Back when I pretended to be an academic well enough to end up chairing the faculty senate for “The New School: A University” (A+ branding there, guys), I berated the president, provost, and trustees about doing what Bennington is doing here. Why? Because the university’s business model was an accident waiting to happen. Edus have incredibly high fixed costs under the best of circumstances, but at 5th Ave and 14th they’re mind-blowing. Most Americans balk at ponying up a half mill in tuition + living expenses for a bachelors degree — so TNS depended on revenues from international students. Sooner or later, I argued, and probably sooner, some sh*t would hit the fan. The risks I listed off: another ’08-style economic meltdown, a nationalist president cracking down on immigration or alienating China, instability in the EU, and (yes) a SARS-ish pandemic. The solution? TNS should go back to its socially oriented mission, but with mad style, like the Pompidou Center: expose its workings for all to see. That wouldn’t mean changing everything, it just meant looking for every opportunity to make aspects of what was happening publicly visible: lectures, seminars, demos, crits, syllabi, pathways, adjacencies, events — everything and anything. And why was that a solution? Because TNS needed to start figuring out how to reinvent its relationship to its surroundings, finding new constituencies for new activities, and — above all — BUILDING THE INTERNAL EXPERTISE NEEDED TO RECOGNIZE AND PURSUE NEW, MORE FLEXIBLE BUSINESS MODELS. That was several years ago, and here we are. I wish TNS the best, but if this academic year goes how I think it’ll go (for everyone, not just TNS) it’s in very deep trouble. Props to Bennington for doing this, even if it’s a day late and dollar short.