July 2022 
News for Bard
Families & Friends

Photo by Sonita Alizada '23 Photo by Sonita Alizada '23

Dear Families,

Hello from Annandale, where SummerScape and the 32nd annual Bard Musical Festival have returned with a full season of live music, dance, opera and performance. This season, the Bard Music Festival explores of the life and work of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943). Through a series of themed concert programs, lectures, and panel discussions, Rachmaninoff and His World explores such themes as composition during the Cold War, virtuoso pianists and their public, and America’s ongoing love affair with Rachmaninoff’s music. Visit the Fisher Center website for a full schedule of events. 

The Zora Neale Hurston Writing Fellowship at Bard just hosted its inaugural cohort of seven writers, Danielle Elizabeth Chin, Neşe Devenot ’09, Shoshanna Edwards-Alexander, Mona Kareem, Madhu Kaza, Obi Nwizu, and Dianca London Potts. Founded and directed by Visiting Associate Professor of Literature and American Studies Donna Ford Grover, the Hurston Fellowship enables writers from all disciplines who have not had the opportunity to develop their scholarship, and supports writers who are currently employed as adjuncts or visiting professors with terminal degrees and who have not yet published a book-length work. 

A team of graduate students from the Bard MBA in Sustainability program won this year’s Total Impact Portfolio Challenge (TIPC). Now in its fourth year, TIPC is a yearlong, graduate student impact investing competition produced in collaboration with Wharton Social Impact Initiative and SOCAP Global. Of the four finalist teams, two were from Bard’s MBA program. Bard graduate students Michael Amoroso MBA ’22, Emma Chandler MBA ’23, and Ashbel Soto MBA ’24 won the competition with a portfolio that aimed to achieve “maximum returns and maximum measurable impact in alignment with our client’s goals and values and our mission to lead the change towards shared well-being on a healthy planet.” 

Please save the date for Family and Alumni/ae Weekend: October 21-22, 2022. We are looking forward to welcoming you to campus to experience Bard through concerts, tours, tastings, classes taught by our stellar faculty and more. If you think you may be able to join us, I encourage you to book your accommodations as soon as possible. View our list of local establishments here.
 
Take care and best wishes for a happy and healthy summer.

Sincerely,

Lindsay Davis Carr '06
Assistant Director of Development, Family Programs
[email protected] | 845-758-7152

P.S. If you find yourself in the area, the Bard College Farm Stand, featuring fresh produce and honey, is open every Thursday from 1:00 pm–5:00 pm. The stand is located on Library Road near Gilson Place (and in the Campus Center in during severe weather).

Dates to Remember:

  • Monday, August 8, 2022–Wednesday, August, 24, 2022:
    Language and Thinking Program for first-year students
  • Saturday, August 27, 2022:
    Arrival day for all returning students
  • Monday, August 29, 2022:
    First day of classes
  • Wednesday, September 7, 2022:
    Drop/add period ends
  • Friday, October 23, 2020:
    Moderation papers due
  • Friday, October 21–Saturday, October 22, 2022:
    Family and Alumni/ae Weekend
  • Thursday, November 24–Sunday, November 27, 2022:
    Thanksgiving recess (classes end at 5 p.m. on Wednesday)
  • Friday, December 16, 2022:
    Last day of fall classes
     
Academic Calendar 2022-23

Bardian Newsmakers

<em>Strange Math</em>, by Ephraim Asili for Louis Vuitton. Strange Math, by Ephraim Asili for Louis Vuitton.

Bard Film Professor Ephraim Asili Directs Louis Vuitton’s Spring-Summer 2023 Men’s Fashion Show in Paris

Assistant Professor of Film and Electronic Arts and Director of Film and Electronic Arts Ephraim Asili directed the Louis Vuitton Spring-Summer 2023 Men’s fashion show in Paris. A tribute to Victor Abloh, fashion designer and creative director for Louis Vuitton who passed away in November 2021, the show opened with a cinematic prelude conceived and directed by Asili. Asili’s film, titled Strange Math, explores the relationship between imagination and reality, which are central themes to the collection. 

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L-R: The Margarita Kuchma Project Award winners Anna Shupack ’22, Sarah Soucek ’22, and Abdullah Naseer BCB ’23. L-R: The Margarita Kuchma Project Award winners Anna Shupack ’22, Sarah Soucek ’22, and Abdullah Naseer BCB ’23.

