The Cooper Union administration yesterday released details of the proceduresit intends to use to place a student on the college’s Board of Trustees in the coming months, and to this outside observer’s eyes, those procedures look like a clear violation of the agreement that brought and end to the spring’s two-month Free Cooper Union occupation of President Jamshed Bharucha’s office.
In June of this year the Cooper trustees announced their “intention” to “have student representation on the Board,” with particulars of implementation to be worked out in September. The following month, however, as part of the negotiated settlement of the occupation, it was agreed that the Board would establish procedures “for the election of a student representative as a member of the Board of Trustees.”
Note that word, “election.” It was the only new element of the student trustee policy announced as part of the agreement, and a crucial concession to the occupiers. A student trustee can only properly represent the students of the campus if he or she speaks for, and is accountable to, those students. The principle of student self-determination is a crucial one in struggles for
