CIE Council Members

Erin Cannan joined the Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) staff as Associate Director in 2011 when the Center was launched with a 60 million dollar grant from the Open Society.  As Dean of Civic Engagement and Deputy and Director for the CCE, she coordinates locally-based volunteer and internship initiatives that include school-based workshops and science outreach.  Erin is responsible for overseeing the Engaged Liberal Arts initiative to help faculty develop new courses that incorporate community-based learning practices which involve students in faculty-supervised research, and which benefit communities in the Hudson Valley and beyond through students’ academic work.

Erin directs the summer internship Community Action Award where over 60 undergraduates receive internship funding in community-based organizations and non-profits, locally, nationally and internationally.  Interested in student training and development, Erin coordinates student conferences like Get Engaged, a week-long social entrepreneurship conference in Istanbul, Turkey for Bard undergraduates enrolled in Bard’s international programs, and Bard Works, career-based conferences for juniors and seniors focused on bringing the liberal arts to the workforce.

Erin is responsible for coordinating the science outreach component of Bard’s Citizen Science program in which upper college students partner with Bard’s 500 first-years to teach over 2000 local school children in six school districts.  Science Outreach, year-round engagement opportunities, involve over 30 fellows and volunteers running summer science camps, field trips, library events and community talks.

Erin arrived at Bard in 1995 as assistant dean of students/director of first-year students, and was promoted to dean of students in 1999. She was responsible for the oversight of 12 departments within the Division of Student Affairs for close to 13 years. Now as Vice President for Student Affairs, she is focused on merging community engagement with student life with an emphasis on diversity, inclusivity and excellence.

Erin earned her B.A. from State University of New York at Geneseo in 1992 and a master’s degree in student personnel services from Edinboro University.

Director of Academic Advising Jennifer Triplett coordinates the faculty academic advising system and maintains the online guide to the undergraduate curriculum. She meets regularly with students who are uncertain about their academic focus or require assistance changing their advisers, and she works especially closely with juniors and with students returning from time away from the college to help them make a smooth transition back to the College. She currently serves as co-chair of the Council for Inclusive Excellence.

Jane has a B.A. (Spanish and International Relations) from University of Wisconsin-Madison and a M.A. (Higher Education and Student Affairs) from University of Connecticut. Jane's higher education work experience includes time in career development, residence life, admissions, student activities, and TRiO summer programs. She works closely with students, faculty, and staff to ensure BEOP and Posse scholars are thriving at the College. She currently serves as co-chair for the Council for Inclusive Excellence.

Timand Bates received his B.A. (Languages & Literature) from Bard College in 2002. He was the recipient of the Carroll Milton Petrie Scholarship Award and received his M.A. (English) from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2007. Timand has been the Director of a Reading Center in Oakland, California, a methodology trainer for literacy educators, and he taught English for 6 years in the NYC public schools. He became the Assistant Dean of Students at Bard College in 2014, with a focus on Sophomore and Transfer students. He has a passion for working with all students and he loves nothing more than seeing them overcome the challenges inherent in the act of learning.

JaQuan Beachem is a junior studying Theater & Performance here at Bard. Over the course of his time here, outside of the realm of theatre, he has served in the roles of Peer Counselor, Inclusive Excellence and Outreach Fellow, Club Head (The Bard Community Gospel Choir, Sports Boosters), SPARC Intern, Peer Review Board member as well as many others. JaQuan currently chairs the Multicultural Diversity Committee of the Bard Student Government. Off campus, JaQuan is a 2015-2016 Young People for Fellow, where he trains and is trained on political issues as well as the intersectionality of power, privilege and oppression alongside allyship to inspire conversation and motivate change on campus. Through both the MDC and Council for Inclusive Excellence, JaQuan’s goal is to meet each student wherever they may be in their walk of life and make Bard’s campus as accessible as it can be to any and all identities groups inside and outside of the classroom.

B.S., M.A., Binghamton University; M.S., Ph.D., Cornell University. Main research area is combinatorial and geometric group theory; other research areas include geometric topology, fractal geometry, and automata theory. National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Texas A&M University (2005–08); At Bard since 2008.

Celia Bland has been at Bard since 1999, and is the International Coordinator for the Institute for Writing & Thinking. She was formerly Dean of Studies and the Director of College Writing, and she has taught First Poetry and First Essay and Cultural Reportage workshops for Written Arts, and in the First-Year Seminar and the Language & Thinking Programs. As the poet Fred Moten writes, "Democracy is the name that has been assigned to a dream as well as to certain already existing realities that are lived, by many people, as a nightmare." I'm interested in diversity as the dream of our American democracy and in this committee as a way to learn more about the disparities between that national dream and everyday realities.

