Category: Blog 8

1. The connections is Reed making between the 1978-1992 “retrenchment period” at CUNY and the Covid-19 pandemic has a lot to do with death which was mentioned a lot. Things were not good at all during what is known as the “retrenchment period” because free education was no longer something people would look forward to. “We cannot accept the death of this great, free University because we cannot accept the death of the spirit, the death of aspirations, the death of the future, that will surely follow for our children, the students”. Like this was a sudden change to what was once a free way to receive collegiate education and this changed all the students lives as well. With COVID-19 being the cause of many deaths, this is how Reed would connect the two since CUNY would bring many deaths to student’s futures.
2.  The suggestion that Reed makes for both anti-racist and anti-austerity groups at CUNY is that they take all of the demands at each colleges have then they could come together and resolve it as a whole. “If these ten demands were combined with the demands of Brooklyn College’s Anti-Racist Coalition, CUNY Law, Hunter, Lehman, and beyond (as the Brooklyn PSC chapter suggests), then we could activate them altogether instead of continuing to silo them as “racial justice” or “economic justice” issues respectively”.
3.  Reed used the term “death cult” to show to the readers how all the change in CUNY have really made it unoticeable. It reminds of how the many examples of neoliberalism since there are so many ways the city tries to make itself new. Due to this dealth cult, it made CUNY impossible for students who come from minority communities to afford it. This dealth cult showed how neoliberalism destroyed what was once great to so many people.

CUNY Dream

1. 1. During the “retrenchment period” at CUNY, there were almost 5000 layoffs of faculty and staff causing newly won ethic study classes to close and threats to close CUNY’s like Hostos and Medgar because of the Fall 1976 Tuition policy. Tuition increased and there were budget cuts to the state. These cuts and tuition increases resulted in an increase in neoliberalism and supports the idea that CUNY’s need to have tuition and by doing so creates many borders for people who can not afford to pay these amounts to a college. The massive budget cuts also resulted in staff being laid off, so not only were students not able to continue their education but people lost their jobs. With Covid-19 the economic downfall caused 3000 adjuncts to lose their jobs and hundreds lost their healthcare coverage. Also terminating other campus workers for Fall 2020. These two situations both impacted CUNY in a negative direction but in both cases, students and faculty suffered the most. They lost their jobs, their availability to go to school and their assurance to be healthy. 
   2. Reed uses the term “death cult” in the context that taking away CUNY from students who come from minority communities is beneficial to the people at the top, people with money. Students go to CUNY because it is affordable and it is an opportunity for someone to continue going to school. By making Cuny expensive, the cuny system is killing the hopes of many people and converting it to a system that cares more about the money than people. While this is happening, it was undoing the work of protestors in wanting to keep CUNY free and available for the most part. Death Cult is referring to neoliberalism taking away once again. 
   3. The Fall 2019 Latinx Student Alliance 

   Students wrote “to see themselves in their classes, to see themselves as possible authors of their own texts” 

    In summation, the letter stated that the students want more Latinx and African American literature added to the core requirements. Lehman is 50% made up of Hispanic or Latino students and they want more diversity in their literature. Lehman only had British-focussed Literature and the students didn’t resonate  and connect with that type of literature. Because Lehman was the first institution to form cultural studies in CUNY, it is only fair to diversify these studies for everyone. All in all, students want to increase different cultural studies in Lehman because history can not only be seen in a specific way and they want their education to be broad and diverse from history that erased people from its texts.

 

 

https://jamboard.google.com/d/1AQLnQRAGEEKkq6w3vholPPFTBsviRoGKvb5YD01x684/edit?usp=sharing

1. After 1973, the federal government ushered in a comprehensive privatization policy, claiming that only by allowing unelected emergency financial control boards to cut public services, such as free college education, could New York City be saved from bankruptcy. But along with the cuts to public services, they are also reducing the number of teachers. They did this not only because the workers refused to pay, but also because they wanted the government to put pressure on the workers to pay, but also to warn them of the consequences of non-payment through the unemployment of teachers in the schools.Reed believes that as long as it’s about national interest, economic issues, the government will be the first to take public universities to make up for it 

3. The LSA wrote in a very respectful format about adding diversity to the English program. The LSA represents a student body that believes that English classes should not be knowledge of one traditional way of teaching English to students. They even use Lehman College as the first institution to bring forth cultural studies in CUNY as an example to make the school agree to add more diversities to English courses. Whenever we talk about English, we will always think about the English from Britain because of the history. We are learning Shakspeare’s artworks, the most classic one is called Romeo and Juliet. People will just think that the real good English is from Britain or by White people. LSA thinks that English literature is not just from Britain, but also from the minorities. LSA wants students to see the diversity of English, to let them know the history of minories behind English literature. Each minority has their own English literature. 

