VTQFkLS. Cooper Union students stage civil disobedience in defense of free higher ed. Students at one of the last tuition-free universities in the United States have occupied a student building to protest the administration’s revenue-generating proposals. Eleven undergraduates from New York’s Cooper Union have occupied a room on the eighth floor of the school’s Foundation Building, demanding that the school reaffirm its commitment to providing free education, and that it restructure the board of trustees to include student and faculty input. Additionally, they have called for the resignation of university president Jhamshed Bharucha.
For over a century, Cooper Union offered free education to all its students, whether they were graduates or undergraduates. However, Bharucha announced in April of this year that the school would begin charging tuition fees to graduate students, a move which occupiers said was representative of the administration’s poor management style. Gollan estimated that planning for the occupation began about a month ago. Rachel Maddow Show. LIVE: Cooper Union Day of Action. The New School Free Press is providing live coverage of the Cooper Union student community’s “Day of Action” and “Summit on Debt & Education” on December 3, as well as the ongoing occupation of the Foundation Building by Students for a Free Cooper Union. <a href=" target="_blank">View the story “Cooper Union Day of Action || The New School Free Press” on Storify</a> OWS: Students for a Free Cooper Union Stage Lock-In.
Cooper Union Day of Action & Summit on Debt and Education. ISM Dec.03, New York City: Occupation at one of last tuition free universities in the country. Dec.03, New York City:Students Occupy Building to Resist Tuition Fees Cooper Union students seized the clock tower atop the school’s headquarters and hung a banner urging the administration to keep the school tuition-free for undergraduates. The school has not made a decision on charging tuition for undergraduates. But in April, it decided to begin charging tuition to graduate students for the first time in its 110-year history.
The school’s president, Jamshed Bharucha, said then that he was searching for ways to keep undergraduate education free for classes after the one entering in 2013. To understand the context better, it helps to know that Cooper Union is a private college fully dependent on private donors and with around 1,000 students. The protesters released the following statements: for more details: cusos.org + artinamericamagazine.com + cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com + thenation.comupdates via: @FREECOOPERUNION + facebook.com/FreeCooperUnion. Andypressman: Free Cooper Union! Reaffirming 'Free Education for All': Cooper Union Students Take Stand on Tuition Debt | Education on GOOD.
After two years of organizing support for The Cooper Union—an institution historically devoted to free education, now threatened by deficit, expansion, and tuition—a group of students has come together as Free Cooper Union. We have called for a Day of Action today, Monday, December 3rd, 2012, to continue bringing attention to the growing crisis of student debt and rising tuition costs worldwide. Drawing from the momentum of recent student movements, we demand the preservation and affirmation of Cooper Union’s ethical model of free higher education.
The Day of Action will include performances, speak outs, free classes and various autonomous happenings. At night, we will transition into a Summit on Debt and Education hosted in the college’s historic Great Hall, featuring activists, artists, and speakers from All in the Red, Strike Debt, and Occupy Student Debt. We invite you to attend our Day of Action and insist the public take back the dialogue about higher education! Screen_Shot_2012_12_04_at_8_02. Students Seize Cooper Union Room to Protest Possible Tuition. Protesting Tuition, Students Barricade Themselves Into Cooper Union Building. Cooper Union Occupiers Cheered By Fellow Students, Contacted By Administration. Students Barricaded in Cooper Union, Livestream Protest - Metropolis. Schools Ring Closing Bell. Student Barricade Building Floor at NYC College to Protest Tuition | New York City | United States. By Amelia PangEpoch Times Staff Created: December 3, 2012 Last Updated: December 3, 2012 Student protesters at Cooper Union, a traditionally tuition-free school, hang a banner on Dec. 3 to remind the school of its founding principles amid a financial crisis.
(Courtesy of Students for a Free Cooper Union) NEW YORK— After two years of planning, 12 Cooper Union students barricaded themselves on the top floor of the foundation building to protest tuition charges. The students have been there since noon of Dec. 3, and say they have enough supplies to stay for at least three days. The school was founded in 1859 by Peter Cooper, who believed that education should be accessible to all who qualify regardless of race, religion, gender, and social status. The historically tuition-free institution decided in April that it will begin charging tuition for graduate students starting in September 2013.