Professor Eli Dueker joined Bard in 2014 as the Assistant Professor in the Environmental and Urban Studies and Biology programs. With a B.A. from Rhodes College, an M.A., M.Phil.,and Ph.D., from Columbia University, he completed his postdoctoral research at Queens College, City University of New York, and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. Additionally, he studied at Columbia University’s Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology postbaccalaureate program. He is the recipient of grants and awards from the Hudson River Foundation, Janet Holden Adams Fund, and the DEC's Hudson River Estuary Program among others. His work has been published in Environmental Science & Technology, Biogeosciences, and Science of the Total Environment. Before entering academia, he worked for 14 years in the nonprofit world,  including 10 years as an organizational development consultant addressing issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality in institutional structures, serving as the former director of Project Underground, an international environmental and human rights organization, and as a board member of Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a transgender law collective in NYC. His teaching interests include water quality, air quality, oceanography, urban ecology, environmental microbiology, and the role of science in addressing environmental justice issues.

Julie has a BA in Psychology from SUNY Oswego and an MA in Student Affairs from University of Connecticut.  Before coming to bard, she worked at Vassar College as the Assistant Director of Campus Life/LGBTQ Programs.  Julie has been at Bard for 7 years now and works closely with Student Government, Student Clubs, and the Student Publicity and Activities Resource Center (SPARC) to support the student-run projects and events on campus.

Truth was born and raised in Oakland, California and has her B.A. in Critical Social Thought from Mount Holyoke, and her M.A. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from University of Connecticut.  For three years, she worked as an Academic Coordinator for Upward Bound at Holy Names University.  Truth brings experience in student activities, community service learning, residence life, and cultural centers with her to our role here.  She also conducted research on first-generation college students who have demonstrated academic success in college to determine if their habits, practices, and motivations can serve as an insight for other first-generation students. As one who has experienced the distinct challenges of being a first-generation college student, Truth is grateful for the opportunity to serve BEOP and Posse scholars.

Manishka Kalupahana assists students leaving or entering the United States, arranges transportation to and from airports, and is responsible for processing all F-1 Visas. Manishka is available to meet and discuss financial and cultural concerns as well as academic and social expectations. Students can meet with her to better understand the U.S. education system and Bard College specifically. Manishka is also interested in helping to facilitate student-hosted, multicultural events on campus. Please feel free to check in and find out about organized trips to local attractions and ways to connect with local area families to experience American culture beyond campus.

Professor Allison McKim specializes in gender, social control & punishment, criminology, the state, and ethnographic research. She is particularly interested in how authorities make and enforce rules; the role of gender in law, punishment, and state governance; and how social institutions try to shape the self. Her research examines how criminal justice and healthcare institutions treat drug-using women and shows how their practices reflect the politics of crime, poverty, gender, and race. Professor McKim's work has appeared in the journals Gender & Society and Signs. She presents regularly at the annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology, the American Sociological Association, and the Law & Society Association. Professor McKim teaches courses on gender; sexuality; punishment, prisons & policing; deviance and crime; the welfare state; drugs & society; qualitative research; sociological theory; and introduction to sociology.

B.F.A., School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University; M.A., Tufts University; Ph.D., Harvard University. Awards and fellowships include Mellon Foundation Fellowship (1996); Belgian American Educational Foundation Fellowship (1997); Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery, Washington, Robert H. and Clarice Smith Fellow (1999); Derek Bok Center, Harvard University, Distinction in Teaching Awards (1999–2002). Visiting instructor, Massachusetts College of Art (2001), Rhode Island School of Design (2001–02), University of Massachusetts (2002), Harvard University (2003). Faculty, Language and Thinking Program at Bard College. At Bard since 2003.

BA from Wesleyan University, Master' Degree and Rabbinic Ordination from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, PhD from New York University. His rabbinic experience has included five years in a small congregation, fifteen years at CLAL, a think-tank and center for leadership education, five years in a community center, and three years as the primary writer and teacher for the Reform Movement's Israel organization. He has focused increasingly on issues of science and religion in the last 15 years, and is the author of  Judaism, Physics and God: Searching for Sacred Metaphors in a Post-Einstein World (2005), and The Emergence of God: A Rationalist Jewish Exploration of Divine Consciousness (2015).

B.A., Wellesley College; Ph.D., Harvard University. Visiting scholar, Columbia University; Faculty Publishing Fellow, City University of New York; Du Bois Fellow, Harvard. Assistant professor, English, CUNY. Has lectured at Harvard, Brown University, New York University, SUNY Binghamton, Amherst College. At Bard since 2009.

Rebecca Thomas joined the faculty of the computer science program in 2000 and became Dean of the College in 2015. In addition to her research work in artificial intelligence and natural language processing, she was a co-author of the 1990 paper, "Becoming a Computer Scientist: A Report by the ACM Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Science,” (CACM 33:11).

B.A., Williams College; Ph.D., University of Minnesota. Previously taught at Williams, where he was Gaius Charles Bolin Dissertation Fellow in History and Art. Other fellowships received from the Mellon Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Getty Foundation, Smithsonian Institute, and Woodrow Wilson Foundation. He also received a Thomas J. Watson fellowship in 2005, and traveled to Botswana and Uganda to study the use of visual arts in addressing HIV/AIDS. Coeditor of special issues of Critical Interventions and Kronos (forthcoming, winter 2014). Work published in African Arts, Dictionary of African Biography, and JSTOR/Aluka’s Struggles for Freedom digital archive. At Bard since 2013.