Looking for progressive/liberal work in NYC area

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

I have the option of moving in with a friend in NYC and am looking for work in either progressive politics or journalism. Does anyone have any recommendations for places I can look into? I have about two years work experience in my field and a masters' in journalism.

[CollegeDUer]

1. Look at NYU and the Village

I don't live in NYC but have family that does and considered NYU. It's a great place for people who want to change the world, with all the organizations connected to it and surrounding it.

[readmoreoften]

2. No! Don't apply to NYU. It's a nightmare place to work for the most part.

A pseudo-liberal institution with conservative ties that treats its workers like garbage. A complete kafkaesque nightmare of incompetence and social climbing that will almost surely leave you running back to the hills from wence you came. NYU is basically a real estate company with good marketing. The city is blocking $5 million dollars and refusing to let it expand any further due to NYU's labor violations.

There are many liberal institions in NYC, it's too broad of a post for anyone to really help you.

[Fredda Weinberg]

3. I'm afraid you'll find that almost anywhere here in NY

And I speak from sad experience.

[CollegeDUer]

4. Er -- what?

I know of the Grad Student Union and its problems but NYU generally has a reputation for good liberal work. Heck, it took on Coke. My university, UGA, would rather shut down than do that.

[readmoreoften]

7. No, it's reputation is based on branding. See my post below.

Sorry I misposted... :)

[Karenca]

5. That's so strange to hear.

I know so many people currently employed at NYU.

I never heard anything but positive feedback from them.

[readmoreoften]

6. NYU is not a progressive institution by any stretch.

Let's look at a few departments:

Public Safety: (1) according to the security guards I spoke with, the University bilked funds out of Homeland Security and actually had to return the money because anonymous employee phonecalls lead the government to discover that they had only used the money to change buy new insignia for the workers' uniforms. The rest was pocketed.
(2) Also from the security guards. The U. Pres had friends on the city police force and uses university money to hire his retired pals to the position of sargeant. They don't actually do any work, they just receive a paycheck.

The TA/Adjunct and Faculty Democracy situation: 50% of the teachers at NYU are low-paid non-unionized teaching assistants. 25-30% are adjuncts. Beyond the absolutely vicious anti-union campaign against the TAs (and I mean VICIOUS), there are constant payroll issues with adjuncts. In my department (Writing), some adjuncts were not paid until Dec. for work during the fall term. Adjuncts just won unionization. In Chemistry, the graduate students largely do not speak English. Instead of hiring adjuncts, or training the foreign grads to speak English, they hire UNDERGRADUATES who took the course a year earlier as teachers. (In other words, students pay $46,000 a year in tuition to be taught by college juniors.) Faculty Democracy is an organization of about 250 professors on campus who formed to police the University's out-of-control management style. With the exception of 3 or 4 members they are pretty timid. There is such an extreme "punishment" atmosphere at NYU, many are afraid that if they get too active in FD, they will be blacklisted from funding, etc.

Example from a Professional Masters Programs: In the program I'm associated with, in one year the Director quit AND the newly hired Assistant Director quit (after one year). There is no one directing the Graduate Program now except the secretaries. There are almost no tenured faculty in the department. Some professors have been at the university for 10-15 years full-time without tenure earning under 40K a year (in NYC) These are not adjuncts, these are permanent faculty with massive publication records.

"Endowed" Professorial Lines: As part of the new "enterprise model" rich alumni can buy tenure lines in their home departments. For example, in one department (Sorry, I forget, it was either Spanish or Comp Lit) the grads and professors voted on bringing in a professor who worked in provocative areas of their discipline, but the funding alumni can trump the professors and bring in new faculty that they personally find interesting (regardless of merit) whether or not it is what the department wants. The professor the department wanted was not hired.

At NYU, you are either in a great department with excellent funding and good attitudes (on board with the administration), or you are in a nightmare department (challenging the administration). If you are a secretary, maintenance, library staff (who are also on the verge of striking) you have your UNIONS to thank for your good working conditions. I have worked at other universities, so I am familiar with university politics and this is not politics as usual. The university is NOT LIBERAL, that is its marketing rhetoric. It is pushing forward the "enterprise model" for university governance-- akin to Walmart economics-- and is at the vanguard of deteriorating working conditions across academia.

Yes, they banned Coke. But that is only because a radical student group worked for years on the ban and the students approved it. It's not really a big deal. Remember, the poli-sci and economics department at NYU are extremely conservative and well-funded. Last year they gave honorary degrees to Uribe and Kissinger. This is the university that destroyed Edgar Allan Poe's house (even after a Save Poe's House legal campaign led by Woody Allen and E.L. Doctorow) to expand the law school property. You shouldn't have to fight with a university to save historical monuments. NYU is the largest private landholder in Manhattan with major conservatives on the Board of Trustees (Larry Silverstein, Mort Zuckerman, for example). The university has ripped apart Greenwich Village and citizens watchdog groups and community boards do everything they can to stop the university from destroying their neighborhoods. I had to watch a very pitiful display of senior citizens begging NYU to let them keep their tiny community garden and their local grocery store (both buildings owned by NYU.) The seniors said that there was no other grocery store in walking distance and it would put them in serious danger. NYU would give them no guarantees.

I could go on and on all day. I work at NYU and I'm a member of two unions fighting the administration there. I'm getting out as soon as I can. Whether or not NYU is a "good" place to work is debatable, but this person was looking for progressive places to work. NYU is not a progressive place to work.

[CollegeDUer]

8. You've certainly given me a different perspective

I cringe at the thought of the liberal institutions caving in.

[readmoreoften]

9. I'm not sure how liberal of an institution it ever was. At least recently.

In the 60s of course, the campus was much more liberal and there are many liberals who work there, most certainly. But the university itself is far from "liberal". It is a private university, after all. Over the past 15 years, the school has "remade" its image, largely through hiring a few top faculty at enormous cost and using cheap labor for everything else. The school has serious Ivy Envy (in fact people at NYU bizarrely refer to it as an ivy league school all the time.) Funny, I was told during "faculty orientation" that the school is "highly selective" and only accepts 35% of its applicants (35% is selective??!!!) and this year tuition went up to over $46,000 for undergrads (who take 8 courses a year).

As far as I know, CUNY is a good, liberal institution. I'd love to work there. Real diversity, solid scholarship. If I stay in academia at all, I'd like to get my foot in the door there even though the pay is a little lower.