Dear Cooper Union Community,

Welcome! It was great seeing so many of you at Convocation. As I said in the Great Hall, there is nothing quite like the start of a new academic year. Everything feels fresh, energy is high, and there is excitement about all that is possible.

To our newest students, faculty, and staff, welcome to The Cooper Union. You are joining an extraordinary community, and I hope you will quickly discover what I did when I arrived a year ago: there is so much possibility here, so many opportunities to build upon for meaningful academic and professional experiences.

The year ahead will be an important one for The Cooper Union.

We are now eight years into the 10-year Free Education Committee (FEC) Plan. That plan was developed after one of the most difficult periods in Cooper’s history when the decision was made to charge tuition for the very first time. The FEC Plan is what set us on our path to today. It is more than a financial document. It asks what kind of institution we need to build to uphold Peter Cooper’s intention for this institution. It outlines how we need to evolve and what we must preserve. I encourage you to read it, or reread it at the link above. We are closing in on our goal, and the progress we make this year will be critical.

At my inauguration in March, I made two commitments that are deeply connected.

The first was that we would finish out the work of the FEC Plan and return Cooper Union to full-scholarship, tuition-free undergraduate education. The second was that we would do that work as good ancestors: making decisions not only for ourselves, but for the generations of Cooper students who will follow us. Being a good ancestor means leaving behind an institution that is tuition-free and strong enough to remain that way.

Central to all of that is keeping focus on our top three priorities: students, students, students. That means always strengthening the academic experience, and creating new ways to learn across art, architecture, engineering, and the humanities.

It also means trying new things. For example, this summer, approximately 20 students joined the first summer exploratory residency which is part of the Peter Cooper IIP an initiative I announced at my inauguration. Twelve teams advanced ideas that translate promising work in art, architecture, and engineering into impact — a new magazine, a commissioned exhibition, a product that might enter the market, and more. Their work is now on view in the Colonnade. Please take a look.

There are many other ways to engage with new ideas and each other. The Faculty Student Senate, reestablished last year, provides a forum for ideas, concerns, and institutional priorities to be discussed openly and thoughtfully among students, faculty, staff, and administration. Watch CooperConnect for the meeting schedule. Take in or take up the extracurricular happenings across academic programs, including a vibrant schedule all year long of exhibitions, events, and opportunities for experiential learning.

To our new students: Do not simply attend The Cooper Union. Bring us your ideas, questions, impatience, and imagination. Leave this place better because you were here. Make your mark.

To our returning students: You know this place now. Help shape what comes next. Take risks, cross boundaries, look out for one another, and help our newest students understand what is special here.

To our faculty and staff: The next two years may be among the most consequential in Cooper’s recent history. We have important work ahead — academically, financially, culturally, and institutionally — and it will require our judgment, creativity, willingness to listen, and just as important our willingness to change.

There is a quote from Peter Cooper that I keep returning to:

“My hope is to place this institution in the hands and under the control of [leaders] that will both know and feel the importance of forever devoting it, in the most effectual manner, to the … rising generation.”

We have inherited something remarkable. My hope is that we approach this year ambitious for ourselves and generous with one another; and that we commit to making sure that this generation and the ones that follow can say that we strengthened it, protected what mattered, and had the courage to make it better.

Just over a year into my own Cooper journey, I am even more excited about what lies ahead. I hope you are, too.
 

Steven W. McLaughlin
President
The Cooper Union