By: Don Driggers
As the CUNY administration continues what they describe as difficult but necessary adjustments to revenue losses from the pandemic and decreases in state aid, the NY Post reported CUNY is selling the posh digs that typically house campus presidents at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn and the College of Staten Island.
CUNY faculty and students have been at odds with Chancellor Rodriguez and the board of trustees as the institution has entered austerity measures.
CUNY’s austerity has forced colleges to diminish course offerings and expand class sizes to unprecedented levels, even as tuition continues to rise. PSC recently filed a petition for a reduction in class sizes. “We’re seeing class sizes balloon like crazy. At City College there has been a couple bad cases of that, but Medgar Evers has been one of the worst, with seventy-five students in required intro classes,” said Robert Balun of “Rank and File Action”, a grassroots organization of labor activists at CUNY, according to an article from The Campus.
CUNY had purchased a condo unit in Williamsburgh Savings tower building near the Barclays Center in Downtown Brooklyn — for $1.5 million in 2010 to house the Medgar Evers College president, Rudy Crew, which is now appraised at $3 million.
Meanwhile CUNY is unloading a house at 35 Beebe St. in Staten Island’s tony Emerson Hill community facing the New York Harbor, which it bought in 1999. William Fritz is the CSI president. The island property is now appraised at $1.3 million, officials said, the Post reported.
The Post pointed out: CUNY spokesman Frank Sobrino said, “Regarding the Medgar Evers College and College of Staten Island residences: As part of an ongoing review of assets to identify potential sources of revenue or savings that could support the University’s core educational mission, CUNY has decided to sell these properties.”
Meanwhile, the socialist minded political science student activists at the public university are calling for student strikes.
Amanuel Hailu, a student in the City College Young Democratic Socialists of America Society, is fed up with CUNY’s sorry state of affairs. “Many students would be surprised to learn that prior to 1976, CUNY provided a free and quality education, and that’s what students should demand today, especially when we are all currently paying full tuition for Zoom lectures. We need that kind of student solidarity more than ever today. City College has a proud history of student led strikes”, Hailu stated in an article published by The Campus.
