CUNY DisOrientation Guide

Update CUNYTIME website

2009-03-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

We are transitioning over into wordpress and wiki's.

Check out the new site here.

The Fair Share Tax Reform Act of 2009

2009-03-03T14:11:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, Eric Schneiderman introduced legislation in the New York State Senate which would raise more than $6 billion in new revenue by slightly increasing taxes on the wealthiest 5% of New Yorkers (those that make over $250,000).

"Over the last 30 years, New York has reduced income tax rates on the wealthiest New Yorkers by more than 50%, and has replaced this lost revenue by implementing more regressive taxes and fees that disproportionately impact low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. Currently, the richest 1% of New Yorkers pay 6.5% of their total income in state and local taxes, while the poorest 20% of New Yorkers pay 12.6% of their income."

The bill would increase and create new income tax brackets:
8.25% on incomes over $250,000.
8.97% on incomes over $500,000.
10.35 on incomes over $1 million.

Such a proposal would not only cut the state budget gap in half but take one small step towards reducing the extremely regressive income tax system that is rampant throughout the United States.

Additionally, such a tax program would mean that the proposed cuts to CUNY could be dramatically reduced.

Click here to watch a video of Eric discussing his legislation.

CUNY WILL NOT PAY FOR YOUR CRISIS!

2009-02-27T11:04:00.000-08:00

From Barabara Bowen, head of the PSC:

"The real crisis in New York State is a revenue Crisis, not a deficit crisis. The state would have $17 billion more in revenue in this year's budget alone-eliminating all need for discussion of budget cuts-if it had simply restored the income lost to the tax cuts enacted between 1994 and 2005. Over the past thirty years, New York has cut the tax rate on their top income bracket in half-from 16.4% to 6.85%."

"Today the poorest New Yorkers, those earning $15,000 or less a year, pay 12.6% of their income in state and local taxes, while those earning $1.6 million or more pay only 6.5%."

"CUNY students...have seen their tuition rise by 107 percent since 1991-2."'

Barbara Bowen's testimony on the CUNY budget before the NYS Senate Finance Committee and Assembly Ways and Means Committee on January 15th is actually pretty informative.

CUNYTIME: TAKING BACK OUR UNIVERSITY

2008-11-03T22:41:00.000-08:00

We had a great response at the CUNY Social Forum. People loved CUNYTIME! [download here: This is the CUNY Disorientation Guide, post name change] Both what it is, but more so for the potential of what it could become. Will you help realize its potential?

Know your CUNY history

2008-09-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

In order to struggle for a liberated CUNY you need to know what you are up against and the history of the struggle that has preceded this moment.

CUNYTIME ZINE (October 2008) - Includes critique of budget cuts, power map of CUNY, history of the neoliberalization of CUNY.

Here is a list of on-line accessible resources:

The Struggle for Free Speech at CCNY, 1931-42. Textual and Visual analysis.

Demands of the BPRSC of Harlem University (April-May 1969) What started the push for open-admissions.

The Struggle for CUNY – Chritopher Gunderson’s narrative and analysis of student struggle at CUNY from 1969 and 1999. He also presents lessons to be learned from these struggles. 69 pages of fun.

The History of the City College of New York: 1969-1999 - A webpage on the history of student struggle at City College.

Hostos Community College: Battle of the Seventies. A personal historical account by the Coordinator of the Coalition to Save Hostos Community College, Ramon J. Jimenez, during the 1975–76 New York City financial crisis. pdf or html

Save Hostos: Politics and Community Mobilization to Save a College in the Bronx, 1973-1978. (A Personal Account by Gerald Meyer of the struggle to save Hostos College)

The Struggle at CUNY: Open Admissions and Civil Rights 1992, written by Ron McGuire who knows his CUNY history, having been kicked out during the open admissions strike @ CCNY in 69.

Love & Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (1997) [good short articles on CUNY]
Students Fight Educational Apartheid
Hunter Students SEEK Justice
United Front Builds then Shuts Down Bridges
Hostos Students Under Attack in NYC
The Politics of Race and Class at CUNY

An Open Admissions Program For a Democratic City University. This 10 point program was put out by Hostos Students for Open Admissions and the Hostos Student Government in Spring 1998

The CUNY Struggle: Class & Race In Public Higher Education. 1999 article by Nancy Romer, taken from the New Politics.

Smash Racist Purge of CUNY– Fight for Open Admissions, Free Tuition! Article on the 1999 Student Protests.

CLOSING CUNY’S DOORS. En espanol. Estan Cerrando Las Puertas de CUNY. On the end of open admissions and what it means for people of color and the working class.

Some Thoughts on the History of CUNY SLAM.

The Free Academy No More: Restoring CUNY’s Promise. Article arguing to reinstitute free tuition at CUNY.

The Crisis at CUNY: Privatization and Downsizing (2001)

Another University is Possible: Academic Labor, the Ideology of Scarcity, and the Fight for Workplace Democracy. Discusses the PSC struggle to win a new contract during 2005-6 while also situating it within the history of CUNY.

Turning back the right-wing attack on education: NYC ruling class targets Black, Latino City University students [Short history of struggle against educational apartheid at CUNY, written in 2006]

CUNY Rising: College Activists Mobilize Campus-Wide 3-Day Social Forum (Good Stats on CUNY throughout the page.)