The students demand that Jamshed Bharucha, the president of Cooper Union, step down from his position. Cooper Union Tuition Protest: Students Barricade Themselves In 8th Floor Of Foundation Building. A group of Cooper Union students have barricaded themselves inside a college building in lower Manhattan for the past 24 hours to protest the school's decision to charge tuition for the first time in 110 years. The New York City blog Gothamist reports 11 students on Monday occupied the Peter Cooper Suite, a room on the 8th floor at the top of the Cooper Union Foundation Building, where they dropped a banner reading, "Free Education To All. " According to The New School Free Press, the occupation continued Tuesday morning, and a livestream from inside the Peter Cooper Suite was available. Cooper Union's administration initially attempted to drill into the barricaded entrance to the room, according to the Free Press, but backed off after realizing such actions could injure students pressed up against the barricade.
Since 1902, each of Cooper Union's 1,000 undergraduates have received a full scholarship to cover tuition, currently valued at $37,500 a year. Communique [Administration] VIDEO: Voices from the Cooper Union Occupation in New York City. Why Cooper Union Matters. On a clear night in early November, hundreds of people filed into the Great Hall at Cooper Union. By 7:00, the auditorium’s 900 seats were full and hundreds of people crammed into standing room at the back. The event was not open to the public and security guards in the lobby were checking everyone for some form of Cooper ID.
The current student body is counted at 918, so it only took a quick glance around to see that the event had drawn far more than just current students. Both faculty and alumnae had also come out in great numbers for the emergency meeting that had been called with Cooper Union’s Chairperson of the Board of Trustees, Mark Epstein, and his much quieter fellow Board member Richard Lincer. At issue was the recently leaked information that the Board of Trustees was considering charging tuition to Cooper students—a move that many believe would radically undermine the philosophy that is at the institution’s core.
Vintage postcard of Cooper Union, circa 1917. Free Education for All. Today Umbrellas at Cooper Union, Tomorrow Pots and Pans. Cooper Union Students March to Keep College Free of Tuition. EAST VILLAGE — Dozens of students, alumni, and supporters of design school Cooper Union's free degree programs marched from Washington Square Park to the college's Astor Place campus to protest the school's plans to adopt a tuition-based model. "I wouldn't be able to go Cooper Union without free tuition, and I think that the majority of the students wouldn't be able to study there either without the free tuition model," said Saar Shemesh, 21, a current student studying art, sculpture and photography at the school.
She arrived early at Washington Square Park Saturday to gather and prepare for a march protesting the school's recent move to accept tuition for students. Alumni Willis Bigelow, 23, who is from San Francisco, was concerned about the precident a tuition model would set. "Something should be done about this," said the one-time sculpture and photography student, who now makes handbags.
"Peter Cooper must be rolling in his grave," Shemesh added. "We're doing very very well. » Art Observed Exclusive: New York – Interview with Student Occupiers of Cooper Union and in Depth Contextual Review. Inside the occupation of the tower. All images courtesy the Students for a Free Cooper Union, unless otherwise noted. Earlier this week, Art Observed reported that students at Cooper Union, the country’s only traditionally tuition-free art school, have barricaded themselves into the top floor of their school in an act of protest against the school’s recent economic scandal.
Last year, after years of hiding its financial situation, the school’s administration revealed that they are in a $17 million debt that could leave students paying tuition as soon as 2018. Although there has been minimal response thusfar from the school’s administration regarding the students’ actions, support has steadily grown, especially from faculty members. Art Observed’s Jennifer Lindblad reached out to occupying students to hear their experiences and reflections so far.
Occupiers receive a delivery by balloon at the Cooper Union Foundation Building on Tuesday, December 4th. BHQF pizza delivery. AO: Why now? - J. Great Wealth Is A Public Trust. Cooper Union’s Tradition of Free Tuition May Be Near End. The Clock Strikes Red: Strike Debt /Occupy Student Debt Campaign Declaration of Solidarity with Students for a Free Cooper Union | read. Strike Debt and the Occupy Student Debt Campaign declare our solidarity with the students currently occupying the clock tower at Cooper Union, and with all those who demand free education for the 99% rather than a lifetime of indebtedness to the 1%.
