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Day Gleeson

Associate Professor and Academic Advisor

Professor Gleeson has been a member of the full-time faculty in the School of Art since 1985, teaching printmaking and drawing. While serving The Cooper Union with dedication, commitment and distinction, she has developed innovative pedagogical methods in printmaking that constitute a model for teaching undergraduates. Her exemplary service to the College includes a year as Interim Dean and membership on every standing committee in the School of Art. She has chaired the Admissions Committee for over ten years and is currently the Academic Advisor. She has sat on both Middle States and National Association of Schools of Art and Design accreditation Committees and the Artist Certification Committee for the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. In addition to her service at Cooper Union, Professor Gleeson has taught and lectured at numerous institutions including P.S. 122, Bennington College, Parsons, among others and has been a guest critic for the New York Studio Program.

In her own work, Professor Gleeson is best known for posters concerned with the political and social dynamic characteristic of urban life. She worked as a member of Heresies, a radical feminist journal, which was exhibited by P.A.D.D. and was included in several Group Material exhibitions. Her work was included in MoMA's "Millennium Show" in 2000 and Documenta's "The Castle" in 1987. More recently she was part of the "Downtown NYC Show" at the Grey Art Gallery, and "Now and Ten Years Ago" at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, an exhibition of activist works and projects that reflect the upward revaluation processes that have changed social spaces. She co-organized and participated in "A Knock at the Door," a reflection on 9/11 curated by LMCC. She is currently engaged in a project investigating the suffrage movement and the role of its radical activities in establishing feminism as a fundamental human right. "Breaking into the Human Race" was a project she curated in 2009 about women's rights as played out in the Great Hall at Cooper Union.
 


Quality of Lifer at La MaMa Galleria, New York, 2011.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.