Recent Articles on the CUNY Budget Cuts:

CUNY students, teachers resist budget cuts

Resisting the Cuts at CUNY

CUNY Tuition Hikes Hurt Hard

Resource Sites:

PSC Clarion. Great for stats and information on CUNY, both present and historically. [Paper of the CUNY PSC Union]

GC Advocate. Helpful for stats and back information on CUNY. [Student Paper of the CUNY Graduate Center]

New York Times. Use the search feature. You'll find articles dealing with the strikes, tuition increases, chancellor salary increases, etc. Not always in-depth, but stats come in helpful.

The neoliberalization of CUNY - from the point of view of management

The City University of New York: An Institution Adrift (THE MASTER PLAN to restructure, that is, neoliberalize CUNY, 1999)

Issue of Tuition and Funding at the City University of New York (Discusses the history of Tuition at CUNY and the role of tuition at CUNY in the context of the overall funding of CUNY, numbers galore, 2003)

CUNY Compact (Chancellor Goldstein's public-private partnership and financing plan to deal with 'too little investment and too little revenue.' In other words, how Goldstein and the trustees are going to neoliberalize CUNY. This is the promotional flyer.)

CUNY Master Plan 2008-12 [Where will CUNY be going and will you be coming along with it? Or will you be denied access because of test scores?]

The Chancellor's Vision of Higher Education [New CUNY motto: Tracking for Life!]

Articles by the Manhattan Institute - a conservative free-market think thank calling for the restructuring of CUNY back into an 'elite' institution and away from a 'remedial backwater.'

CUNY could be good again
Merit Pay for Prof's
Room for Excellence
Setting a Higher Standard
Downward Mobility

Article's covering Manhattan Institute's rise to power in NYC

Conservatives plant a seed in NYC: Think tank helps Giuliani set his agenda

The Manhattan Institute Nudges New York Rightward

DisOrientation Meeting Notes 7/22/08

2008-07-31T14:33:00.000-07:00

Hey all. Some notes on what transpired at the DIS.

Some real progress was made in fleshing out the DIS! The CUNY Social Forum, the DIS blog, the format and content of the guide as well as release dates were discussed.

The CUNY Social Forum

It was proposed that the DIScollective present a panel for the CUNY Social Forum happening in October. Not only could this event be a "draft" launch for the DIS, showcasing what we have, but also serve as a networking event to get the DIS "out there" and potentially get more people involved. The SF may potentially be a great place to make a "call for aid" as well as a conversation builder – we will be able to find out what people might want to see in the DIS.

The DIS Blog
It was put forth that the blog could serve as a warehouse of information related to the DIS: listing meeting information updates and calls for aid. Additionally, any information, links, sites, etc. that people think would be beneficial for the project would be encouraged to be posted onto the site.

DIS Guide Format & Content
Rather than sticking with the traditional 8.5x11 inch format and the once a year launch (occurring in the Fall and weighing in at over 70 pages at some schools!) the CUNY DIS could take on the format of a zine and be published several times a year. This format would be more aesthetically pleasing and open the DIS to a much wider audience – getting our voice(s) out there to more people! The proposed layout may well contain cover art and illustrations, several main CUNY articles, shorter general interest articles, profiles of the trustees, profiles of radical professors, comics, and how to guides.

In solidarity,

The DIScollective.

CUNY DisOrientation Guide 2008

2008-07-16T13:17:00.000-07:00

Throughout the city and across CUNY's campuses, students, faculty and staff are witnessing CUNY's slow transformation by the tides of corporate privatization and the elimination of social welfare support from the state. The powers of privatization, militarization and corporatization have entered into a holy alliance, and our CUNY, our city, our entire globe have fallen under its spell.

But there is something in the air, working to counteract this process. People are starting to come together. Faculty, students and staff across the campuses, across the city, and across the world are pushing back.

CUNY has a radical history and together we – students, faculty, and staff - are going to write the next chapter. We propose to create a DisOrientation Guide to CUNY as one small step in this direction which is a map of the factual socioeconomic history of CUNY. Our aim is to remember CUNY's radical past, contribute to its radical present, and to envision and build its revolutionary future. The DisOrientation guide will be a free, easily accessible resource distributed throughout the CUNY system. It will be a work in progress. A living document.

Below we list some of the areas we are interested in exploring. We invite you to join us in creating this DisOrientation guide in these and other areas. Here are some ways to be involved:

-- Join a working group :
~ Content development ~ Editorial ~ Design & Layout ~ Web ~ Distribution
-- Contribute writing, information or resources
-- Connect us to others who might want to contribute

-- Come to a general meeting

-- Stay connected by responding to this e-mail and joining the listserve! https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cuny-disorientation

** Please forward this call widely to any one or group that might want to contribute **

Here is our tentative list of areas to explore:

People's History of CUNY
-History of social movements and student movements at CUNY
-Current social movement and student movement work at CUNY
Knowing CUNY
-Workers at CUNY (academic and non-academic, labor related issues)
-Students at CUNY/Not at CUNY (admissions, demographics, student body, access, stratification)
-Power/CUNY (power mapping, thinking about corporate CUNY, military CUNY)
-Neoliberal CUNY (CUNY in a broader political-economic context)
Resources
-Maps
-City-wide resources for the CUNY community (CUNY in the city)
-Adjunct's guide to CUNY (intro to PSC, basics of workplace rights at CUNY, etc)
-Undergraduate's guide to CUNY (campus specific)
-Guide for non-Academic workers at CUNY (campus specific)
-NYC Highschool student's guide to CUNY
Reimagining CUNY
-Right to the University
-CUNY mission statement