- 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.
- 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.
- 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
The diversity of classes are important to students. Lack of diversities will decrease the interest of student on learning English class, especially the old English. Communication also plays an important role on letting students share their own thoughts about the English artwork that they’ve read so far.
I agree that the “death cult” had to do with the negative effects going on. Neoliberalism took so much away, including education and it hurt so many people. The people themselves can only do so much — they needed government funding to keep CUNY going.