ideals of The Cooper Union.

Join Cooper Union students, faculty, alumni, extended community, and current applicants this Wednesday February 20, 2013 as we stand together for student rights!

Deferred Early Decision Applicant Press Conference

Wed. February 20, 2013, 1 pm

Cooper Union’s Foundation Building.

7 East 7th St., New York, NY

On Wednesday February 13th, two weeks after School of Art faculty submitted admissions results to be sent out to Early Decision applicants on schedule, an email was sent out by the Dean of Admissions stating simply that “As requested by our Board of Trustees, all early decision art applicants after being reviewed by our Art Admissions Committee were either deferred to be reviewed along with the rest of the regular decision pool or denied admission. This letter is to inform you that your application has been deferred.”

These applicants have gone above and beyond their due diligence in holding up their end of the application process and now it is time to demand accountability from the anonymous Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees! These applicants’ futures are not theirs to hold hostage indiscriminately!

This Fall applicants and their families were told on numerous occasions by administrators, the school’s official website, and admissions literature that the incoming class of 2017 would not be affected by the financial struggles plaguing the Cooper Union.

The rest of the Cooper community received a separate email from Jamshed Bharucha this past Wednesday in response to a recentpublic statement issued by the School of Art faculty in support of the college’s mission statement. This email outlined that “Pending the Board’s decisions in March about the future of the institution, and in the absence of a sustainable model for the School of Art, the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees has directed the administration to notify students seeking early admission to the School of Art that their applications will be considered as part of the art school’s general application pool.”

We can not stand by as the Board egregiously holds the futures of our incoming class hostage! These applicants are not collateral! Join us in responding to this unprecedented overstepping of administrative power this Wednesday February 20, 2013 at 1 pm in front of the Cooper Union’s Foundation Building. 7 East 7th St.

http://facebook.com/FreeCooperUnion
http://facebook.com/EarlyDecisionNYCApplicant
http://www.facebook.com/events/334180480015112/

The following statement was issued directly to press by Claire McCarthy, Director of Public Affairs at Cooper Union, at 1:35 PM this afternoon—just 35 minutes into a rally organized by current students in support of “deferred” applicants to the School of Art. The rally, well-attended by students, alumni, faculty and the extended community, was intended to create a dedicated public space of redress for current Early Decision applicants recently denied access to their admission results by the Executive Committee of The Board of Trustees. It is reprehensible that the administration continues to preempt student actions by going directly to press, starting withJamshed Bharucha’s New York Times exclusive in October 2011. Students For a Free Cooper Union have taken McCarthy’s statement which, as usual, fails to address the real issues, and annotated it line-by-line:

From: Claire McCarthy <mccart3@cooper.edu>

“The simple, sobering fact is that The Cooper Union’s expenses exceed its revenues. Ignoring that won’t alter fundamental reality: the present financial model is unsustainable.”

It is not our belief that fundamental realities are being ignored, but that the Cooper Union community can tackle the financial crisis without sacrificing the college’s mission. Reality is not at odds with creativity.

“Despite having achieved $4 million in cost reductions, the weight of a long-standing structural deficit, intensified by the recession, has left the institution with a $12 million annual deficit—or 20% of its cash budget.”

Few in the Cooper community are impressed by “$4 million in cost reductions.” To put this figure in perspective, Bharucha’s salary alone is $750,000.

It’s also worth noting how the administration claims, as is convenient to them, that Cooper’s problems are “long-standing”, therefore, they cannot be held responsible.

“That is why the President asked the faculties of the School of Art, The Albert Nerken School of Engineering and the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture each to submit plans for generating sufficient revenue to lead to a sustainable future.”

As both Students for a Free Cooper Union and Art Student Council noted in their statements at today’s rally, the charge issued by Bharucha was poorly designed in its coupling of academic programs and revenue-generation.

The plans of the engineering and architecture schools have been submitted and are being reviewed by the Board of Trustees.

