Given events leading up to and since the tuition announcement, and inlight of a long history of administrative irresponsibility, we do not at this point have confidence in the capacity or the will of the current leadership to guide us through this historic crisis, to both launch a comprehensive fundraising campaign in the name of preserving full tuition scholarships and to develop a plan for academic excellence that will not only preserve but also improve the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. A majority of the full-time Humanities and Social Sciences faculty offers this resolution as an urgent call to rethink the current course of action and to move forward in the most constructive ways possible.

We expect that the Board of Trustees now direct their full fundraising efforts to promoting academic excellence and to restoring the full-tuition scholarship.

Passed unanimously by the full-time faculty of HSS

The Way Forward is a better plan — certainly a better start to the future of The Cooper Union. It was developed with thought and care by alumni, students and faculty, the people who maintain and own Peter Cooper’s legacy. It plays to our strengths and is not a grab bag of get rich quick schemes similar to the plans that got us into this mess to begin with. –Professor Richard Stock 

From the introduction: So how are we going to save Cooper Union? Because  the root of this crisis is not only financial, we have  come up with ways to improve Cooper’s civic presence, academics and mission. Despite having limited access to the numbers, we have identified what we believe to be sensible first steps toward closing the deficit. Finally, during the long, fraught and sometimes tedious process of mapping out what seems to us the right and just path for Cooper Union in the coming months and years, we’ve discovered what is perhaps the most crucial element to Cooper’s survival: a sense of community that transcends disciplines, reaches across generations, and, in this moment of confusion, has the vision and spirit to point Cooper Union in the right direction. We are the Cooper community and this is The Way Forward.

Endorsements of The Way Forward: 

Both of my maternal great-grandfathers attended Cooper. I have been teaching at Cooper since 1999. The Way Forward is a clear plan that maintains the mission of The Cooper Union while still moving it forward. — Kevin Kolack

The key fact is that Cooper Union is different. That is what makes it such an amazing institution. That is what should be celebrated. “The Way Forward” takes this into account. The President and the Board’s proposal does not. –Rachel Matts

I endorse The Way Forward and believe that its suggestions should be placed on the table along with existing plans. Solutions from alumni, students, faculty, and the rest of the Cooper community are equally as valid as proposals put forth by outside consultants and internal administrators. We need to demand a response from President Bharucha and the Board of Trustees which indicates that they are considering the options outlined in The Way Forward.–Ethan Elenberg

As a currently enrolled and concerned student at the Cooper Union, I have signed this petition because I found the solutions presented in The Way Forward to be the only viable solutions that have been presented to keep The Cooper Union open and functional. –Asher Mones

The Way Forward must be adopted in its entirety… It is a comprehensive, all-encompassing concrete plan of complementary parts addressing multiple simultaneous problems at Cooper, created by a stakeholder process that was strictly followed to address all stakeholders and be as fair and balanced as possible. –Barry Drogin

The Way Forward is a set of solutions that signifies the dedication of the Cooper community to the mission of this school to preserve the quality of education that is presently offered by the Cooper Union while also preserving its focus on merit and hard work (free of the politics of money). –Andrea Tults

Practically, The Way Forward presents no-risk solutions that will begin to balance Cooper Union’s budget and re-root the school healthily in the community around it. Philosophically, ‘The Way Forward’ is based on the observation made by Peter Cooper and many others that society is composed of people, not lots of little mounds of paper profit. Imagine dollar bills walking around, inventing, writing poetry…. Our best investment as human beings, ensuring immeasurable return, is in the skulls of young citizens not their wallets! “For,” according to one of the Cooper/Hewitt gravestones at Greenwood Cemetery, “all you can hold in your cold dead hand is what you have given away”– and they oughta know. Annabel Roberts-McMichael

Please accept this invitation to return Cooper Union to its principal values and to foster and nurture its students development in years to come. Only through a tuition-free model and merit-based admissions are the students truly equal. Cooper Union should be a beacon for others to follow, rather than a submissive follower of the times. –Esteban Quijada Link

Something has to be saved. We can’t keep throwing away everything worthwhile. And your community has a better idea to save the school, so if you don’t listen you’ll be throwing them away along with Cooper Union’s historical mission. –Judith Davidson

The following text was community-authored for the occasion of the 3/1/2013 Trustee Forum in the Great Hall
Photo: Rocco Cetera

Since 2011, the severity of Cooper Union’s financial crisis has catalyzed an enormous response from its community of faculty, students, alumni and staff. Together we’re determined not only to preserve, but to better, Cooper’s foundational mission of free education.

We’ve channeled our collective energies into an open, yearlong brainstorming process focused on preserving a tuition-free Cooper Union. Our results, published in the community-authored report The Way Forward, are based on three straightforward principles: 1. Our mission is not fungible; 2. Our best shot—and it’s a good one—is to tackle spending and live within our means; and 3. in our fight, as in our school, we are united.

Cooper’s current leadership has repeatedly dismissed the recommendations of faculty, alumni, students and staff. Jamshed Bharucha’s own repudiation of The Way Forward is instructive. He claims that since the Chrysler rent revenue is not tied to inflation, Cooper cannot keep pace with its growth in expenses. This reveals a fundamental difference in approach: the administration single mindedly insists we must increase our revenue in order to feed our unsustainable spending, while we continue to ask how can Cooper live within its means? The administration also choose to omit this: increasing revenue from Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) on Astor Place, and continuing growth in Chrysler PILOT, Cooper’s primary revenue stream. Initial investigations show that PILOT is outpacing inflation. This year, Chrysler PILOT alone totaled over $18 million.

