Breaking it Down in Bobst

Ok, I know I got a little bit too aggressive about defending Bobst-space before – I was mostly writing in jest. Mostly.

What isn’t a joke, or in jest, is the Bobst Study Breakdown – it seems a bunch of folks will be getting down in the library come Thursday night at 8pm, turning the dreary life under the fluorescent lights into a dance party.  Take Back NYU!’s blog points out that the event echoes the 60s Freak-Ins that reclaimed university space for students – I hope the Breakdown signals a start of a new tradition of regular dance parties in our fine red library.

So: this Thursday at 8, remember to take a study break to get down in Bobst.

EDIT: That link I posted earlier broke.  This is most definitely still going down though.

Second EDIT: Check the Twitter.

Unloading Rage at NYU

It happens to almost all NYU students: the moment when you snap, and unleash your pent up frustration at your university in a torrent of rage.  For some it happens early, and you become a resigned cynic for the course of your education, for some it turns into a desire to take back your university, for others a fake flier defaming John Sexton.

For Neal Shechter of the College Dems, it turns into this explosive post at the College Dems Blog.  Shechter’s post is significant because it comes from an organization firmly in the middle of NYU’s idelogical spectrum (83% of NYU voters voted for Obama), and it latches on to a few key issues for students that NYU:

1. Student Space.  NYU’s Bobst Library was built in 1977, Kimmel opened in 2004 but reduced free study-space for students drastically vs. the old Loeb Center.  Space for general student use continues to shrink.

2. Community.  NYU has a self-perpetuated problem of a meager student-life community.  Space issues and a disengaged faculty keep this problem alive. (though I would suggest to Neal that he investigate the Gallatin School if he’s concerned about contact with faculty)

3. Feeling Overwhelmed – Seriously.  There’s a lot of problems with NYU.  It’s sometimes hard to give a damn when you don’t even know where to start.

NYU Town Hall Reportback

Nope.

This week, the President of NYU participated in one of his regular dog-and-pony town halls with the Student Senators Council. These events are rife with problems – they’re only a very weak form of student input, questions are filtered/censored by members of the Student Senators Council, and students have no way to independently verify whether their Administration is lying to them. (except when they get caught: during the meeting, the prez claimed that a report on pay discrimination at NYU showed no problems, which is verifiably false)

As promised, members of Take Back NYU! attended the meeting to break the monotony of jsex’s rambling, to some effect – the President got a little worked up, but finally made an (undiplomatic) response to TBNYU!’s demands for accountability, transparency and democracy at NYU. The answer, as he made very clear, is no, no, and no to each of the demands.

Despite much hullabaloo from campus media-types, every question submitted to the town hall was answered (including one about animal rights which moderator Whitney Petrie pretended didn’t exist, saying that all questions were answered before it was asked), and members of TBNYU! carried on a spirited debate with the Prez over the issues they’ve been pressing for over a year – perhaps the only open criticism he sees on a regular basis.

Criticism of TBNYU!’s tactics at the Townhall are as misplaced as they are disingenuous – the point of the campaign is that the President is wearing no clothes, that his high-minded claims to enlightened leadership are misleading, and that students should regard the administration as just one member of a large NYU community with competing interests in how the school is run. Students have an interest in affordable, accessible education, the administration has an interest in a larger university that expands their reputation and lines their pockets, and these interests are in conflict. Students should only take the administration seriously on the condition that the administration takes them seriously, and that has not happened.

A Day of NYU Activism

Today two important events will be taking place at NYU -

The first is a march led by NYU National Organization for Women in support of budget disclosure to check against pay discrimination at NYU.  Marchers will lead a procession from the Kimmel Center at 1pm, holding symbolic ‘glass ceilings’ above their heads to demand an end to NYU’s secrecy surrounding its finances.

The second is an ongoing project to encourage NYU students to remove their personal checking accounts from large banks that support environmentally devastating practices like mountain top removal or coal power, and instead place their money in local banks like the LES People’s Federal Credit Union that offer higher returns and invest in local people.  Folks will be in the lobby starting at 11.

NYU, the Downturn and Financial Aid

The first question to ask during tonight’s NYU President’s Town Hall is: who designed your jankety-ass poster (above)?

The second question to ask is: what will NYU do to help students through the economic crisis that threatens their income and access to student loans?

I think I know what the answer will be.  Since last March, NYU has been developing an official line on student tuition that goes something like this: pay up or go home.  The administration has embraced a free-market model of education that abandons the presumption that higher education should be available to all, and instead embraces brutal economic determinism to limit access to its resources.  Expect any questions about finances, financial aid or tuition to come down to this: John Sexton’s ‘dreams’ for NYU come before anyone else’s dreams for their education.

