In case you missed last week’s town hall, led by New School President David Van Zandt, The New School Free Press was there to bring you the highlights.
Students.
The New School claims it has made a conscience effort to spread word of the school’s existence. With this apparent rise in awareness, this school year’s student applications numbers were bumped 10 percent – With all these new students, the university now has students from every state in the United States.
With more students applying and being accepted into the school, housing issues are more prominent than ever. Since many of these extra students arrived in late August, there was scramble for places for them to live and classes for them to take. This is an ongoing subject of stress for all parties involved, Van Zandt apologized for this stress and commended them for their patience.
Also of note, in the upcoming year, the school plans on developing and growing the non-degree and continuing education classes at the school.
Graduate Students.
The graduate student workers at The New School have been fighting for their right to unionize for some time now. The National Labor Relations Board voted on Aug. 23 that graduate students at Columbia be allowed the right to bargain with the school’s administration about unionization and their rights. The Labor Board has yet to make a decision in the case of The New School’s graduate workers. At the town hall these workers urged Van Zandt to not continue to wait for the ruling, but to bargain with them sooner, rather than later.
In an offering of good faith, the graduate students presented President Van Zandt with a cake during the question and answer portion of the town hall, stating that his decision in this unionization matter should be a “piece of cake.”
Alumni.
Four alumni have been chosen for Brooklyn Magazine’s “30 Under 30.” Yandon Israel, 26, a literary advocate who graduated from The New School in 2016 in the MFA Creative Writing program. Dean Buck, BFA Jazz ’12; Daniel Ellis-Ferris, BA Liberal Arts/BFA Voice ’12; and Brianna Marie Maury are the co-foun
ders of LoftOpera. Alexander Lloyd Gleason, BA Economics ’12 & MA Economics ’13 works for the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, and teaches at a number of different colleges throughout the city.
Leadership.
New School Provost Tim Marshall proudly announced that the quality and range of new faculty and staff brought into the school this year was commendable. This year, 31 percent of full-time faculty at The New School are people of color and 46 percent of new hire full-time faculty are people of color or international.
Martin Mueller, the Dean of the School of Jazz, will be retiring from his position after 30 years at The New School. Mueller can be credited for building the Jazz program to what the university know it to be today, much of the passion and talent of the Jazz school students can be traced back to him, says David Van Zandt.
Carol Cantrell, Senior Vice President for Human Resources and Labor Relations, will also be retiring from The New School after 16 years. Cantrell came to The New School in 2000 after leaving her role as Chief Human Resources Officer with The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has dedicated her time at The New School to creating and cultivating a professional human resources department at the university, something the school didn’t have before her arrival.
Maya Wiley will join The New School as the Senior Vice President for Social Justice and Henry Cohen Professor of Urban Policy and Management. As Senior Vice President of the program, Wiley will develop a framework for advancing the school’s social justice agenda. Wiley is the former counsel to New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio, where she advised the Mayor on legal matters and provided her services on legal and policy administrative matters.
Facilities.
The school has made considerable advances with consolidating the campus in an effort to bring the school together. In addition to the efforts the school made by the school in the past few years, the school has now opened the Parsons Making Center, a space designed for collaboration between all Parsons majors, located on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 13th Street.
Finances.
The section on finances was short during this town hall. said “We’re in a solid financial position,” Van Zandt said without elaborating.
The school will be holding a University Finance Forum on Friday Nov. 4, from 10 to 11 a.m. in the Orozco Room located at 66 W. 12th St. on the seventh floor.
Social Justice.
Last January, the school implemented several task forces to take on different areas of social justice within the school. One of these task forces deals with the shortage of housing and food and also touches on the outrageous cost of supplies for students. The other task force deals with sexual violence on our campus and the policies and procedures that come along with that.
Upcoming Events.
Mannes will be celebrating it’s centennial this year. The Centennial will be a year long celebration of concerts, programs, and other events. The celebration will begin with Mannes alumna and conductor JoAnn Falletta leading the Mannes Orchestra in a concert of works featuring current and former Mannes faculty members and alums. This will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 26 at 7:30 p.m.
The Nth Degree series is a curated series of events featuring a wide variety of thinkers and creators who set out to incite a positive change in the world. The series of events will include spotlighting lectures, performances, panels, and other public programs that galvanize curious minds. A full list of events can be found here.
Julia is the current Senior Photo Editor for the Free Press. She is in her senior year at Parsons, majoring in Photography and minoring in Art History. Julia is originally from Boston and is patiently awaiting her return there after college. She is a wiener dog and pizza enthusiast and finds herself most at home when she is near the ocean.
