About

HISTORY:
In November of 2008, a handful of students at Brooklyn College, inspired by discussions at the CUNY Social Forum, came together and decided to found a Student Union. We were disillusioned by the structures of student participation available to us.

While organizations like NYPIRG advocated for student rights in city and state government, and recruited students on campus to join them, there was no organization that was entirely based at Brooklyn College, led by Brooklyn College students, and focused on problems within our own college and university system. What’s more, NYPIRG and other more formalized groups were limited by their dependency on the college for funding and space. So while they could petition public officials and send delegations of students to Albany, their hands were tied when it came to issues such as student participation (more) at Brooklyn College.

From the start, the BC Student Union was intended to be an incubator for student initiatives, a network for students to find others with the same concerns and start organizing, an autonomous means of communication between students. We did not have an explicit commitment to participatory democracy and no one had participated in formal training in consensus, yet this is what we attempted in practice, in contrast to the hierarchical structures surrounding us at the college.

Many students considered themselves part of the Student Union even if they rarely or never attended a meeting. This became evident when we began organizing for a student walkout in protest of the tuition hikes and budget cuts proposed for the coming year. A diverse array of student clubs joined in the organizing effort and student government provided their official endorsement.

Although the walkout did not stop the state legislature from passing a tuition hike and significant budget cuts (in fact, our walkout happened just after these measures had been passed), it was a profound experience for our campus community. More than 500 students rallied in front of the steps at Boylan Hall in a display of widespread outrage that had not been seen at the college in at least 10 years. It was invigorating and inspiring to get a sense of this potential. Students who had felt isolated were gratified to see so many students out; and long-time faculty stood back in awe at the burgeoning student movement, relieved that we were still capable of such an action.

Organizing for the walkout also opened new doors with our college administration. It had been a long time since students had organized en mass and they seemed at a loss for how to handle students actively trying to break the college’s rules. The Student Union was organized outside of the college’s Office of Student Life, so it was difficult for them to monitor our activities and since we did not depend on them for funding or space, there was nothing they could use to threaten us. And so, in the intense days of organizing just before the walkout, the college administration decided to work with us instead of trying to stop our action. Any effort they might have made to stop the rally would likely have created more unrest, so their best option was to be supportive.

We may be overestimating the power we held over the college administration – and many of them were personally supportive even if their jobs required them to control our action- but it genuinely seemed as if we had found a way to go around them. Simply by disregarding their structures of authority, we created a more autonomous space for ourselves, protected by our numbers and their fear of intensifying the movement. At the same time, our ability to bring out so many students on a commuter campus where student participation is woefully low, seemed to have impressed them. Thus, when we came to them with a proposal to start a student-run cooperative business, they were listening. And if this was our idea of radical action, they were going to support it.