Blueprint for disruption

The New School's new president is a member of the faculty - only the second internal president we've had - and an architect. He kicked off his presidency with a talk today framed by the architecture of the first building purpose-built for us, which included the large lecture-performance hall in which he spoke as well as a dance studio, a library, classrooms, and studios for "design and modeling" - whatever that meant in 1930! I took this picture shortly before student protesters started interrupting him with questions about his predecessor's decisions regarding the university's alleged investments in companies profiting from the Israeli siege of Gaza and police and disciplinary responses to protestors last semester. He was trying to describe the university as a precious and precarious space which balances comfort (everyone feels safe and respected) and discomfort (all open themselves to the challenges which facilitate learning and new ideas), but they wouldn't hear it. Compared to Gaza, whose very universities are among the casualties of the war, anything we do can feel like hand-waving. It made for a grim start to the year.