Thursday, December 18, 2008

A Message from CUNY Who Stood with Us as One tonight

CUNY Students Statement of Solidarity from Inside the Occupation of the New School



As CUNY students facing cutbacks and tuition hikes put forward by Governor Paterson, the CUNY administration, and the Board of Trustees; we declare our full support and solidarity with the New School student occupation carried out against the New School's corrupt administration headed by the war criminal Bob Kerrey.

We consider their struggle our struggle.

We as CUNY students see the struggle of the New School students as part of a broader struggle around the world - from the uprisings in Greece and Italy to the recent Republic door and window workers occupation in Chicago to the striking workers at the Stella D'Oro bakeries.

We call on all students and workers everywhere to join in support and solidarity of the students here at New School (New York Schools in Exile) and we ask that you join us as students along with CUNY adjuncts, faculty and staff in our struggle against the tuition hikes, budget cuts and layoffs.

We are inspired by the struggle at the New School and expect this to be a step in creating a broad, inclusive, and diverse movement uniting the students, faculty, staff, and communities around the struggles at CUNY.

In Solidarity,
CUNY Students in occupied territory.

8 comments:

  1. We, the members of the Antioch College Action Network, offer our support and solidarity to the community of the New School. We believe that your struggle and our struggle are intrinsically linked.

    The state of higher education

    All across the country, in schools large and small, public and private, faculty, staff, and student concerns are being undermined by "business" practices. Tenure, academic freedom, and quality education are being undone by the same mentality that has led to the world's current economic crisis. Antioch College is precariously suspended. The Institute for Social Ecology has greatly reduced its operations and lost its own campus. New College in San Francisco has already fallen, and the New School in New York is fighting back. Antioch College with the Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute (http://nonstopinstitute.org/) is, too.

    Antioch has faced many of the same problems that the New School is currently facing:

    Consolidation of power

    The board and administration of Antioch University have placed huge amounts of power in a single executive, Chancellor Tulisse Murdock. The chancellor has consistently undermined the college and any attempts to save it. The New School faculty and students have stood up to President Kerrey's move to become provost as well as president.

    Lack of transparency in governance

    The administration of Antioch University, corporate owners of Antioch College, operated without checks and balances and in an increasingly secretive fashion. Cut off from the community they nominally served, the administration and board have made increasingly destructive decisions, culminating in the suspension of operations at Antioch College, the rejection of alumni offers to keep the college open, and the destabilizing of Antioch University's educational mission, and thus to the larger University community that they should serve.

    Erosion of tenure

    Antioch University has been eroding tenure at its other campuses, and there is strong evidence in board minutes and administrative practices at Antioch University to suggest that the suspension of operations at the college is an attempt to eliminate faculty job security at Antioch University as a whole. Like the New School's imbalance of 333 full-time (tenured) to 1,733 part-time faculty, a disturbing trend has emerged across higher education.

    Community voting "No Confidence"

    Like the New School's "No Confidence" vote in President Bob Kerrey, Chancellor Murdock has faced no fewer than four votes of "No Confidence" from faculty, students, and staff. The Board of Trustees have let warnings from their invested constituents and loyal staff go unheeded and let Murdock remain in power. Let us hope the New School's Trustees do not do the same.

    Faculty losing authority over curriculum

    The Antioch University Board and administration imposed a disastrous new curriculum on the faculty of Antioch College, cutting enrollment in half, and precipitating a financial disaster that led to the Board voting to suspend the operations of Antioch College.

    We stand in solidarity with the autonomous occupiers of the New School against the rising prices of education, the reduction of education to a business model, the erosion of rights in our workplaces, and for the right to a sound and relevant education and the call for a just and responsible social solution to humanity's immediate and devastating crisis.

    ACAN is an independent collective of autonomous alumni, students, faculty, staff, and friends of Antioch College and villagers of Yellow Springs, Ohio. ACAN is a grassroots movement working collaboratively for a continuous and sustainable future for Antioch College. ACAN has no affiliation with Antioch University, the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, the Antioch University Board of Trustees, the Antioch College Alumni Association, or Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute.ACAN is responsible for the content of this statement. For more information about ACAN visit http://saveantioch.org/

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  2. Thank you guys! Keep strong!

    For you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHGlDAtVVLE

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm a CUNY student and you DO NOT speak for me! Use your own names, for you do not represent all CUNY students, and it is offensive that you would write as if you do.

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  4. We are extremely grateful for the solidarity in which CUNY has stood with us today. thank you friends, we support you!

    ReplyDelete
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