The New School In Exile

May 3, 2009

Dear Mr. Marshall and Mr. Murtha,

As The New School administration moves to close the building at 65 Fifth Avenue, the university community is faced with an urgent need to lease replacement student space on campus. Spaces dedicated for study and student gathering are a vital community resource, providing a venue for students to build the relationships that are central to producing creative and interdisciplinary academic work. Student space provides a much needed environment for quiet independent study, while also building the school community and enhancing potential for academic accomplishment. Yet, according to the University’s own research, The New School is far behind other New York City campuses in providing dedicated student space, and this situation will be more dire once 65 Fifth Avenue is fully closed. The interim library and study spaces at 55 West 13th Street do not meet the needs that 65 Fifth Avenue currently fulfills, and once 65 Fifth is closed the students who currently use it as a study and group-work space will have nowhere to go. The lack of available space that students will face will further eviscerate our community and sever the cross-department and cross-divisional interactions and communications that make The New School unique. We must immediately add student space in order to restore the community vitality that makes our school and our scholarship so unique.

The students of the New School for Social Research demand that new and fully outfitted student space be made available by September 1, 2009. We demand that during the summer months the University obtain a space that matches or exceeds the square footage of student space available at 65 Fifth Avenue, including both the cafeteria and study room. This space must include all capabilities as the existing space, including a quiet study area, a space for group work and conversation, computer terminals, and wireless internet access. The New School already suffers as students and faculty are placed in disconnected spaces, therefore this new space must be located in close proximity to existing departments. The reasonable limits for placing a new student space are between Sixth Avenue and Irving Place, and from 11th Street to 18th Street. We expect that the GFSS and the University Student Senate will be consulted in every step of this process.

Best regards,
The Graduate Faculty Student Senate
gfss@newschool.edu

• Posted by: alvinjohnson
• Topic: Student Related

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