12-10-2013 Message in Support of the Borkowski/Gural Working Group Members of the Cooper Union Community:

For the past few months, The Cooper Union Alumni Association (CUAA), Friends of Cooper Union and Free Cooper have supported the work of the Working Group (WG) founded by Trustees Jeff Gural and Michael Borkowsky.

This group includes administration, alumni, faculty (full time and part time), student and trustee representatives from the Cooper community. It is tasked with finding ways and means to return Cooper to being tuition free. This group has already presented their recommendations to the Financial committee of the Cooper Union Board of Trustees and will present them to the full Board of Trustees on December 11, 2013.

We hope that you agree when we say that we would like to see the Board of Trustees make a serious, reasoned review of the WG Plan and measure it carefully against the Tuition Plan. Both plans have elements that are based on projections of future costs and revenues. It is our view, that the same care and scrutiny must be applied to both plans so that Cooper has a truly sustainable plan for the future that we can all participate in fulfilling.

It is our request that the Board of Trustees, as the stewards of the Cooper Union, articulate a sustainable plan that returns The Cooper Union to being tuition free.

We are deeply grateful to all of the representatives of the Working Group, for their service to The Cooper Union. We look forward to seeing the results of the Board of Trustees full review of the report and the tuition plan.

Signed,

CUAA President: John Leeper AR ’85

Alumni Trustee: Kevin Slavin A ’95

CUAA Vice President/Alumni Activities: Rocco Cetera CE ’99

CUAA Vice President/Faculty and Student Liaison: Lawrence Hausman EE ’94

CUAA Secretary/Treasurer: Robert Tan AR ’81

CUAA Nominating Committee Chair: Karina Tipton CE ’99

CUAA Annual Fund Committee Chairs: Darrell Low EE ’89, Kelly Smolar ME’07 / MME’11

CUAA Co-Chair of Communications Committee: Sean Cusack BSE’98