Alumni

From the New Director:

Dear Bard CEP Alums,

As you all have done over the years, this fall, I arrived at the Center for Environmental Policy excited, but a little unsure of what to expect. Late in the summer, my wife and I had packed up all our belongings and left our home in Portland, Oregon. We drove across country, first heading south to visit the Redwoods (amazing), then, marveling at the wind-farms that have sprouted up all along I-80 across the Great Plains. We passed the Cuyhoga River in Cleveland, which in 1969 was a dead body of water. When it literally caught fire that year, the event sparked the passage of the Clean Water Act. The Cuyahoga now hosts both 150+ species, and revived waterfront development. And finally we arrived to the spectacular view of the sunset across the Catskills from our new home just north of the Bard campus.

Like you, I came to Bard because your graduate program offers a unique interdisciplinary first-year curriculum, truly unlike any in the country in its degree of integration. I also believe strongly in the teacher-scholar model of education that you found at Bard, in which the teacher part comes first: small classes with close mentoring by committed faculty. These elements are the foundation for developing the kind of leadership that the world now desperately needs. It is now not just the Cayehoga burning, but the whole world. Bard graduates are, and will continue to be, at the forefront of slowing global warming, and addressing the whole suite of civilizational challenges that must be confronted in the coming decades.

I look forward to meeting many of you. Please stay in touch. Help us build on our strong foundations to make the Bard Center for Environmental Policy a world-changing institution.

Best regards,
Eban Goodstein

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