Note: This is a breaking news story and will continue to be updated as more information becomes available.
On Wednesday, Cooper Union president Jamshed Bharucha announced his resignation, more than a year shy of his contracted five-year term at the Manhattan college. The news follows the resignations of five members of the college’s board of trustees on Tuesday. All supporters of Bharucha, the trustees are Daniel Libeskind, AIA; François De Menil, FAIA; Vassar College president Catherine Hill; former board chairman and real estate manager Mark Epstein; and banker Monica Vachner.
Bharucha's last day at Cooper Union will be June 30. He will become a visiting scholar at Harvard University in the Graduate School of Education this fall. William Mea, the school’s vice president for finance and administration, will take over as interim president on July 1. The board will form a presidential search committee of faculty members, students, and alumni in the fall.
In 2011, Bharucha proposed charging tuition to undergraduate students at the historically-free college known for its arts, engineering, and architecture programs as a way to mitigate a substantial budget deficit. The board shook up the Cooper Union community last year with the announcement of its plans to implement Bharucha's proposal. This prompted not only a lawsuit, but a state investigation into the school’s finances, including the management of the school's prime asset—the land under the Chrysler Building—and a $175 million loan used by fund a new engineering building, according to The New York Times.
