This year, New School students and staff are celebrating the 100 year anniversary of our schools founding. When The New School for Social Research was founded, its aim was to build a different kind of education, one that’s more accessible to the common man and a place where radical ideas that benefit the common man can be taken seriously. The professors, scientists, and historians that founded the school were sick of education being impeded by bureaucracy. A lot has changed in education as a whole in the last hundred years, and bureaucracy has not done a lot in its favor. But unfortunately, The New School has dug itself deeper into corporate corruption than most schools, despite starting out as strongly against that ideology. The New School for Social Research started out as controversial for its radical leftist ideas, but the source of our controversy now comes from union busting, issues with sexual assault, and what I’ll be focusing on today, administrative greed.
While the school still advertises a progressive attitude, the acts of the administration tell a different story. This causes conflict due to the radical nature of the students because it’s the demographic they market to, a method that’s confusing, to say the least. The schools’ official Twitter bio claims to “welcome dissent”, but the view from the inside is a warped version. The New School ranks among the lowest for employing full-time teachers – only 19% compared to the national average of 51%. A study done in 2017 revealed that the school’s president, David Van Zandt, earns an estimated 2,081,584 while the salary of a full-time professor at The New School is roughly 1/25th of that, at $82,798. The salary of a FULL-TIME professor, a position that is coveted among the school’s faculty, is still scant compared to David Van Zandt’s. And the cherry on top? There was a 3.8% rise in tuition last year, meaning we’re paying more for an education that the administration is cheaping out on.
All of this is in direct contradiction to The Proposal for an Independent School of Social Science, The New School’s founding document. So what can we do when what’s promised to the Student Body isn’t delivered? How can we use our voice (or dollars) to turn the tide? David Van Zandt’s contract is up at the end of the 2019-2020 school year, and as the school begins to search for a replacement, make sure to make your presence known to the administration.