Reflecting On 2024 and Turning Toward 2025
A Message from Joel Towers, President and University Professor
To The New School community,
As the fall semester comes to a close and we approach the end of 2024, I am writing with some reflections on the year that has been and the path ahead. I want to begin with the resilience and passion of The New School. Over the past few weeks in performances, open studios, galleries, lecture halls, seminars, making spaces, centers, institutes, and design reviews, I have witnessed the profound talent and dedication that resides at the heart of our university. The New School we create by gathering here together from around the world in the pursuit of learning is nothing short of extraordinary. There are precious few places in the lives of humans like a university. And in a world as complex, interwoven, and broken as ours, knowledge translated into action through research, scholarship, and creative practice is essential.
2024 confronted the world with the scourge of violence and war that plagued communities from Gaza to Ukraine, Sudan to Myanmar. It laid bare the interwoven dynamics of climate change, declining democratic norms, inequality, a biodiversity crisis, and their collective impact on health, creativity, knowledge, and well-being. Progress this year, complicated as always by power and position, felt increasingly illusory. Meanwhile, a radically distributed media landscape continued to multiply narratives and redefine facts at a pace not easily metabolized or corrected, leading to political polarization and social fragmentation. None of this, however, is preordained. Nor is it particularly new. But it does define the challenges of our time, compounded by a new administration in Washington, D.C. that threatens the mission and values of The New School.
It is precisely at times like these that we must redouble our commitment to making positive change. And as I look toward 2025, all my focus is on The New School and our path forward. The New School, and higher education more broadly, have never been more important. But to offer new ways to navigate the challenges of our time and develop the capacities to succeed amidst complexity, we will also need to change. We will have to recommit ourselves to the creation of communities of practice where the intellectual and creative production so desperately needed in the world today can thrive.
I am grateful for the commitment that is in evidence at The New School and your dedication to our future. Faculty and staff across the university have ensured a robust and rigorous semester to the benefit of all students. The Board of Trustees has been tireless in their work stewarding the university and together we have raised over $18 million this semester. In addition, the Board has dedicated an extraordinary amount of time to considering the Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR) motion on divestment to zero from a select set of military securities. Last week, after extensive deliberation, the Board decided not to accept the ACIR’s recommendation. I believe this is the correct action. The securities that have been the focus of the divestment discussion are not held in the endowment in any meaningful way. As the ACIR has pointed out, our blended portfolio has a de minimis (0.07%) exposure to the identified stocks. There is nothing to divest from. The Board’s decision is, at its core, motivated by honoring our educational mission. Furthermore, it ensures university resources for research and education, while upholding the Board’s fiduciary responsibility to preserve and grow the endowment across generations.
The further articulation of the challenges of our time, and our commitment to structure The New School to best address them while supporting the highest level of achievement for our students, demands our full attention, courage, and creativity. This work must be our top priority in the new year. We will also continue to strengthen our community and the policies and procedures that ensure fairness, equity, academic freedom, and accountability. I have heard your concerns about the proper function and support of Title IX, Title VI, and, as we prepare to welcome a new Ombuds, we will advance efforts to ensure the creation of a more robust ecosystem of options to mutually support our work and each other. Finally, as I assured you in my message a few weeks ago, we will stand firm in our commitment to safeguard our mission and the diversity of opinion and people who make up The New School regardless of the challenges presented by a new administration in Washington, D.C.
At the beginning of the Spring semester, we will announce dates for our ongoing series of community meetings to engage in conversation around these issues and others. Together we will address the challenges ahead through our commitment to education and a shared understanding that our charge is to build The New School of our time. It is the work each new generation of this storied institution takes on as we accept the baton from those who came before. It is a task that should be filled with joy, creativity, and courage, and be characterized by the very best we have to offer.