The readings all seem to land well for me, but this might be becasue I have been reading so many blogs, stories, articles, etcc.. on having to decide between people and money.
Some qoutes that stood out to me from the readings are
“College presidents and their boards have a seemingly impossible choice..” – College Choice
“At that moment, we hoped to complete our research projects, write our papers, and pass our last class before throwing our caps in the sky and celebrating with our class of 2020” – John Jay Project
“It seems likely that no other college has suffered any many deaths as CUNY” (Robin, 2020)
I am anchoring on a few ideas that are coming from the readings
- How capitalism is showing up in “Plans to re open”
- How money seems to be the motivating factor for a-lot of private/public institutions.
- Notions of academic mutual aid and what that might look like for CUNY.
- Are we prioritizing stopping death or keeping life?
I recently published an article this summer that I believe adds to this discourse of this weeks readings (see below)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02615479.2020.1825665?needAccess=true
Agreed, it’s a true conundrum when trying to balance student’s needs and safety with current fiscal budgets. I’ve recently witnessed administrators apply emergency scholarship funds based on academic progression or those more likely to academically succeed. The triaging of students for funding can feel very disconcerting since it can mean the difference between eating or potentially going homeless.
Thanks for sharing the article too!
Thanks for linking to the article which excellently captures the organizing strategies of the summer amidst intertwined pandemics and crises. I’m struck by your question of what mutual aid might look like for CUNY. I can think of a number of examples in existence already, from food pantries to childcare collectives, but I’m not sure if I think of them as being academic (which I may be defining too narrowly). I like that you used that word because it is pushing me to think about what mutual aid might look like in our course this spring? How can we care for and support one another, building community in the hyperindividualistic mode of online learning?
I am thinking about publishing more on Mutual Aid during the pandemic. Thank you for offering some insights!
Here are a couple of CUNY Mutual Aid projects that I have seen during COVID:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CU_RN2WV-bnW7SATAv6MxrfKVixCSjo2bJIsMMc7ng0/edit
https://lacuny.org/news/9040566 (I help organize this one, happy to speak further about it 🙂