4. It should not be reduced to merely taking on the task of setting the direction of the movement or quietly following orders, but rather building active, strategic collaboration across differences, seizing this rare moment to achieve multi-issue change that was unimaginable even a year ago. Such as labor movement or protest, if those anti-racist and anti-austerity groups do not start fighting for themselves, they will be forgotten, no one will really go solving the problems for them.

My dream CUNY:

1. The connections Reed makes between the 1978-1992 “retrenchment period” at CUNY and the Covid-19 pandemic is how the decrease of funding for CUNY led to the layoff of many workers, including that adjunct professors, as well as negatively affecting the students of CUNY. For instance, during the “retrenchment period,” students were losing the “recently won ethnic studies classes” and there were “threats to close new CUNY colleges,” which would ultimately negatively affect the students taking these classes and those in these colleges. In 2020, “1 in 2 CUNY students already food-and housing -insecure” were now facing “increased unemployment” and the “danger of eviction.” In these two incidents, the lack of government funding to CUNY, caused a negative effect to not solely the staff and faculty that were facing unemployment, but also the students who were facing a decrease in their access to education and their access to security. 
2. Reed uses the term “death cult” in this context as meaning the downfall, or negative effects, that underfunding and ignoring the needs of CUNY has on the city, workers, and students. As neoliberalism grew in the city, the negative effect it had was its disregard in advancing the progress being made in CUNY. This ultimately led CUNY advocates to work even harder in the past decades to try to create a school system that will help out the faculty and students the best they could. The “death cult” then would be allowing the education in CUNY to falter in the face of a lack of resources and assistance. 
3. The Latinx Student alliance campaign to decolonize the Lehman College English curriculum stems from the fact that the vast majority of the undergrad students at the college are underrepresented in the current core English texts and curriculum. They described how they came to make this decision as they tried different ways to help the students be able to have access to texts that reflect them and their experiences. For instance, having a book club, but realizing how being able to have access to texts that represent and reflect them should not be so hard to find in an institution that they pay to attend. Therefore, reaching out and having this campaign that allows these texts to be able to be readily accessible for all undergrad students, not solely to those who need to take a specific class in order to read these stories. 

Idealistic CUNY:

https://jamboard.google.com/d/1-8a_eoPndjXy2ipkbA0VX5OxJPZS-Gij-9KtBGo0KgI/edit?usp=sharing

1. The connections that Reed is making between the 1978-1992 “retrenchment period” at CUNY and the Covid-19 pandemic is the similarity of death. In the 1978-1992 “retrenchment period,” there was a death of free education throughout CUNY. This was devastating because of how many people it impacted. It completely changed a lot of students’ lives. Reed then connects this to the Covid-19 pandemic by emphasizing how there was actual death occurring at CUNY. It wasn’t just a figure of speech at this point, and he uses this again to emphasize how the pandemic impacts so many students. Both points were made to show the negative effects. During both times, many CUNY workers lost their jobs and many CUNY students lost their education.
2. Reed uses the term “death cult” in the context of emphasizing the way CUNY changed. He uses this term to show how CUNY, something that was once known for being free and accessible, became part of neoliberal America. The people who turn public spaces into privately owned businesses are part of the death cult that Reed is referring to. I think this means we lost another thing to money and power. The cult has privatized many things, including education.
3. For both anti-racist and anti-austerity groups at CUNY, Reed suggests that they come together to share ideas instead of focusing on themselves. He says all the programs at CUNY colleges should discuss their feelings and beliefs with each other in order to have more of an affect on the CUNY environment. By bringing all the colleges together, the message could be louder and bigger.

The CUNY of my dreams —

https://jamboard.google.com/d/1P_YmingRR5lel2ugy_pGa8fwHhJYn2AeNZW9ntp7KCc/edit?usp=sharing