CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

A participatory project to collect and preserve the histories of the City University of New York

We found 78 items that match your search.

Doctoral Students Council News: Murphy's Optimism

This Doctoral Students’ Council (DSC) newsletter, published in 1982, covered adjunct news that ranged from notes on a meeting the DSC steering committee had with Chancellor Murphy to a satirical piece entitled “How not to be an Adjunct”. The [...]

CUNY Edu-Factory

“CUNY is becoming an Edu-Factory… and we need to be talking about it.” In conjunction with Equity Week, this poster was created as a teaching-resource. Using the factory as a way to visualize the precarity of contingent labor and how it [...]

“Graduate Center Student Strike Update”: 16 Demands

On April 18th, a "Graduate Center Student Strike Update" document confirmed the students' 16 demands and announced that a negotiation process had begun with Graduate Center administrators. Some of the demands were tied directly to the building [...]

Revised and Expanded In-Process Agenda: Cultural Anthropology Meeting

This “Revised and Expanded In-Process Agenda” based on minutes from a May 18th Cultural Anthropology graduate student meeting emphasized that the document was not a manifesto but rather a collection of ideas that were open to discussion and [...]

Fourth Internationalist Tendency Flyer: Support the Student Takeovers

This newsletter produced by the Fourth Internationalist Tendency (FIT, a Trotskyist group) supported the CUNY student takeovers. It stated that Governor Cuomo, CUNY Chancellor Anne Reynolds, and Mayor Dinkins's proposal to cut CUNY's budget by $96 [...]

Graduate Center Teach-in: A Speech calling for Action

“The struggle for the existence of CUNY is as old as the institution itself and. . .this struggle is political.” This speech, delivered by a CUNY Graduate Center student at a 1991 Graduate Center teach-in, sought to put the threat of a $92 [...]

Graduate Student Action Paper

Written by the Graduate Center Student Strike in April 1991, this action paper reported that the City University of New York's (CUNY) Graduate Center had been taken over by graduate students on the morning of April 16th in solidarity with the [...]

A Form Letter: "You are Devastating the City University of New York"

Addressed to Governor Mario Cuomo, this form letter drafted expressly for a letter-writing campaign urged the governor to reconsider his proposed education budget cuts and tuition increases. It specifically drew attention to the reduction of funds [...]

Tabeling Statement: In support of CUNY Student Strikers

This statement, accompanied by a petition, was used at a tabling event held by City University of New York (CUNY) graduate students during the 1991 occupations of CUNY academic buildings. In protest of the $92 million cut in state aid, the $500 [...]

Selected Facebook Posts from CUNY Confessions

This item offered a curated selection of informally written Facebook posts documenting student life during the abrupt transition to distance learning in mid-March of 2020. Drawing from the "CUNY Confessions" Facebook group, these compiled posts [...]

"An Open Letter to CUNY Admins"

Posted on July 7, 2020, this Reddit thread recorded one unnamed student's open letter to the City University of New York (CUNY) administration in the interest of drawing critical attention to the persistent mix of unclear, conflicting, or otherwise [...]

"CUNY should cut the tuition."

Posted on July 24, 2020, this Reddit thread recorded conversations around students' desire for the City University of New York (CUNY) to reduce the cost of tuition given the pitfalls of online learning and the diminished return on investment [...]

"Still being charged Student Activity Fee and CUNY Technology Fee for Summer?"

This Reddit thread, posted on April 12, 2020, resolved CUNY students' questions regarding student activity and technology fees during the summer semester of the Covid-19 pandemic. This item is part of the City University of New York (CUNY) Distance [...]

A Spring Romance Blossoms for CUNY's Chancellor?

Satirical leaflets made by Occupy CUNY about Chancellor Matthew Goldstein's relationship to Kroll, Inc., a security advising company that CUNY hired to conduct a biased investigatory report about a November 21, 2011 incident at Baruch College. On [...]

"Policing Public Education? Hell No!" Stencil

Stencil made during November 2011 CUNY struggles against tuition increases and NYPD/CUNY security assaults on campus dissent. CUNY hired Kroll, Inc , a security advising company to conduct a biased investigatory report about a November 21, 2011 [...]

Kroll Mask

This mask was made by the Graduate Center General Assembly for a "Kroll Monster" costume that was used in a series of agitprop materials to highlight CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein's relationship to Kroll, Inc. CUNY hired this security company to [...]

Song: "Hit the Road Matt: Good riddance to a reprehensible Chancellor!"

This version of the Ray Charles classic was written by members of the Graduate Center General Assembly and Adjunct Project on the occasion of CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein's June 2013 retirement. The song references ongoing scandals over which [...]

Graduate Center General Assembly Working Groups

Informational leaflet with a list of Graduate Center General Assembly Working Groups for Fall 2011: direct action, faculty liaison, inclusion, knowledgewerk, press, online presence & media, outreach, structure/process, support, and write in. The [...]

CUNY Faculty Statement of Support for November 17, 2011, Student Strike

CUNY Faculty Statement of Support, written primarily by Graduate Center faculty, for the November 17, 2011, Student Strike, in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. Several of the CUNY faculty who spearheaded this statement, and a few visiting [...]