We know the revenue from the Chrysler building, and importantly, our PILOT revenue are both going up. Lack of revenue is not what’s killing us. It‘s our unsustainable spending, driven by skyrocketing administrative costs.

The community’s recommendations in The Way Forward affirm that this crisis presents an opportunity for Cooper, one in which we can assess our true means and return to our core values. To do this, we must tackle costs. We believe we should immediately:

• Identify and suspend all non-essential programs and functions
• Implement further cuts in spending across the board
• Implement longer-term recommendations from the Expense Reduction Task Force, including the replacement of Deans with rotating faculty appointees
• Terminate all consultants who are not highly cash-flow positive
• Reconfigure development strategies: – fundraise on the strength of the mission, and with professional expertise in each respective degree’s field – leverage the creative worth of alumni and students
• Initiate a true hiring freeze
• Use cost cutting measures to recalculate the budget gap going forward and establish a new set-point in expense estimation

The community stands with the faculties, who have spoken out in defense of the mission. We believe that instead of trying to strongarm the faculty into accepting tuition based programs, the administration should:

• Engage the Faculty of the Whole in a review of existing programs and academic strengths. Initiate an open strategic planning process that activates the entire Cooper community
• Collaborate with the faculty to leverage our greatest asset: our mission
• Set up a “bridge” Capital Campaign to cover the gap that is left over from the cost cutting
• Kick off a long-term Capital Campaign centered on our unique mission, and sustaining our reputation as one of the best schools in the country

The community’s trust in the administration and Board of Trustees has been broken, and Cooper’s reputation as a whole remains badly injured from a lack of transparency. The institution has operated like this for too long. To overcome this crisis, and safeguard against future crises, we believe Cooper’s leadership must take several steps to inform, involve, and rely on its existing skilled communities:

• Publish notes from Board meetings and revive the tradition of releasing a detailed annual report
• Rebuild Cooper’s community ties to the East Village and the city
• Expand volunteer tutoring/outreach to New York City youth (grow down)
• Engage alumni to donate professional services to Cooper

Over the last year, Cooper’s leadership has failed time and again to understand what drives the excellence of our programs. By issuing the schools individual revenue targets, the administration discouraged innovation across programs. By reinforcing existing inequalities in resource allocation, and promoting the development of unproven tuition based campaigns, the administration’s lack of creative as grave a threat as our budget deficit. Tell President Bharucha and the Trustees we stand united behind our mission.

http://archinect.com/news/article/73042724/berlin-solidarity-free-cooper-union

Dear Alumni of The Cooper Union,

This has been the most important week in Cooper Union’s recent history. A massive student occupation of the President’s 7th floor office has brought about a community-wide No Confidence vote against the President and Board Chairman. It has also sparked the disclosure of important new financial information explaining exactly what happened, while also suggesting Cooper can remain free. Together these events have generated an outpouring of letters to the President and Board. The most striking, written by the parents of student and Irma Giustino Weiss Fellowship and Benjamin Menschel Fellowship recipient Joe Riley, is attached at the bottom of this message.

Adjunct Professor in HSS, Fall 2012-Spring 2013. Taught Philosophy of Science and HSS4G: Human Nature and Technology.

What you are all doing is very important–the educational model that Cooper Union has followed for the entire span of its history is almost entirely singular, and it is worth preserving this vision of Peter Cooper for future generations of students. I’m confident that with enough effort, the combined student, staff, faculty, and administrative body of CU could find an innovative solution to the budget shortfalls plaguing the institution: a solution that doesn’t involve resorting to universal tuition charges.

Thank you for all you’ve done, and all you will do. It takes great courage to speak truth to power, and as a member of the faculty I am very, very proud of all of you.

Dear Cooper Union Alumni Association,

I’m writing to register my support for the students currently occupying Pres. Barucha’s office. I don’t know how many of us have contacted you, but I can assure you that this feeling of solidarity is fairly widespread, at least amongst those who have graduated within the past 20 years. These students have been forced to take this course of action because all other discussions and negotiations have failed to prevent the institution from charging students tuition, which is a tragedy and something I consider very disrespectful to Peter Cooper’s legacy. They’re being completely non-violent, even when threatened or intimidated by the administration – I was present outside the Foundation Building last [Thursday] night and I’m told that it was only the intervention of some level-headed administrators (I heard TC Westcott e.g.) that prevented a confrontation or forced eviction by security/police.

I don’t like all this confrontation and acrimony. To be honest I also don’t know how, at this point, to solve the college’s underlying financial problems. But the corporate-growth model taken by the current Board and President is antithetical to the entire founding ethos of this college and comes after many years of profligacy and financial mismanagement. If this current confrontation forces a reversal and re-appraisal of our Cooper Union’s current path, then it’s a good thing.

Until recently I was reluctant to condemn Pres. Barucha, since he inherited these fiscal problems. But after all the obfuscation and double-speak of the last two years (continued lack of financial and decision-making transparency and misleading information about the free-tuition legacy being given to the media are just a few examples) I’ve lost confidence in him. Alumni signatures to the vote of no confidence from the Cooper community are growing in number.

Honestly, if I had presided over the institution of $20,000 in tuition at Cooper Union, I would resign in shame. It is almost by definition the greatest possible failure of the administration and board’s duties to the school. I don’t think they’ve done so in bad faith, but the fact remains that they have failed massively. It isn’t too late to find a way to reverse course (Felix Salmon of Reuters has an interesting suggestion, though I don’t know that it’s feasible.)

I just thought I should communicate my feelings about this to you. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Shankar Venkataraman
BSE ’03