President Sexton has repeatedly told students that their best option for coping with tuition is to leave – expect that argument to reach a more extreme, more callous extreme during the Town Hall, with the lively and friendly presence of Take Back NYU! members to lighten the mood.

lol jsex, lol indeed:

NYU Rally For Fair Pay

In October, a report leaked from Rutgers University showing significant and longstanding pay discrimination against female professors, particularly in science.  Rutgers is not the first institution to find this type of discrimination, and no doubt it will not be the last.  It’s nearness to NYU and position as a ‘peer institution’ (someone NYU would like to be like) puts the impetus on NYU to come clean about any potential pay discrimination occurring in our university.

NYU National Organization for Women has stepped up to challenge the university on the issue of pay equity and will hold a rally next Wednesday (the 12th) at 1pm, starting at the Kimmel Center at 40 Washington Square south and traveling in and through all of NYU land.  NOW, as part of Take Back NYU! will demand that NYU disclose its budget as a step towards ensuring all employees receive equal pay for equal work.
The rally features mobs of students holding ‘glass ceilings’ above their heads to show the concrete problems created by NYU’s commitment to secrecy in all things.

be there.

Halloween Comes to NYU

Scarier than America’s first Terrorist President, NYU’s demons will be out on the loose in Washington Square Park tomorrow at 11.30 as Take Back NYU! unleashes its latest protest against the NYU Administration’s refusal to disclose the operating budget, endowment investments or allow a student on the Board of Trustees.

Street theater will include ghouls like:

The Tuition Vampire – the monster that keeps growing above the rate of inflation, sucking students dry.

The Ghosts of Washington Square Park – NYU dug up some bodies when it helped finance the ‘renovation’ of our park, and they’re coming back to haunt the plunderers of public space

Expansion Frankenstein – Made out of the bodies of Universities across the globe, this monster lumbers from Manhattan to Brooklyn to Abu Dhabi leaving gentrification and worker abuses in its wake

NYU’s Skeletons in the Closet – What IS NYU hiding?  Maybe these monsters will help us find out

Take Back NYU! will also begin putting pressure on the Administration with a drive for students to pledge refusal to donate to NYU until the school takes steps towards accountability transparency and democracy. Students will also be passing out info on the TBNYU! movement, and giving out candy advertising for the new web site.

here’s the deets:

What: Take Back NYU! NYU’s Monster Street Theater Action

When: Tuesday Oct. 28^th, 11:30 pm

Where: East Side of Washington Square Park near Washington Place

Take Back NYU!’s New Website

I’ve been doing a lot of blogging about Take Back NYU! here, but now TBNYU! has it’s own web presence so I don’t have to carry the PR load all by my lonesome.

Check out the new Take Back NYU! website at http://takebacknyu.com

this should be your new favorite website.

Take Back NYU! Turns 1 (Month)

not birthday cake

It’s been one month since Take Back NYU! delivered its demands to the NYU administration and asked for a reply within… one month.

And guess what:

There was no reply.

Between Sept. 2 and Oct. 2, a lot went down. NYU/Polytech got sued. NYUAD got a Chancellor (who supported a Living Wage at Swarthmore, an interesting precedent for the labor-rights challenged NYUAD project) and a Master Planner. A student went public with his plan to pay tuition my soliciting donations online. The biggest (dumbest) NYU news story was that a J-School student (those still exist?) got told she can’t blog about being a stupid J-school student by her stupid J-school professor. I refuse to link this story.

Just as important, the economy started collapsing. With NYU’s endowment peaking, the university has staked its future in the condition of the stock marker and economy in general. That means bad news, at least in the short term: it looks like a number of universities are getting cut off from their short term assets. It would be really really nice to know the type of trouble NYU is getting itself into.

Then there was a disaster of a Town Hall, where President Sexton drove home the point that he has no idea how to conduct himself in public – yelling at students, claiming that students taking out loans should reconsider whether they belong at NYU.

On the other hand, TBNYU! kept a low-profile in the past month, except for the totally sweet (PUN) event HAVE YOUR SCHOOL AND EAT IT TOO – pictured above – that featured people making graham cracker/candy/frosting representations of their ideal universities. I expect that low key to change, and soon.

Economic peril, out-of-the-blue decisions on NYUAD, a blustering buffoon of a University President – all of these things point to the need for more democracy and accountability at NYU, a need that Take Back NYU! clearly meets.