The faculty of the school of art at New York’s Cooper Union voted Tuesday to endorse their own proposal for revenue-generating academic programs. Earlier this month, the same body released a statement opposing all tuition-based programs at the school, which has offered free education for over a century.
Announced by college president Jamshed Bharucha on the school’s website on Tuesday, the art school faculty’s vote approved of four initiatives: a pre-college program for local students; a certificate program for those with a bachelor’s degree or non-traditional academic background; a masters in arts program; and a masters of design practice program.
A seven-page document submitted by the faculty outlines the programs, with proposed areas of study, student body sizes and other similar information. However, it gives no estimates of the price tag of any of the programs, who would staff and teach them or how much money they could be expected to generate.
Similar proposals from the Cooper Union’s two other schools, of architecture and engineering, were to be voted on at a board meeting Wednesday, according to the president’s statement.
“Details surrounding all major decisions will be announced later in the month,” Bharucha writes.
When Bharucha took over as president last year, he revealed a longstanding but not always widely discussed shortfall in the school’s operating budget that might lead to the end of the school’s policy of full scholarships for all students. In December he asked faculty from all schools to propose revenue-generating programs.
Last month, after the art faculty declined to endorse the revenue-generating proposals, the school administration deferred admissions decisions on those students who had applied to the school for early decision this fall, placing them in the general admissions pool.
