The year was 1967, and the Bernard M. Baruch School of Business and Public Administration—known then informally as “City College Downtown”—was at a crossroads. The City College Board of Higher Education had voted to convert Baruch into an upper-division, two-year business school.
“That would have destroyed the school,” recalls Max W. Berger (’68), who at the time served as the vice president of Baruch’s student government. “So with the support of the student body, alumni, and faculty, we decided to lead a fight to defeat this recommendation.”
Leading the Fight
Embodying the activist spirit of the 1960s, students led a mock funeral procession up Fifth Avenue to the steps of the Board of Higher Education. “We had with us a hearse,” says Jack Aiello (’68), another student government member at the time, “which, of course, marked Baruch as potentially dying if it went in that other direction.”
In the hearse was a coffin draped in the flag of Baruch, and Mr. Berger delivered a mock eulogy: “Will the Board of Higher Education close the lid of this coffin and inter Baruch for eternity, so that only a memory of its glory is left as a legacy? Your answer must be ‘no.’ While there is still breath, life, and vigor in our college community, we will not let it die.”
Against all odds, the protesting students got their wish and then some. The board reversed its recommendation and established Baruch as an independent, four-year senior college in 1968.
50 Years Later
Berger now serves as president of the Baruch College Fund and has watched the College grow over the decades into a national powerhouse, recognized as a leader in social mobility and firmly established as one of the top public colleges in the country.
“The surnames and countries of origin are quite different than my days at Baruch,” he says, “but at bottom, the dreams and opportunity Baruch provides to achieve them remains the same.”
Baruch President Mitchel B. Wallerstein, PhD, agrees. “Since its inception, Baruch College has provided access to the American Dream at a highly affordable price for tens of thousands of students from New York and around the world.” Of the College’s evolution over the decades he adds, “We have only continued to grow stronger since becoming a fully independent college in the CUNY system in 1968, and today we enjoy an outstanding reputation and national visibility. Our alumni have gone on to achieve extraordinary professional success in their chosen fields and, by doing so, have opened additional doors for today’s students. Baruch College has become a national model, and all alumni can and should take pride in their alma mater.”
Read more: Through the Years – Alumni from Each Decade Look Back—and Ahead