The Cooper community and the public have been told they are not allowed to know which trustees are on this committee, as well as any other of the Board’s committees, such as the Executive Committee which made the deferral decision on February 13th. The committee’s recommendations remain of unclear purpose: the School of Art does not stand as more defiant than the other schools, although it was penalized.

The Engineering Faculty also opposed revenue-generating proposals, tabling half of their Undergraduate Tuition Committee Report at the last minute. Additionally, the School of Architecture’s proposal was submitted with no numbers, stating, “the question of the possible introduction of a fee-based model for the school is not an academic one and thus the Faculty has no authority to participate in the process of deciding such matters.”

The art school prepared a plan, but a quorum of the school’s faculty, several days later, attached a post-script preventing the plan from being considered, saying the School of Art Faculty “opposes the very principle of generating revenue through tuition from academic programs,” including summer school or graduate programs. That course is unsustainable.

Revenue-generating proposals from the Engineering and Architecture schools—neither of which have received support of faculty, nor have generated any revenue thus far—are no more sustainable than the School of Art’s declaration. In their Graduate Tuition Committee Report, the Engineering Faculty note, “while there were many variables that affect revenue potential, the most significant was the number of students that attend. As with any proposal, it is difficult to estimate demand and represents risk.”

This is an existential crisis, not a plebiscite about tuition. It should also be obvious that little is served by staking out a high road that leads off a cliff.

In patronizing students and faculty—unbelievably enough—for “taking the high road,” the administration fails to acknowledge the reality of their failed charge. The School of Art Faculty worked for months with financial consultants (whom the administration paid in excess of a million dollars), and it was revealed that tuition-based programs will not sustain The Cooper Union financially. Thus, the administration is reduced to rhetorical tantrums, such as a line of despairing poetry “existential…plebiscite” and fear-mongering metaphor “a high road that leads off a cliff”. Let us set the facts straight: the Art Faculty, in conjunction with the faculties of Architecture and Engineering, has initiated a series of planning meetings intended to “reimagine Cooper Union within its means.”

Rather we must openly confront the challenges we face and by doing so—responsibly, inventively and cooperatively—preserve this great institution today and for generations to come.

Cooper Union’s administration has not demonstrated its ability to work in this manner. Last year’s “Reinvention Process” was completely illegitimate in its expectation of reaching a pre-determined result, and it has been denounced by faculty as both “subtly coercive” and “failed.”

Early admission applications to the art school will be considered as part of the general admission pool. We regret any inconvenience caused to these students.

Is McCarthy even authorized to state this or is it more bureaucratic drivel? Does this line represent the administration committing to accept a class of students to the School of Art and offer them a four-year scholarship from the expanded Regular Decision pool? If the Board was always planning to accept a class to the School of Art, what could possibly have been the purpose of deferring an entire round of Early Decision applicants two weeks after their acceptance letters were ready to be mailed? The administrations statements, actions, and rushed rebuttals to press all seem to contradict each other.

We remain committed to a sustainable institution that is true to the legacy of Peter Cooper—based on the highest standards of academic excellence and merit-based admission.

Note the lack of “full-scholarships,” and the administration’s inability to grasp the link between scholarships and merit. What kind of institution does the administration want to sustain?

This post was updated at 7:02 PM, EST.

March 6th: Today it was discovered by students that Cooper Union’s Board of Trustees moved their quarterly meeting — perhaps the most important meeting in the history of the college — to an undisclosed off-campus location without any announcement to the community. The full Board was set to meet today and announce their conclusions primarily on the issue of implementing various forms of tuition-based programs at this historically free institution. Over the past year-and-a-half there has been growing scrutiny of and opposition towards expansionist tuition-based programs by students, faculty, staff, alumni and the broader community.

It has been over three months since the last board meeting on December 5, 2012 and no “board report” has been publicly issued, despite being adopted as a means for “transparency” by the Office of the President. Over 450 community members have signed a petition for student representation on Cooper’s board, and precedent has been set by over 600 other colleges which have student trustees (including many other private institutions). At the the March 1st Trustee Forum, these propositions were evaded and publicly shot down on multiple occasions.

