Catalogue

Student-Led Engagement

The Trustee Leader Scholar (TLS) program is an incubator for students with big ideas who are committed to civic action. In keeping with Bard’s ethos of encouraging active involvement at all levels of campus life, TLS students design and implement civic engagement projects based on their own compelling interests and the needs of communities. At any given time, the program has between 30 and 50 TLS scholars leading a project, with hundreds of students participating as TLS team members. Most projects run for multiple years, and several have run for more than a decade. Current TLS projects include helping to restore the vote for formerly incarcerated men and women in New Orleans, running educational and arts programs for children in a small Nicaraguan village, leading English language learning programs for migrant laborers and their families in the Hudson Valley, and offering play and educational support for youth who are differently abled. A number of TLS projects have become permanent, College-sponsored programs, including the Bard Prison Initiative; La Voz, a Spanish-language newspaper widely circulated in the Hudson Valley; Bard Early College in New Orleans; and Brothers at Bard. Others have been awarded the Davis Projects for Peace, including Cuerdas para Cali (Strings for Cali), a group of Bard music students who coach a classical youth orchestra in the Siloé slums of Cali, Colombia.

Every Bard student is eligible to become a Trustee Leader Scholar. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and acceptance is based primarily on the student’s willingness and capacity to direct a large-scale project. Student leaders receive stipends in exchange for their participation in the program. TLS students meet one-on-one with program staff; take part in skill-building workshops; and prepare formal project proposals, budgets, and evaluations. They are offered hands-on opportunities to acquire skills in grant writing, lesson planning, and group facilitation. TLS workshops also address public speaking, effective interpersonal communication, and awareness building around issues of power, authority, and difference. All TLS projects draw on the participation and support of volunteers from the student body and greater Bard community. For more information, visit cce.bard.edu/community/tls.

Student Fellowships are available through CCE for students interested in creating projects that focus on elections, women’s leadership, global civic engagement, science outreach, and activism. Students hone leadership and media skills while developing projects that engage the Bard student body and community in Annandale and beyond.