Message from Dean Shoop -- June 15, 2020

Dear School of Engineering Community,
 
I would like to begin a series of town-hall conversations with the entire engineering community focused on understanding our individual and collective responsibilities and what concrete steps we can take to eradicate racism in the School of Engineering.
 
On June 1st, 70 students, faculty, alumni, and administration held a town hall with the goal being to bring the whole Cooper community together to formulate concrete short-term and long-term plans of action for becoming an actively anti-racist institution. A student letter addressed to the administration of The Cooper Union and delivered on June 8, 2020 is intended to serve as the beginning of a series of conversations needed to foster and transform The Cooper Union into an actively anti-racist institution.
 
The details for this town-hall including the date, time and instructions for joining will be distributed separately by Ms. Nori Perez.
 
Please consider joining us in this very important dialog.
 
Dean Shoop

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.