This afternoon, students from all three schools filled the grand staircase of the New Academic Building for a silent rally to affirm Cooper Union’s mission statement as a unified body, echo the faculty’s petition that “an injury to one is an injury to all“, and gather signatures for student representation on the Board.

We were here. Where was the Board?

A timeline of recent events leading up to today:

February 13th: The Executive Committee of Board of Trustees (whose membership remains undisclosed) announced that they would be deferring all early-decision applicants to the School of Art, citing “the absence of a sustainable model for the School of Art”. This both misconstrues the Art Faculty’s letter and jeopardizes earlier administrative claims that, “undergraduate students who begin college in September 2013 will not pay tuition during their four years at Cooper Union”.

February 20th: Current Cooper students and faculty stood together with “deferred” early-decision applicants at a rally and press conference (video) against the unprecedented top-down decision by the BOT Executive Committee to withhold the acceptance letters of students already selected by the School of Art faculty for admission.

March 1st: Several Trustees sat on a panel at a “Community Forum” in the Great Hall organized by the Cooper Union Alumni Association (video). It was suggested by Board Chairman Mark Epstein that the Art Faculty was coming around and expected to be submitting proposals in the near future. This sounded in stark contrast to a constructive series of meetings organized by the faculty of the whole to “reimagine Cooper Union within its means“. The Board spent the days leading up to the Trustee Forum and full Board meeting privately threatening the Art Faculty that there would be no incoming class for 2013 and that the closure of the School of Art would be initiated if the expansionist, tuition-based plans that the Faculty had been opposing were not submitted.

March 5th: In the interest of not allowing the School of Art to be closed, the faculty voted to submit their plans which they had previously stated were the result of a “subtly coercive” administrative charge. These plans include a pre-college program, an undergraduate summer program, and a Masters In Arts (M.A.) program. A memo from Jamshed Bharucha expresses that the administration is “pleased” to see the this “distinctive vision” moving forward, failing to disclose the ways in which the Board and administration have coerced the faculty both into designing and submitting these plans.

For Immediate Release:

50+ students, faculty, and staff are maintaining a ‘sit-in’ inside Jamshed Bharucha’s office on the 7th floor of the Foundation Building of the Cooper Union. As students we have reclaimed the President’s office in response to the Administration and the Board of Trustees announcing the implementation of tuition for the incoming class of 2014- desecrating a 154 year old tradition of meritocracy and free education. We stand together with the extended Cooper community in opposition to this decision; we reaffirm all of the previous and future actions of our fellow students and allies.

Safety Statement/Statement of Purpose:

“This is a non-violent direct action, you are not being held in this room, you are free to exit when you please. Jamshed Bharucha, we are here today to deliver you a statement of No Confidence from the School of Art, we no longer recognize your presidency at Cooper as legitimate and in so doing we commit to re-claim this office in the interim until a suitable administrative alternative is secured.

Live Updates:

http://twitter.com/freecooperunion
http://facebook.com/freecooperunion
http://ustream.tv/channel/free-cooper-union

Since Wednesday morning students have been occupying the Office of the President on the 7th floor of The Cooper Union. It is no longer the Office of the President, but an Office for Over 100 Presidents from the Cooper Community. Students from across the schools of art, architecture, and engineering have been joined by faculty, staff, alumni, and friends of Cooper Union, in this action.

At noon on Thursday, May 9, students noticed an increased presence of private security personnel on campus without having received prior notice from the administration. These private security personnel were instructed to not talk to students or faculty; to not disclose their name, affiliation, or even who had hired them. They are typically NYPD-trained and have been found, as recently as May 3rd, to carry concealed weapons on campus.

