They said it couldn’t be done, but today’s announcement by the Committee to Save Cooper Union (CSCU) suggests that the turmoil that has engulfed the beloved Manhattan university may be coming to an end.
Free Cooper Union
Posted inNews
Five Cooper Union Trustees Call It Quits
Last night five members of the Cooper Union’s board of trustees resigned: real estate mogul Mark Epstein (the board’s former chairman), Vassar College president Catharine Bond Hill, architects Daniel Libeskind and Francois de Menil (the board’s vice chairman), and investment banker Monica Vachher.
Posted inIn Brief
Cooper Union Trustees Offer to Sacrifice School President to Appease State Attorney General
The board of trustees of the Cooper Union has offered not to renew the contract of the school’s current president, Jamshed Bharucha, if it would help bring an end to New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s investigation into the university’s management.
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New York Attorney General Is Investigating Cooper Union’s Finances
New York State’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, is investigating the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (CU), the Manhattan university that recently began charging students tuition after more than 150 years of operating as a full-scholarship school.
Posted inFilm
Dismantling the Higher Ed Swindle
Last week, Pioneer Works hosted a film screening of documentarian Andrew Rossi’s Ivory Tower followed by a panel discussion about the increasing cost, complex ideological underpinnings, and social dynamics of higher education in the United States.
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Alumni and Students File Suit Against Cooper Union Over “Mismanaged” Endowment
Five alumni and admitted students have filed suit against Cooper Union’s board of trustees, alleging that their behavior leading up to the historic end of free tuition violated duties prescribed by the school’s charter, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Posted inPerformance
The Politics of Parody: Free Cooper Union at e-flux
For a few hours last Sunday, e-flux’s Chinatown offices were bathed in red light as Free Cooper Union held an interpretive reading of the 41-page trustee meeting transcript first leaked to the Village Voice over the summer.
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Free Cooper Union Leaks “Board Presentation” Suggesting Art Dept Is in Trouble
Free Cooper Union has released the first installment of what they allege will be a two-week long period marked by the daily publication of “anonymously leaked confidential documents” from the university’s administration.
Posted inNews
Cooper Union Board Suspends Student Trustee Elections
In an announcement made through Cooper Union’s Office of Student Affairs yesterday, the university’s trustees canceled the upcoming elections for a student trusteeship previously ratified at their September board meeting.
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Free Cooper Remixes Banksy Confessional
For the latest in their inventive visual mockery of Cooper Union president and unalloyed economic realist Jamshed Bharucha, the student activists of Free Cooper Union satirically reconfigured a Banksy work that popped up near the school’s campus over the weekend.
Posted inNews
Cooper Occupation Ends With Agreement, Amnesty for Activists
In a message sent at 4:07 pm to the Cooper Union community, Jamshed Bharucha announced today an agreement with the activist group Free Cooper Union, which had ended its occupation and vacated his office on Friday. The email, which was preceded a few minutes earlier by a campuswide message containing the text of the agreement drawn up with the students, ended on a conciliatory note: “We may not all agree on everything we face but I am committed to lead Cooper Union in a way that places the institution in a strong position for the future.”
Posted inNews
My Two-Minute Interview With Cooper Union’s President
I was walking around the East Village this morning, as is my wont, and happened upon a familiar face. The kindly visage in question belonged to not-quite-mediagenic Jamshed Bharucha, president of Cooper Union, “the embattled New York college” (Art in America).
