The Cooperative New School for Urban Studies and Environmental Justice (The CNS), like Magic City Agriculture Project, is a combination of the models of The Federation of Southern Cooperatives and Highlander Research and Education Center, the two most important movement organizations in the South. In contrast to MCAP, The CNS uses a cooperative business model instead of a non-profit business model. It is an institution rooted in Southern movements and hopes to replicate the legacies of its elder organizations. Like The Federation and Highlander, The CNS aims to bring the advantages of the Southern movement to the rest of the world.
About Us
Worker Owners of the CNS
The Cooperative New School is an institutional basis for community-based change and cooperative development. The faculty and staff are worker-owners and the students are consumer-owners.
C.N.E. Corbin is a PhD Candidate at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management within the Division of Society & Environment.
I am a PhD Candidate in Geography at UC Berkeley, former Press Director for the Stein/Baraka 2016 Presidential campaign, and a longtime political journalist, educator and organizer involved in a wide range of movements for social & environmental justice.
I am an educator, organizer, public organic intellectual, redneck, banjo player, and homespun gadfly. In 2016, I founded The Cooperative New School for Urban Studies and Environmental Justice. Over the next year, we grew from four to nine faculty- and staff-owners.
I am currently a Senior Program Officer for the McKnight Foundation's International Program. Previously, I coordinated an urban agroecology certificate at Merritt College in Oakland, California. I also co-founded a worker self-directed non-profit called Agroecology Commons.
I am an urban agroecology educator or urbicultora at UNAM, UAQ and ENSQ. I am also an ESL Teacher for future Secondary education teachers. My researchs interests include topics related to community forestry co-ops governance, forest products marketing, urban agroecology and language for Normalistas teachers with a focus on agroecological pedagogies.
Student Owners at the Cooperative New School
We envision growing a committed group of student owners to form communities of learning and scholarship. As a student owner of the CNS, you will receive a 20% discount on the sliding scale pricing on live webinars and 12-week courses offered by the CNS. You also will have access the student owner governance body, with an opportunity to join a portion of the CNS's annual retreat. Student- and faculty-owners design curricula, certificates, and activist scholarship research agendas.