At night, the occupied clocktower glows red-- a beacon of rage and hope that radiates across the city like an ancient pharos . Most immediately, the occupiers are protesting the decision made by the unaccountable Board of Trustees to introduce tuition for graduate studies -- a first step in eroding the historic mission of the institution to provide education "free as air and water," in the words of the school's founder. We support the occupier’s demands: 1. Cooper Union maintains its commitment to free education 2. 3. But the occupiers define their strike within an far broader sequence of struggles on the part of students around the city, the country, and the world against tuition-hikes, austerity, privatization, and predatory debt.
Full Show 12/10/12: The Ghettoization of Public Education. After the Occupation: A Talk with a Cooper Union Protester. Students Rachel Appel (right) and Audrey Snyder (center) speaking last week on behalf of the Cooper Union occupiers (photo by Janelle Grace for Hyperallergic) Following up on the news that the students who took up residence in the Cooper Union clock tower have ended their occupation, Hyperallergic spoke with Casey Gollan, one of the occupiers, about why they came down after a week and what they feel they’ve accomplished.
“We felt really good, because we had shaken up some of the administration,” Gollan said. “We had fulfilled some of the demands in terms of transparency with those board meeting minutes. I think they’ve been put in a really weird place. Gollan also explained that the group didn’t want to expend all of its energy in one go: We have a strategy going forward, which isn’t to burn out on one action. A loose rendering of the scheme of the spokescouncil (image courtesy Students for a Free Cooper Union) That new structure is called a spokescouncil, diagrammed in the picture above. As an Alum, I could write 10,000 posts on how much... - Fresser. Cooper Union, CUNY Students Rally, Hoping For Spark Of Larger Movement (VIDEO/PHOTOS) NEW YORK -- When George Caffentzis was teaching philosophy in 1976 at the City University of New York system, none of his students had to pay tuition.
That changed within a matter of just two years after New York City went into a financial crisis and needed help from the federal government. Because the city was broke, Caffentzis said, so too was the CUNY system, and charging tuition quickly became a proposition. "So in order to presumably beat the debt, tuition would have to be charged. So this was the logic that occurred in 1976 and led to a historic change," Caffentzis said, "and eventually led to a decline in enrollments," as well as mass layoffs of non-tenured faculty, including himself. Caffentzis went on teach in other American colleges -- and in Nigeria for a time -- before landing where he is currently at the University of Southern Maine.
John got his master's at National Autonomous University of Mexico, and didn't have to pay tuition. "Cooper Union is a small place. Game or be gamed: Douglas Rushkoff on prototyping democracy through play. Love it or hate it, the "games as art" debate won't be going away anytime soon. It reared its head again recently after a particularly incendiary Guardian review of MoMA’s newly-opened exhibition of classic and modern video games. But to Douglas Rushkoff, digital theorist and author of Media Virus and Program or Be Programmed, the cultural importance of games goes far beyond any institutional designation as art. Rather, games and the ways we play them give us a new potential to re-evaluate, re-configure, and replace the systems we live under. That might sound idealistic and a bit crazy, but there’s no denying that games have seriously changed the way we look at the world. By viewing our social, political, and economic structures through the lens of interactivity, Rushkoff says, we are beginning to "transition from the world of passively accepted narrative to one that invites our ongoing participation.
" "We don't question the values of the systems we're using. " NotPICNIC : @FreeCooperUnion student protests... A few thoughts on the Cooper Union occupation. | For Student Power. Cooper Union's current student occupation is as unique as the institution itself. What started 20 (!) Days ago as a sit-in protest against CU's impending tuition has now morphed into something entirely different. The very first day of the occupation, the administration threatened to arrest — and possibly expel — any students who did not leave that evening. Students called their bluff, and the big wigs blinked. Students in the President's office. Saar Shemesh at {young}ist has a fascinating first-hand look into the nuts and bolts of the occupation : On May 8 we began to hold the office space, exclaiming that it was “no longer the Office of the President, but an Office for Over 100 Presidents from the Cooper Community.”
I can't emphasize enough what a colossal blunder President Barucha and the Board of Trustees have made in not kicking the students out. Dr. And so, with a combination of administration incompetence and student confidence, we arrive at a rather unique situation. NYT: Protesters Vacate Cooper Union’s Top Office.