I’ve been thinking a fair amount this week about Monday’s revelation that the Cooper Union administration reneged on one of the core commitments to emerge from this summer’s admin building occupation — the promise to place an elected student on the college’s Board of Trustees.
As I said in my previous post, the Cooper trustees and administration have an obligation to honor their prior agreement. If they fail to do so, however, the students of Cooper Union have leverage they can bring to bear to make a democratic result more likely.
First, the full results of the consultative “election” that will produce the three final candidates for student trustee should be released. The Cooper community has a right to know which candidate was the students’ choice for trustee and by what margin, so that they can judge whether the trustees’ selection reflects the will of the student body. Since the student trustee balloting will be conducted by the Joint Student Council, the students’ representatives have the power to ensure that this information is made public.
Second, student candidates for trustee should consider pledging to withdraw from consideration after the balloting if they do not win the plurality support of the student body, and students attending the candidate forum should consider asking them whether they intend to do so. If all candidates publicly pledged prior to the election to withdraw if they did not receive the most votes in support of the student who did, the trustee selection committee could be left with only one name — the name of the students’ preferred candidate — from which to choose.
These interventions wouldn’t be foolproof, of course, and they would do nothing to remedy other defects in the current proposal, such as the planned exclusion of the student trustee from executive sessions and the ineligibility of junior-year students for the position. But they could make it far more likely that the first student trustee would be the candidate of the students’ choosing, while drawing welcome attention to the administration’s violation of the summer agreement.
studentactivism.net 
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October 18, 2013 at 12:11 pm
jean
You’re wasting your time writing about this. Students caved when the board threatened them over the summer. It’s over. They choked. As a student I supported them, but we have to face reality. Board won and will get their way. A showdown at the president’s office was our last hope. Leadership cracked. There’s was firm as hell.
October 18, 2013 at 5:36 pm
Baruch Skeer
The students did not cave, they were perfectly willing to be arrested. I encourage Angus Johnston to keep covering this.
October 21, 2013 at 11:34 am
jean
Then why’d they leave? Was the deal that great to pass up? Did they really trust the trustees? Now look what happened. You knew you couldn’t negotiate with them. Why’d they do it then? Just fess’ up, getting degrees revoked and arrested didn’t seem like a great idea to them. Instead they negotiated with the enemy and now there’s going to be a rigged election. He can cover anything he wants, but as a student our school will begin charging next year. That’s a fact. That’s the reality that we need to get used to. There’s no going back. Had they stayed, they’d be getting front section NY Times articles. Like they used to. Now it’s too late.