On the evening of June 1st, Elizabeth O’Donnell, Associate Dean of the School of Architecture, visited the Occupied Presidents’ Office respond to student concerns regarding private security within the office space. During her visit, Dean O’Donnell voiced her own concerns about the current productive aim of the occupation. On behalf of the administration, she made a request to begin a formal process of mediation. Dean O’Donnell was unable to comment on the issues needing mediation, or who would comprise the parties being mediated. Given this lack of crucial information, students arranged for a public information session with the proposed mediators. The following statement explains our decision to decline the current request to participate in the process of mediation as it was proposed:
We can not in good faith enter an inherently biased mediation process. The proposed mediators unilaterally worked with the administration prior to ever engaging students. The terms of this mediation — the choice of mediators, financial compensation for the mediation, and the timeline for mediation — were entirely predetermined by the administration. A mediation process can only be effective when sought out and embraced by all parties.
We will not engage in a mediation process comprised of undefined and/or inappropriately defined participating parties. The names of the representatives of the administration were not released until Sunday, June 9th. The decision-making capacities of the administrative participants could not be assessed until one day before the mediation was proposed to begin. The names of the administrators slated to take part in the mediation are marred by their disparity — Trustee Richard Lincer, Dean Elizabeth O’Donnell, and Board Secretary Lawrence Cacciatore. Students participating in the occupation of the President’s office represent a single component of a much larger community of students, faculty, and alumni concerned with the current governance of the school; the proposal to mediate with student occupiers alone seeks to minimize the problems concerning the Cooper Union as a whole.
By employing mediators, the administration implies that there is a lack of clarity in the communications between occupying students and the administration. Amid task forces, ad hoc teams, formal bodies, and administrative hierarchies it has become structurally impossible to seek accountability for decisions made leading up to the announcement of tuition, and in the face of the occupation. As occupying students, we do not recognize the authority of this administration or their ability to effect change in a meaningful way outside of the existing bureaucratic channels.
By employing mediators, the administration seeks to disempower the Students for a Free Cooper Union, refocusing on the occupation as a conflict to be resolved. The occupation is not a conflict, but an action sustained in relation to a much larger issues of governance, communication, and institutional trust. Though the presence of mediators may be valuable in future conversations, we reject the terms currently as have been currently presented to us.