While most demonstrations in the wake of last fall’s Occupy Wall Street movement have served as little more than a soapbox for student voices, Students for a Free Cooper Union have proven far more successful in fostering a tangible discourse on the state of higher education.

Tuition-free since 1902, Cooper Union’s mission of providing education “free as air and water” has long served as a progressive model for American colleges and universities. Now, Students for a Free Cooper Union have taken a stand against an administration that they say has mismanaged Cooper Union into a financial abyss, and consequently threatened that very mission. On December 3, eleven protesters locked themselves into the eighth floor of Cooper’s Foundation Building, occupying the space and demanding that the administration implement serious institutional reforms.

In the Cooper Eleven’s communique, the group brought the challenges facing their own institution into a greater context, showing how these issues concern the student community in New York City at large. This resonates with the last major act of protest held at our own university — the “all-city student occupation” at 90 Fifth Ave. last fall. Yet what had the potential to serve as a major forum for discourse fell apart when students were unable to formulate clear demands and allowed political infighting to scupper progress.

The Cooper Eleven spent months planning their action. Their effort was informed, organized and unified. Rather than fret over petty political differences, or whether or not they could smoke in the occupied space, they worked on reaching out to the media and galvanizing the greater student community in New York. Their goals were clear, and their methods inclusive.

Cooper students have clearly identified what they consider structural flaws at their respective institution and have communicated concise demands to the administration. It is unfortunate that students at The New School, where activism and progressive values are supposedly cherished, have failed thus far to organize as compelling an argument.