do something with all the passion we have. There is no lack of passion at Purchase!”
Matthew Immergut
You’re always bouncing ideas and socializing and working with teams. —Nicholas Bruckman ’06
Ingraham stresses that faculty support is essential to student initiative. “My philosophy is ‘Don’t tell us what you are going to do; just do it. Don’t break the law and we’ve got your back.’”
On an overcast day last March, the Purchase chapters of New York Students Rising (NYSR) and New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), with support from the Sociology Club, held a “Funeral for Higher Education” to protest SUNY tuition hikes. NYSR is a statewide network of students and campus organizations dedicated to defending public higher education and empowering students in New York State; NYPIRG is a statewide, nonpartisan political organization. The Purchase chapters of both organizations, as well as the Sociology Club, are quite active.
CREAT ING CONNEC T IONS
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins, a faculty member on the sculpture board of study, School of Art+Design, since 2010, uses public art and community action to forge connections among people, creating what he calls “sculptural interventions in the daily lives of strangers.” Having lived throughout the world, including in Japan, Fiji, Serbia, and two years with the Peace Corps in Benin, West Africa, he has witnessed the difficulty inherent in cross-cultural assimilation. He teaches the Arts for Social Change
course at Purchase, and hopes his work will inspire a dialogue that exposes the folly of making assumptions about others and humanizes people along the way. His projects offer a healthy dose of social critique infused with fearlessness and humor. Sitting under the elephant tree on a scorching day in June, he talked about his process. “Usually it’s recognizing I’m part of some system that feels screwed up in some way. And then I try to think about my role in that system, and what other people’s roles are, and how we can twist them a bit. It’s usually not ‘How do I solve this big crisis?’ It’s more of ‘Here’s a system that’s flawed or that I know I’m entrenched in, and what are some ways I can poke at what’s happening?’” The Arts for Social Change course offers Purchase students the chance to explore public art as a tool to promote community engagement and cross-cultural interaction. The course takes place in Port Chester, where students research local community issues, work with residents, and implement physical solutions through art. They distill their ideas into a series of steps, any of which would provide satisfactory results. Robbins acknowledges that some in the art world might criticize him for instrumentalizing art, or turning art into a tool. He confides, “I don’t care if I’m instrumentalizing art; if I can actually do something in the world, and that’s a bad thing, fine, I’m a bad artist.”
Students “Occupy Purchase”
COLLA B ORAT I V E SPIRI T The Arts for Social Change, the new media major at Purchase, and the like could not exist were it not for the spirit of collaboration flourishing among faculty and students. Suzanne Kessler, dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, acknowledges that interdisciplinary studies may be a national trend, but the lines at Purchase are truly blurred. Through many programs’ open curricula, P U R C HA S E | 10
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