We embrace plurality, respect divergent viewpoints, and are committed to understanding the rich spectrum of experiences that comprise our community.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at Bard seeks to materialize our commitment to plurality, dialogue, and rigorous study. We strive to create a learning environment that upholds the College’s mission to meaningfully include the voices, works, and ideas of communities and cultures historically marginalized in liberal arts and sciences education. DEI at Bard aims to work at the systemic as well as the interpersonal level to address the implicit and explicit ways racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and religious discrimination impact the learning process.
Friday, September 11, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020
Community Action Fund Application is Open
Online Event The Bard Center for Civic Engagement and Career Development Office are pleased to announce a new Community Action Fund to support student-led direct action. Apply here: https://bit.ly/33PJAT9
The fund provides financial support to students and student groups that are working to address two critical issues: racial justice and voter advocacy. Community and civic engagement are powerful tools to redefine and rebuild a more knowledgeable, driven, and just community. A rolling application is open to those interested in racial justice and/or voter advocacy. Students and/or student groups with an interest in creatively tackling these issues, whether in a short term or long term project, can apply for funding that ranges from $250 to $1,500.
Artwork by Rebecca MeekTuesday, September 15, 2020 – Thursday, December 31, 2020
Meshell Ndegeocello Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin
UPSTREAMING Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin Created by Meshell Ndegeocello In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin
A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times.
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin
Each month, September–December 2020, we offer gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time.
“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell
Dial a toll-free telephone number and discover songs, meditations, and chants to ease your mind any time, day or night when you need it most.
SEE
Experience visual testimonies of Baldwin’s text, with original music created by Meshell and artistic collaborators, including Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, and Charlotte Brathwaite.
*Sign-up for receiving the physical broadsheet delivered to your mailbox ended on September 21. To get the latest Fisher Center news, sign up for our weekly e-News here.
UPSTREAMING
10/26
Monday
Monday, October 26, 2020
Juliana Huxtable '10 and Kimberly N. Foster
Part of the Race and Revolution Lecture Series Online Event6:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 This will be an evening talk between the prolific Juliana Huxtable '10 and her special guest Kimberly Foster, founder and host of For Harriet. Together, they will be examining the residual effects of the recent George Floyd protests and exploring their own racial imaginary in order tease out a vision of the future.
Juliana Huxtable is an artist, writer, and dj/musician. Huxtable has exhibited and performed at a number of venues including Reena Spaulings Fine Art, Project Native Informant, Artists Space, the New Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the Musée d'Art Moderne. She is author of Mucus in My Pineal Gland and coauthor, with Hannah Black, of Life: A Novel. Her poetry and visual work were included in the 2015 Triennial at the New Museum. She is the recipient of the 2017 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant and is a 2019 United States Artist Fellow.
Kimberly Foster is a writer, cultural critic and founder and editor-in-chief of For Harriet, a multi-platform digital community for Black women, and Black Girls Gather, a national live event series. Founded in 2010, For Harriet is a leading voice for Black women’s journalism and storytelling. Kimberly began For Harriet while she was an undergraduate at Harvard University. The site has been featured in the New York Times, ESSENCE, and Forbes and Huffington Post. Kimberly has written for The Guardian, Newsweek, Quartz, and Fortune, and appeared on OWN, Huffpost Live, NPR, MSNBC, BET.com, and many local radio stations across the country commenting on culture and current events. Kimberly's video commentaries on current events and feminism have been viewed million of times. In 2016, she was named to Forbes Magazine's 30 under 30 list. In 2017 ESSENCE named her one of 50 founders to watch. In 2019, her video appeared on OWN’s “Black Women OWN the Conversation.” She has also been recognized as a leading voice online by Teen Vogue and Huffington Post. Kimberly has been invited to give talks at dozens of universities across the country including keynotes at Cornell University, Boston College, and Emory University. She holds a degree in African American Studies.
Hannah Arendt Center is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Tough Talks: Juliana Huxtable and Kimberly N. Foster Time: Oct 26, 2020 06:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Meeting ID: 992 1047 7377 One tap mobile +16465588656,,99210477377# US (New York) +13126266799,,99210477377# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) Meeting ID: 992 1047 7377 Find your local number: https://bard.zoom.us/u/aOqvCEH34
CCS Galleries12:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture.
Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020, and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).
Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservations
12:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 CCS Galleries
11/01
Sunday
Sunday, October 25, 2020
LGBTQ+ Student Support Group
Facilitated by Peer Health and BRAVE Online Event7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 A safe space for all LGBTQ+ identities. Create community and talk about a range of topics to be set by the group members. Email wellness@bard.edu for Zoom links.
