COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

MAY DAY FREE UNIVERSITY

http://youtu.be/1jYnXthkHd8

The Free University is a collective educational experiment that will be held on May 1, 2012, from 10am-3pm. In solidarity with the general strike, the Free University offers a public space for the 99% to disengage from an unequal system and imagine a model for alternative education. Those gathered in Madison Square Park, and those meeting in other spaces in solidarity, will create a university that is open to all, without debt or tuition for students, without pre-requisites, age limits or any other disqualifying requirements. Learning can only happen through interaction, exchange, and dialogue. To create a living future together, all must be included and welcome.

The Free University is an open invitation to educators around New York City to participate in May Day 2012. During the day, lectures, workshops, skill-shares, and discussions will be held — all open to the public. If you are in solidarity with the general strike but cannot cancel your class, bring it here! We also invite all educators interested in volunteering special sessions and classes for the day. We will have designated spaces for the quieter and more intimate classes.

No single day, park, or effort can contain our vision; instead, we propose and will struggle to make all our universities places of free education, inquiry, and access to knowledge for all. We demand that our society put forward the necessary resources to provide such an education for all.

Free U is a project made in partnership with educators and students from Brooklyn College/CUNY Grad Center/Eugene Lang College/New School for Social Research/Hunter College/ /Pratt Institute/New York University/Queensborough Community College/ Rutgers/Columbia University/Princeton.

I did engineering, economics and accountancy in my formal education a long time ago ... have had some success in the corporate world and done work on issues associated with poverty alleviation around the world. Money profit accounting is very powerful and works for the investors agenda in for profit corporate business, but works poorly for NGOs, government agencies and society as a whole.

I want to see economic activity produce not only profit for investors and executives, but what I call valueadd for all the other stakeholders in economic activity ... employees, customers, society (family, community, nation), environment, future generations, etc, We need metrics for this that are as rigorous and as powerful as money profit accounting ... a system that is easy to use and can be as ubiquitous as the smart-phone.

My work in this direction is being called TrueValueMetrics ... see TrueValueMetrics.org ... a work-in-progress but progress nonetheless.

Critics say this can never succeed because it does not have profit as its goal... but that is the point. Many important things do not generate profit, but they certainly do something for quality of life.... and without metrics are ignored.

Peter Burgess
@truevaluemetric
212 744 6469

I will come into Madison Square Park on May1