Students were notified that the administration would issue a statement at 2:30pm on internal student judiciary consequences for the occupation. We heard nothing further from the administration until 5pm, at which time private security had established posts at both stairways throughout the building as well as inside elevators, which were being operated by key. With security positioned at exits throughout the building, the administration’s “Emergency Management Team” entered the presidents’ office and announced to students that they must leave the 7th floor within one hour or face disciplinary action, including dismissal and denial of degrees. The administration failed to issue this request in writing until 6:16pm, despite students being told they must exit the 7th floor before 6:30pm. The “Emergency Management Team” also instructed maintenance personnel to screw shut the doors to the 7th floor bathrooms and board up the water fountain in an attempt to deny students access to water and sanitation. Private security personnel blocked staircases and fire emergency exits, preventing students from entering and exiting the 7th floor.

After students and community members passed the private security, growing the occupation to over 100 members inside the president’s office, the “Emergency Management Team” was forced to reconsider the terms of their ultimatum. In the commotion, security were instructed to stand down by Vice President of Finance, TC Westcott. The 100+ students and faculty who had entered the President’s office sat down in unison after learning that NYPD had entered the building. The administration requested that the NYPD stand-down, and students remained in the President’s office. At 7:30pm TC Westcott informed students on the 7th floor that the original ultimatum to vacate the office had been “paused”.

This occupation is a nonviolent, community-based direct action and we intend to maintain it until we achieve our aforementioned goals. In a series of campus-wide emails, Cooper Union’s administration has continuously misinformed the community and general public on the status of the occupation while omitting their own failures in safety and communication. Most recently a campus notice has stated that students have “declined mediation.” Mediation has never officially been proposed, it was merely suggested in an impromptu conversation initiated last night by Dean of the Cooper Union School of Art, Saskia Bos, between Associate Dean of Yale School of Art, Sam Messer, and the occupying students. We refused to answer immediately to their request for a meeting on their terms, and have collectively agreed that a meeting will only take place in the Office of the Presidents with the entire body of occupying students present. We will collectively set the agenda for this meeting, will select spokespersons to speak with the administration, and appoint facilitation. Jamshed Bharucha must be physically present, and audio and video shall be streamed online and recorded. We have already invited President Bharucha to meet and speak with us several times since the occupation began but he has not yet made direct contact with the students.

We’re proud to have held this space for 55 hours and counting, and proud of the Cooper community for coming together across schools, roles, and generations to create an environment in which Bharucha cannot stay by successfully holding the physical space of the presidential and administrative offices in an open occupation. Jamshed Bharucha, step down!

Photos:

May 9: Occupiers soft-lock in the presidents’ office upon hearing word that NYPD, who were later called off, had been escorted up to the second floor lobby.

May 10:Cooper Trustee and alumnus Michael Borkowsky stops by the occupation for a discussion with students and faculty.

May 10: A crowd of supporters gathers outside Cooper Union for an “art-in”

May 10: March to Bharucha’s Stuyvesant Street residence following a 6pm press conference.

May 10: Engineering professor Richard Stock signs statement of no confidence inside the occupied presidents’ office.

May 10: Secretary to the Board Lawrence Cacciatore and Director of Facilities Jody Grapes stand on the steps of Bharucha’s residence while protestors chant, “KEEP COOPER THE SCHOOL WE LOVE / NOT SOME FUCKING COUNTRY CLUB”.

May 10: Susan Howard from Charas speaking in front of Bharucha’s residence.

Videos:

Reading poetry in the office.

Marching.

Call me, Jamshed.

Cleaning.

In response to Students for a Free Cooper Union’s ongoing occupation and reclamation of the School’s Presidential Office–

We invite you to submit work to a collaborative initiative imagining a world where ‘Free Education to All’ exists! This inaugural salon is open to any and all participants and will be part of an international traveling exhibition, paying tribute to Cooper Union’s 154 year historic mission of providing merit-based tuition-free education to all admitted students.

Join us at 5pm on Tuesday May 29th, 2013 on the 7th floor of 7 East 7th St (the Foundation Building) for the opening reception of theFREE COOPER UNION SALON–STEP DOWN!