Bard College acknowledges that its origins are intertwined with the systems of racial injustice that have been a part of this nation’s history from its foundations. Read about Bard's History
Reflecting on the Moment
Reflecting on the Moment is a collaborative initiative spearheaded by the Dean of the College in consultation with the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The new series invites alumni/ae, current undergraduates, faculty, and staff to have honest conversations about the current moment we are living in the wake of a global pandemic and systemic police brutality. The aim is to present models of inclusive dialogue, to draw from the rich personal experiences and expertise of our ever-developing and ever-changing community, and to present approaches for community activism and engagement in the name of racial equity and justice.
Conversations on Racial Equity and Justice
The Making of Hothouse
Dancers and choreographers Sam Pratt '14—Bard alum and double major in dance and philosophy—and Amadi Washington discuss their new project Hothouse with Maria Simpson, director of the Dance Program at Bard College. Amadi and Sam collaborate as the duo Baye & Asa. Hothouse responds to the reillumination of the country's practice of systemic racism by way of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Engaging Local Communities
Cammie Jones, associate dean of experiential learning and civic engagement, and Peter Klein, assistant professor of sociology and environmental and urban studies, speak about institutional and educational collaborations with local communities in Kingston, New York, and how they are rethinking community engagement in light of the current moment.
Mentorship and the University
Dariel Vasquez, cofounder and codirector of Brothers@Bard and Brothers@, as well as a member of the Class of 2017, and Drew Thompson, Assistant Professor of Africana and Historical Studies and Director of Africana Studies, speak about the role of mentorship and the university in the wake of the global pandemic and police brutality.
What We Do
DEI collaborates with faculty, staff, and students on learning, teaching, student development, institutional functioning, and engagement in local and global communities. In an increasingly intertwined and rapidly changing world, we are dedicated to a rigorous examination of the institutions and structures that sustain inequality. Above all, we maintain an ongoing commitment to decreasing the distance between these ideals and our everyday realities.
The Council for Inclusive Excellence (CIE) sponsors and cosponsors campus-wide events such as speakers, panels, and movie screenings that relate to social justice, intercultural communication, equity, and inclusion. The council is committed to making Bard an environment that is supportive of communities historically marginalized in liberal arts and sciences education.
Campus Resources
Chinese Calligraphy Club at the Bard College Club Fair. Photo by Sarah Wallock '19.
Student Clubs
Student clubs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion at the College include the Bard Christian Fellowship, the Latin American Student Organization, and the Trans Lyfe Collective. For more information about these and other clubs, visit student.bard.edu/clublist.
Student Government provides leadership for students interested in making Bard College a better place, and is always ready to support students working on issues of diversity and inclusion.
Housing the Dean of Student Affairs Office, CSLA provides support to students struggling to figure out what diversity means, what they want it to mean, and how to bridge the gap between the two.
The OSA helps students plan programs, organize events, and lead clubs in an effort to make Bard a more diverse and accepting place, all while keeping students engaged and making sure they have fun.
Ribbon-cutting ceremony at the dedication of Gilson Place. Photo by Najwa Jamal '21
Gilson Place: Dedicated in Support of Students of Color
Gilson Place, formerly Grey Stone Cottage, is a space dedicated to the advancement of students of color. Bard faculty and student leaders collaborated on its recent renovation and redesign. Gilson Place supports the academic, personal, and social success of members of the Bard community historically underrepresented in liberal arts and sciences education and fosters dialogue about race and culture on campus. The space is named for Alexander Gilson, a freed African American slave who became the head gardener at Montgomery Place, now part of the Bard College campus, and eventually opened up his own nursery business.
Bard College Community Action Award Winners
Center for Civic Engagement
The CCE connects students with opportunities on and off campus to empower them to become active citizens. It can help students find and finance internships, start organizations, and attend or lead conferences.
In service of its mission, Bard College is committed to being a fully accessible community in which all students, staff, faculty, alumni/ae, and visitors are valued, engaged, and empowered to participate. The College strives to continually improve physical, educational, and programmatic access and identify barriers that would otherwise limit full participation in the life of the College. The College encourages all community members to be actively engaged to advance this mission.
Brothers at Bard began as a campus club and has grown to an institutional initiative with four objectives: to offer a safe space for men of color studying at Bard College; to mentor men of color in high school; to facilitate career development among alumni of color; and to play an active role in the national coalition of organizations dedicated to lifting up young men of color in their academic, personal, and professional development.
Posse graduates. Photo by Pete Mauney '93 MFA '00.
Spotlight on the Posse Program
The Posse Foundation recruits talented public high school students who might have been overlooked by traditional college selection processes, forming them into supportive Posses and connecting them with participating colleges. Every year Bard accepts a Posse of 10 students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential, offering them full-tuition scholarships.