Violence Against Protesters at CUNY

Occupy Wall Street People's Library blog post and video round-up about the November 21, 2011 incident at Baruch College, in which NYPD and CUNY security attacked and arrested students, faculty, staff, and community members who were peacefully [...]

Protest Again Centers on Baruch College as CUNY Trustees Approve Tuition Increase

A week after an impromptu CUNY protest at Baruch College in which students were clashing with police, this Chronicle of Higher Education article covers a second protest at Baruch College. The article reports that a thousand students, faculty [...]

Oral History Interview with Khadija DeLoache

Khadija DeLoache entered City College in the fall of 1966 with support from the CUNY Seek program. In this oral history, DeLoache discusses growing up in Harlem, her experience as a student activist, and the development of the Black Studies [...]

Oral History Interview with Anselma Rodriguez

In this oral history, Anselma Rodriguez discusses her experiences as a student at Brooklyn College from 1969-1973. She was a founding a member of Movimiento Estudiantil Dominicanos and active in Brooklyn College's Puerto Rican Studies Department. [...]

Amendment to New York State Education Law (1961)

The 1961 amendment to the Education Law establishes CUNY and at the same time repeals the 1926 legal mandate for free tuition. It states that the Board of Higher Education shall be a "separate and distinct body corporate", which will administer all [...]

Tiger Paper, April 1973

This issue of the Tiger Paper leads with a story describing student demonstrations against the "threatened" implementation of tuition across CUNY campuses. It also features articles centered around "International Women's Day" and the Vietnam [...]

STRIKE!, Prism, 1971

Prism was the Borough of Manhattan Community College's annual yearbook. This 35 page chapter from the 1971 edition details the student strike that, in May 1970, temporarily shut down the college and resulted in 58 arrests. Filled with photos, [...]

"Birth of a Movement"

This Village Voice article covers the coalition effort that pulled off four simultaneous civil disobedience actions on April 25, 1995, stopping traffic at major bridges and tunnels to fight city budget cuts. Puerto Rican, black and Asian groups [...]

The Mayor's Advisory Task Force Report: The City University of New York: An Institution Adrift

The Mayor's Advisory Task Force on the City University of New York issued its report, The City University of New York: An Institution Adrift, to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on June 7, 1999. Over the course of their investigation, they reported that [...]

Letter to Brooklyn College President John Kneller on Budget Cuts and Faculty Tenure

During the 1970s, CUNY experienced a fiscal crisis resulting in faculty and staff layoffs, increased tuition, as well as cutbacks in open enrollment. As a result, the coordinators of the Brooklyn College Women's Studies Program drafted this letter [...]

Paying More, Getting Less

"Paying More, Getting Less," produced by Labor at The Crossroads, also known as Labor X, explores the 1995 CUNY budget cuts from both historical and activist perspectives. Janine Jackson, program director and host at Fairness and Accuracy in [...]

Brooklyn College Women's Union Meeting

The Women's Union at Brooklyn College was an organization comprised of many faculty and staff from the Women's Studies Program, but existed as a separate entity that would tackle political and administrative issues affecting women at the college. [...]

York College 1973 Demonstration

York College students join PSC pickets in opposing the May 1973 contract impasse. Demonstrators raise issues around tenure quotas, budget cuts, open admissions and the Professional Staff Congress union contract.

Money For Education Not War

2007 Professional Staff Congress (PSC) members march under the Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.

Report of the Citizens' Commission on the Future of the City University of New York

In November 1969, CUNY's Board of Higher Education formed and tasked the Citizens' Commission to "study the future of the University in all its aspects." Their analysis resulted in the creation of an extensive report in 1971 that detailed the [...]

Crisis at CUNY

As the 1970s wore on, students and faculty at CUNY found themselves faced with an ominous environment. While the open admissions struggle of the late 1960s represented a signal achievement in the struggle to secure democratic access to quality [...]

Oral History Interview with Former CUNY Chancellor Albert Bowker (Tapes 2-4)

In this oral history interview, conducted in May 1985, Julius C. C. Edelstein interviews former CUNY Chancellor Albert Bowker. Both men were administrative architects of CUNY's Open Admissions policy. This transcript was compiled from tapes 2-4 of [...]

Graduate student support for CUNY-wide student actions

Graduate student Steven Duncombe speaks about the CUNY student occupation protesting the budget cuts and the tuition increases of 1991. This video was originally recorded for the monthly cable TV labor program, Labor at the Crossroads (or Labor X), [...]

The Campus, May 1, 1995

Selections from the CCNY Campus newspaper, covering the student hunger strike against the budget cuts and tuition hike in April, 1995. CCNY President Yolanda Moses brought in the NYPD to arrest 47 students. Includes an interview with President Moses [...]

"Students Rally Against the Cuts"

This front page article in the Hunter College Envoy covers a march and rally organized by SLAM! on March 21, 1996 against that year's proposed budget cuts to CUNY. The paper estimates about 800 Hunter students, faculty and staff attended.

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