Academics

Bard College has historically been a sanctuary from ethnic, political, religious, and other forms of intolerance. We embody this legacy today with a strong investment in both local and global initiatives, from our Center for Civic Engagement to the Bard Prison Initiative and Early Colleges, as well as with our programs in Bishkek, Berlin, East Jerusalem, and St. Petersburg.

Current Initiatives

Social Justice Training

Faculty leaders at the College recently participated in social justice training with author, educator, and equity consultant Dax-Devlon Ross, who works with "individuals, organizations and institutions [to] achieve their social justice missions and bridge the gap between their stated values and actual practices." The College is in the process of creating additional training sessions for administrators and staff with Dax-Devlon Ross, who has facilitated Posse Plus Retreats for Bard in recent years.

Inclusion Challenge

The Office of the Dean of the College has partnered with the Lifetime Learning Institute (LLI) at Bard to support proposals last year and this; we gratefully acknowledge the generous support of LLI, which is central to the success of this funding initiative.

Proposals

The Office of the Dean of the College has received and reviewed Inclusion Challenge proposals from a wide range of academic programs (Architecture, Art History and Visual Culture, Classics, Dance, Economics, Experimental Humanities, History, Human Rights, Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic, Photography, Sociology, Theater and Performance), as well as the Library, Language and Thinking, Citizen Science, and the Social Studies Division. These grants will be used to enhance student learning and experience during the current 2020–21 academic year.
Grants

In year two of the program, grants are being awarded to academic programs (alone or jointly) that commit to undertaking one initiative to improve access, equity, and inclusion for students. Fundable projects include: training faculty in inclusive pedagogy and course design, developing program-specific antiracism resources, implementing implicit bias training and bias reduction teaching strategies, learning facilitation skills for cross-cultural intergroup dialogue methods, mentoring for first-generation students, and supporting student-initiated projects that address diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Undergraduate Opportunities

This year, Bard undergraduates will be able to take part in workshops to address practices of antiracism in the art world, interdisciplinary conferences, internships, Inclusion Fellow initiatives, and alumni/ae networking opportunities. Inclusion Libraries curated by students and faculty together are being established in Architecture and Photography. The Social Studies Division has launched a Racial Justice Course Cluster to “concentrate and coordinate curricular offerings having to do with equity, racial justice, and social power.” Students can register for these spring 2021 offerings in December; courses from across the divisions will be available. Social Studies is hosting a “Decolonizing the Curriculum” workshop to interrogate curricula as well as teaching methods. A post-election event, “Reading the Signs,” with faculty, students, and community participants recently took place.

DEI Statements for Academic Programs and Divisions

Academic programs and divisions are creating DEI statements for their programs and for course syllabi. The new statements are being posted on program websites. Director of Inclusive Pedagogy and Curriculum Michael Sadowski is working with individuals and with program-level working groups to support this process. Student groups in Photography, Studio Arts, and Theater and Performance are now in dialogue with faculty and Dr. Kahan Sablo, Dean of Inclusive Excellence, about critical efforts to transform teaching and learning as well as equity/access to materials, equipment, resources, and opportunities, especially in the Division of the Arts. The student-led SCALE Project has been a leader in examining the role and impact of socioeconomic status and class at Bard and, along with Council for Inclusive Excellence (CIE), represents a powerful site for communication and connection among students, staff, and faculty dedicated to rethinking access to all educational opportunities at the College.

Faculty Updates

Faculty Searches + Inclusion

Faculty searches have been approved this year in Art History and Visual Culture, Theater and Performance, Photography, Sociology, Computer Science, and History. A new Academic Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship in Classical Studies has been established with the inaugural fellow to arrive on campus in fall 2021. Search committee chairs attended a mandatory workshop on inclusive search practices with Human Resources Employee Relations Manager Elisabeth Giglio, Dean of Inclusive Excellence Dr. Kahan Sablo, Director of Inclusive Pedagogy and Curriculum Michael Sadowski and the Dean of the College in October. Dr. Sablo and Director of Career Development Jovanny Suriel are committed to working with Human Resources colleagues to revamp Bard's current hiring practices to ensure that Bard reaches candidates from a diverse range of backgrounds. Bard recognizes and affirms the benefits of a diverse workforce, and is actively committed to improving in this area.
Participation in Faculty Searches

