Our Students and Alumni/ae

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Bard College Berlin Student Aisha Khurram: “I had to flee for my education, but refused to leave other Afghan girls to their fate”

Writing for the UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, Bard College Berlin student Aisha Khurram asked “global actors to take a stand for Afghan girls’ right to education” on International Women’s Day. After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, Khurram fled to Germany, where she enrolled at Bard College Berlin. She was relieved to continue her education, but her attention quickly turned toward her fellow Afghan women and girls. “My excitement at getting the opportunity to resume my studies was accompanied by a deep sense of survivor guilt as millions of Afghan girls were simultaneously being deprived of their basic right to education,” writes Khurram. “For them to survive the ongoing crisis, education is as necessary as food and water.” Calling on the international community to act to assist girls and women in Afghanistan, Khurram asked the world to “put its faith in education and, more importantly, in young women’s capacity for creativity and change, because these two forces when combined possess the power to illuminate the darkness and liberate humanity from the shackles of totalitarianism.”

Post Date: 03-14-2023

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Bard Student Ariha Shahed ’26 Awarded Davis Projects for Peace Grant 

Bard College student Ariha Shahed ’26 has won a Davis Projects for Peace prize for her proposal, “Train Track to Right Track: Supporting Bangladeshis Who Call the Railway Tracks Their Home.” Ariha, a first-year economics and politics major from Bangladesh, will receive $10,000 to work with Bangladeshi families living in extreme poverty along the country’s railway tracks, communities which often go unnoticed. Partnering with NGO initiative BRAC Bangladesh, Ariha will help families connect with essential social protection programmes, access healthcare, keep their children in school, and improve their economic situations by sustainable and continual support.

Ariha’s project is designed to provide avenues for both short-term and long-term support to these communities through multiple efforts. It seeks to give families a way to re-establish their lives through BRAC’s “Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative,” which aims to help people ‘graduate’ from extreme poverty, and will operate out of workshop hubs near train stations in the country’s three largest cities, Dhaka, Chattogram, and Sylhet. Healthcare volunteers will offer basic health classes to those living along the tracks in these cities, and Ariha will partner with a small local restaurant to organize a food drive to distribute meal boxes from these hubs. “This way, we can incentivize a long-term solution for them using a short-term solution, which have been proven to work better when supporting people in extreme humanitarian need,” Ariha writes in her proposal. 

“The disparity between the families living below the poverty line along the rail-tracks and my own trips inside the comfort of a car had always struck me,” she said. “The first step to eradicating any kind of social inequality, I believe, would be to acknowledge one’s position of privilege. This project is a small way of giving back to the country and the people that raised me—something my parents have always valued. I want to thank my friend Mikaail Kaiser Shahabuddin (Davis Alum, Clark University ‘26) who will be helping me to co-facilitate this project and for his insights. As a Davis Alum myself, I’m overwhelmed and grateful to the Davis Foundation for such opportunities that help call attention to often neglected places like Bangladesh.”

Projects for Peace, a Davis Foundation initiative facilitated by Middlebury College in Vermont, is a global program that partners with other educational institutions to identify and support peacebuilders and changemakers across college campuses. Every year, 100 or more student leaders are awarded a grant in the amount of $10,000 each to implement a “Project for Peace” anywhere in the world. To learn more, visit: middlebury.edu/office/projects-for-peace.

Post Date: 03-11-2023

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Math Is Magic, Writes Camonghne Felix MFA ’24 in the Atlantic

Bard MFA student Camonghne Felix writes about how childhood trauma affected her cognition, disrupting her education and her sense of self. After seeking treatment for ADHD and bipolar disorder as an adult, she finally found her way back to her love of mathematics. “Losing my ability to learn and understand math represented the frailty of the human mind,” she writes, “but my ability to relearn it represents the mind’s innate resiliency.” The essay is adapted from Felix’s new memoir, Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation, published this month by Penguin Random House. 

Camonghne Felix is a poet, writer, and political strategist. She was the first Black woman and youngest person to hold the position of speechwriter for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. She also served as director of surrogates and strategic communications for Elizabeth Warren's 2020 presidential campaign. Her debut poetry collection, Build Yourself a Boat, was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry and shortlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award and for a Lambda Literary Award. Dyscalculia is her second book.

Post Date: 02-28-2023

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Art, Film, and Music: The Artful Animation of Bard Alum Jeff Scher ’76

Print magazine profiles animator Jeff Scher ’76 and looks at his most recent work: a video for Tom Petty’s “Call Me the Breeze,” from the late musician’s recently released Live at the Fillmore compilation. “All Scher needs to make his movie magic is some live-action film, a chromatic supply of watercolor and pastels and a rotoscope to get his cinematic juices boiling,” writes Steven Heller. “His films can be joyful, unforgettable and heartbreaking.”

Post Date: 12-06-2022

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Bail Reform Is Working. Why Are Democrats Running Away from It? Dyjuan Tatro ’18 for NBC News

Eliminating bail for low-level offenses has proved that you can maximize freedom while not endangering public safety, write Dyjuan Tatro ’18 and Scott Hechinger. Cash bail and the pretrial detention system disproportionately penalize poorer defendants; eliminating the requirement allows people to continue to work and support their families while fighting their charges. Yet in spite of bail reform successes, including in New York State, some Democrats have allowed Republicans to control the narrative around the policy and have even blamed bail reform efforts for midterm losses.

Post Date: 12-06-2022

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Bard Alumna Lexi Parra ’18 for the Washington Post: As Gang, Police Violence Rages, a Caracas Neighborhood Tries to Connect

On January 7, 2021, Venezuela’s Special Action Forces raided the La Vega neighborhood of Caracas, leaving 23 people dead in what the community calls the “La Vega massacre.” The special police unit has been accused of targeting working-class neighborhoods, criminalizing young men for where they live as it attempts to root out gang activity. As part of an ongoing project supported by the Pulitzer Center and a Getty Images Inclusion Grant, Bard alumna Lexi Parra ’18 gets to know the women of La Vega who are maintaining their community and pushing back against state and gang violence. 

Lexi Parra majored in human rights and photography at Bard College.

Further Reading

• As gang, police violence rages, a neighborhood tries to connect (Washington Post)
• Venezuelan-American Photographer Lexi Parra ’18 Named Recipient of a 2022 Getty Images Annual Inclusion Grant
• Bard College Student Wins Davis Projects for Peace Prize

Post Date: 10-18-2022