Exhibition Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday, 12 – 7pm
Closed Sundays and Mondays
**24/7 for Cooper Students/Faculty

Classes schedule:
Tuesday to Friday Noon – 2pm Open Forum with Moderator
5pm – 7pm Lecture/ Classes
7pm – 8pm Community Picnic @ Peter Cooper Park
Saturday 11am – 8pm Classes Indoor/ Outdoor activities

Free and open to the public!

SUBMISSION INFORMATION

Students, faculty, alumni, and friends of the Cooper Union are invited to submit works relating to Cooper’s hallmarked slogan “Free as Air and Water”, as coined by Peter Cooper’s son-in-law, Abram Hewitt at Cooper Union’s 1901 commencement speech.

Your work will be part of a salon-style group show on the reclaimed 7th floor of Cooper Union’s Foundation Building. The exhibit will encompassing the entirety of the 7th floor lobby, hallway, offices, and classrooms, to parallel to our efforts to reclaim the historic mission of Cooper Union. This exhibit will be free and open to public from May 28th to June 15th, and will also feature daily Open Forums and Free University classes reimaging new cooperative ways to restructure higher education. The presidential office, which has been occupied by students, will also be used as a reading room for a variety of media relevant to our struggle to keep Cooper free of tuition.

Following the event, all submitted material will be digitized as part of an interactive website, and be exhibited in June by Free Cooper Union in London (FCUUK) and other locations. All efforts of Free Cooper Union work to establish the foundation of a new chapter at our college and in society at large- one that will uphold the principles that allow education to be “as free as air and water”, in a long term sustainable, and socially conscious manner.

SUGGESTED CATEGORIES
In an effort to make this exhibit accessible and widely inclusive to others engaging in the struggle to reclaim higher education we encourage submissions in any medium and format that work in constellation with the current crisis at Cooper.

1. Projects & Research
Drawn from your current practice, student work, or social projects which in some way, whether personal or public, engage the imperative of free education in a broad way. Open to interpretation, submissions may include but are not limited to paintings, drawings, writing, proposals, sculpture, etc, that are informed by this pivotal moment in Cooper Union’s history.

2. Activist Artifacts
Signs, posters, videos, twitter feeds, images, websites, barricades, banners, fliers, costumes, diagrams, and other material rooted in the higher education struggle against bloated administrations and boards, class, gender, and race marginalization, tuition and fee hikes, militarization and surveillance of campuses, privatization, socially unconscious investment and profiteering. Subversive use of media and technology is encouraged!

3. Chronicles & Documentation of the Crisis
Written essays, letters, financial statistics, press releases, articles, or other documentation relating to the current crises facing student at the Cooper Union and other institutions.

4. Ways Forward
Work in any medium that envisions a new future for the Cooper Union and education in general. Reimagine merit, administrative bodies, shared governance, new curriculum, no tuition, no debt!

DEADLINE
Work must be submitted no later than 6:00 PM, Sunday May 26th 2013.

If submitting work digitally please email files less than 10 MB, or links to download/movie/websites to CooperUnionSOS@gmail.com, with the subject ‘SUBMISSION’ and your name. If you have digital work but do not wish to send it electronically please see the instructions below for how to drop off work in person.

We will also be accepting physical work to be dropped off on-site at the Foundation Building (7 East 7th St., NY, NY 10003) If you wish to drop off physical artwork, please email CooperUnionSOS@gmail.com with your availability. The Presidents’ office currently operates 24/7, accepting work anytime before the deadline.

Submissions should include the Submission Release attached to this document.

The Cooper Union Salon – Step Down is organized by Free Cooper Union

pleasedontfront:

It’s late, and I can’t think of much to write about these images. I will add that there’s a show opening today at Cooper Union, put together by all of us currently occupying the Presidents office, with the help of so many friends and supporters. Opening is 5-9pm and the show will run through June 15, open to the public from 12-7 Tues-Sat.

Peter Cooper will be there.

CU at the opening!