COOPER UNION PRESIDENT RESIGNS

Cooper Union president Jamshed Bharucha has resigned, immediately following the resignations of five trustees yesterday, including architect Daniel Libeskind, reports the Wall Street Journal’s Mike Vilensky. Bharucha plans to leave at the end of the month, concluding his four years as president of the school.

Vilensky notes that all the resignations come at a “tense time” for Cooper Union: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman last year began probing the board’s monetary decisions, following the school’s decision to start charging undergraduate tuition. Before 2014, the school had been free to students since its founding.

Vilensky notes that Bharucha’s departure also comes in the “wake of a rift between [him and] Richard Lincer, the board chairman and a corporate lawyer.” Bharucha has consistently defended the decision to charge tuition, writing, “The class completing its freshman year was the first to be admitted under the 2013 Financial Sustainability Plan, and the class just admitted will be the second. These two classes uphold Cooper’s unparalleled standard of excellence. With need-based financial aid, we have also been able to increase access to those who can least afford it, as shown by an increase in the proportion of students eligible for Federal Pell Grants.”