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

From The Students for a Free Cooper Union:

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 Jamshed Bharucha and The Board of Trustees no longer represent The Cooper Union and its community.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

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:

UCLA in Solidarity with Students for a Free Cooper Union:

Cooper Union Architecture Student Council:

STATEMENT FROM THE ARCHITECTURE STUDENT COUNCIL

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!

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

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)

Cooper Union faculty affirming the mission statement of free education

From the Students for a Free Cooper Union:

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.

From a Good Magazine cause:

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

Hello All! To celebrate the Students for a Free Cooper Union and to promote the discussion of higher education, here is a comprehensive, continuously updated list of press that has covered this story.

• The New York Times City Room: “Students Seize Cooper Union Room to Protest Possible Tuition“
• Good: “Reaffirming ‘Free Education for All’: Cooper Union Students Take Stand on Tuition Debt”
• Art in America: Students Lock in at Cooper Union To Protest Tuition
• The New School Free Press: “LIVE: Cooper Union Day of Action“
  – Featuring coverage from a reporter in the Peter Cooper Suite with Students for a Free Cooper Union
• Gothamist: “11 Students Protesting Tuition Have Barricaded Themselves In Cooper Union Building“
• One News Page: “11 Students Protesting Tuition Have Barricaded Themselves In Cooper Union Building“
• Fresser: “Not where it started, and I have a feeling it won’t end here: Cooper Union students have barricaded themselves into the building.“
• NYS EDU PLU: “City Room: Students Seize Cooper Union Room to Protest Possible Tuition“
• Housing Authorities: “Students Seize Cooper Union Room to Protest Possible Tuition“
• Student Activism: “Cooper Union Students Launch Occupation for Free Tuition“
  “Cooper Union Day of Action Today“
• Megazine: “Cooper Union Day of Action“
• WPIX: “Students occupy Cooper Union room in tuition protest“
  “Students barricades themselves at Cooper Union”
• Animal New York: “Cooper Union Slightly Occupied“
• NY1: “Cooper Union Students Protest Plan to Charge Tuition“
• Bowery Boogie: “Cooper Union Day of Action: Students Lock Themselves Inside Foundation Building“
• The Local East Village: Cooper Union Occupiers Cheered By Fellow Students, Contacted By Administration
• New York Magazine: “Cooper Union Kids Occupy Clock Tower for Free Tuition“
• The Cooper Union Alumni Pioner: “Occupy Cooper Union“
• The Nation Blog: ““>
• Democracy Now Headlines: “Cooper Union Students Stage Protest to Preserve Free Tuition“
• The Wesleying: “Cooper Union Students Occupy, Demand Free Tuition“
• CBS New York: “Cooper Union Students Take Over University Clock Tower To Protest Tuition Changes
• Salon: Why care about Cooper Union?
• The Villager: Occupy free tuition! Cooper students take historic tower

Students for a Free Cooper Union recommend the following stories to stay updated with our lock-in

• The New School Free Press’ live-blogging with Kali Hays, who was embedded in the room with us for the first 48 hours
• WPIX’s coverage of The Day of Action and lock-in
• The Cooper Union Alumni Pioner’s “Occupy Cooper Union“
• The Nation’s strong report on entitlement and preservation of principles
• Rachel Maddow’s national coverage “Of Protests and Pizza Pulleys”

We will continue to update this list as more coverage comes out. To all news sources, email us at CooperUnionSOS@gmail.com or tweet @FreeCooperUnion with links to your coverage!

Come support the landmarked tradition of “free education to all” by attending Free Cooper Union’s Summit on Debt and Education! The event is free and open to the public.

The Cooper Union Great Hall
7 E. 7th St. New York, NY 10003
6:00 – 9:00 PM

Here’s a line up of speakers:

• Marina Sitrin – Sociologist (http://marinasitrin.com)
• Suzanne Collado – Social and Cultural Analyst (http://twitter.com/suzannecollado)
• Yates McKee – Free University and Strike Debt (http://yatesmckee.wordpress.com/)
• All In The Red – Activist Group (http://allinthered.org/)
• Annie Spencer – Geographer (http://www.occupystudentdebtcampaign.org/press-2/)
• Peter Buckley – Historian (http://cooper.edu/humanities/people/peter-buckley)
• Amin Husain – Activist, Artist and Lawyer (https://twitter.com/amh2011newyork)
• Henry Chapman – Friends of Cooper Union Organizer (http://henrychapman.com/)
• Cassie Thornton – Artist (http://www.cassiethornton.com/)

Followed by panel Q&A session!

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.
3. President Bharucha steps down.

This is an update about this hub.