In the fall of 2021, a Visiting Committee of external scholars was convened to conduct a review of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) at The Cooper Union. The Committee’s charge was to assess and, as needed, reimagine the structure, curriculum, and pedagogical approaches of HSS through a thoughtful and comprehensive process.

This work is part of an important effort to reflect on, re-envision, and commit to the ways in which professional practice can be meaningfully influenced by HSS’s longstanding commitment to providing ethical, social, and humanistic frameworks that are crucial to personal development, professional excellence, and engaged citizenship for our students.

The Visiting Committee submitted its report to the Office of the President on March 29, 2022.  Read the findings and recommendations here.

Visiting Committee Members

Committee Chair

Ben Vinson, Provost at Case Western Reserve University

Committee Members

Bolaji Campbell, Professor of Theory and History of Art and Design, at RISD

Kaye Husbands Fealing, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech

Kinohi Nishikawa, Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at Princeton

Nelly Rosario, Associate Professor of Latina/o Studies at Williams College

Susan Silbey, Professor of Humanities, Sociology and Anthropology and Professor of Behavioral and Policy Sciences at MIT

Jonathan Soffer, Professor of History, Department of Technology, Culture and Society at NYU Tandon School of Engineering

Special Advisor to the Committee

Craig Steven Wilder, Barton L. Weller Professor of History, MIT