The Planning and Appointments Committee is revising all sections of the Faculty Handbook pertaining to search processes in consultation with the Faculty Diversity Committee. Students play a crucial role in search committees as members. So too, they attend job talks and interview each candidate. To learn more about how students can participate in and impact hiring, reach out to the student Educational Policies Committee (EPC) and/or Speaker of the Student Body. Divisional chairs (Susan Merriam, Arts; Nicole Caso, Languages and Literatures; Rob Culp, Social Studies; Kristin Lane, Science, Mathematics, and Computing) are another good source of information about open searches and how the faculty appointment process works.
New Faculty

Five new faculty members, all of whom will add to the diversity of curriculum and faculty at Bard, will be teaching at Bard in spring 2021. They include incoming Studio Arts program director Nayland Blake ’82, Tschabalala Self ’12, and Sam Vernon. The 2020–21 Keith Haring Fellow in Art and Activism Ama Josephine B. Johnstone is a writer, curator, and artist who will teach two courses for CCS and the College next semester: Queer EcoPoetics: Sentience, Aesthetics, and Blackness and Beyond Colonial Distinctions: Concerning Human - Non-Human Allyship. Jazz legend Marcus Roberts will continue his 2020–21 residency next semester with master classes for music students. Poet Dawn Lundy Martin will return to Written Arts as Distinguished Writer in Residence in the spring. New tenure-track faculty member Sky Hopinka of Film and Electronic Arts has a show of his work at CCS Bard that was recently highlighted as a Critic's Pick in the New York Times.

New Courses

The College also plans to expand curricular offerings next semester that deal explicitly with issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in Photography, Art History and Visual Culture, and Human Rights, which will offer a new seminar Disability Rights, Chronic Life with CCS writer, artist, and theorist Evan Calder Williams; Race, Health, and Inequality: A Global Perspective with Vice President Dumaine Williams; Law of Police with Professor Peter Rosenblum; and Civil Rights v. Human Rights with Professor Kwame Holmes.

Bard's Membership in the National Center for Faculty Diversity and Development

Bard is in its third year of institutional membership with the NCFDD (National Center for Faculty Diversity and Development). NCFDD focuses on professional development and external mentoring for all faculty to ensure their success. NCFDD was founded by women scholars of color and is attentive to addressing the need for research and career support encountered by faculty of color through boot camps and writing challenges. Recent Bard faculty participants in the NCFDD Faculty Success Program include: Stefan Mendez-Diez (Mathematics, summer 2020); Omar Cheta (Middle Eastern Studies and Historical Studies, summer 2020); and Heather Bennett (Biology, summer 2020). Bard has also supported one post-tenure Pathfinders participant, Cathy Collins (Biology).

Photo by Karl Rabe

In the Classroom

Our curriculum encourages students to deepen their understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion through the Difference and Justice distribution requirement and Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences courses, as well as programs of study that create space for historically marginalized voices in the academy, including:

Students in the Inclusion at Bard course present their research on Matthew McDuffie, Class of 1889, at a new placard near the chapel honoring his life and work, as Professor Myra Young Armstead (far left) looks on.

Course Spotlight

Inclusion at Bard, Taught by Professor Myra Young Armstead
The nation's colleges and universities have served as stepping stones, remediating racial inequalities by providing pathways toward upward mobility for people of color. At the same time, recent revelations of the link between elite American institutions and slavery highlight their role in reproducing racial and other social hierarchies. Inclusion at Bard, an Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences course offering, explores how these contradictory dynamics manifested themselves at Bard College. In fall 2018, student research into the founders and alumni/ae of Bard College culminated in the creation and dedication of new signage on campus that encourages critical reflection on Bard’s history.

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