Bard’s Margarita Kuchma Project Award Selects Winners

The Margarita Kuchma Project Award selection committee has named two final winning projects. Anna Schupack ’22 and Sarah Soucek ’22 from Bard’s Annandale campus won for their project, “The Columbia Collective,” a multimedia arts mentorship collective where incarcerated artists are given the opportunity to define their own voices. Michael Nyakundi ’23 and Abdullah Naseer ’23 from Bard College Berlin also won for their project, “Project MA3: Masanse Na Mayouthman (From Violence to Co-existence),” which focuses on community engagement as a working solution to police brutality in Soweto slums in Embakasi, Nairobi. The two winners will split the $10,000 award to realize their projects over their proposed timelines. The results of the winning projects will be presented to the Bard community in a public presentation sometime during the fall 2022 semester.

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Ain Bailey, <em>Untitled</em>, 2022. Courtesy the artist Ain Bailey, Untitled, 2022. Courtesy the artist

“The Motivating Power of Melancholia”: Black Melancholia, on Display Now at the Hessel Museum of Art, Reviewed in the New York Times

“A racist attack on Black Americans, with the spectacle of real-time pain it carries, tends to make news,” writes Holland Cotter for the New York Times. “But the depression that racism itself generates—the dread, anger and despair that create a low-pressure area in the soul—goes pretty much unreported.” Black Melancholia, a “stirring group show” on display now at the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, takes as its theme the “chronic condition” that can arise in Black life and art.

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Does a Taller Lawn Mean Enhanced Tick Habitat? Professor Felicia Keesing Explains

A longer and wilder lawn can be better for the ecosystem, but it raises questions about the health risks of a potentially larger tick population around your home. “When we’re talking about your risk of exposure, we are talking about two things,” Dr. Keesing told the New York Times. “At work are both the entomological risk — how many ticks there are in the habitat — and also how much time you’re spending in that habitat.” Dr. Keesing discusses the results of her five-year Tick Project study for the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Felicia Keesing is the David and Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of Science, Mathematics, and Computing and has been on the Bard College faculty since 2000.

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Civil Rights Lawyer Cynthia Conti-Cook ’03 Discusses the Precedent of Using Personal Digital Data to Criminalize Pregnant People

In the New York Times, Cynthia Conti-Cook ’03, civil rights lawyer and technology fellow in gender, racial, and ethnic justice at the Ford Foundation, discusses how data from personal digital devices can be weaponized to prosecute pregnant people accused of feticide or endangering their fetuses. “It’s hard to say what will happen where and how and when, but the possibilities are pretty perilous,” Conti-Cook said. “It can be very easy to be overwhelmed by all the possibilities, which is why I try to emphasize focusing on what we have seen used against people.” She adds that types of data that have already been used in courts to criminalize pregnant people include Google searches, text and email receipts, website visits. “The text to your sister that says, ‘Expletive, I’m pregnant.’ The search history for abortion pills or the visitation of websites that have information about abortion.”

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When Supporting Displaced Persons Seeking Education, “There Is Strength in Numbers,” Writes Rebecca Granato ’99 in Times Higher Education

“Universities have a role to play in humanizing refugees and helping them establish new lives in new countries,” writes Rebecca Granato ’99, associate vice president for global initiatives at Bard College and the director of the Open Society University Network (OSUN) Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives. In an essay for Times Higher Education, Granato offers four simple ways universities can support displaced persons and students, using OSUN as an example of the efficacy of collaboration across networks.

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A scene from <em>Dom Juan</em> at Bard SummerScape. From left, Gusman/Matty (Pauli Pontrelli), Dom Juan (Amelia Workman), Carla/Charlotte (Kirsten Harvey). Photo by Maria Baranova A scene from Dom Juan at Bard SummerScape. From left, Gusman/Matty (Pauli Pontrelli), Dom Juan (Amelia Workman), Carla/Charlotte (Kirsten Harvey). Photo by Maria Baranova

The Perks of Being a Professional Hypocrite: Dom Juan at Bard SummerScape

Ashley Tata’s gender-swapped adaptation of Molière’s 1665 classic packs a punch. Writing for the New York Times, Alexis Soloski observes how the production resonates for the 21st century. The titular scoundrel speaks to the hypocrisy and cynicism of our sociopolitical moment, seeming to prefigure everything from Internet trolling to cancel culture. “Dom Juan asks questions—perennial ones—about what an individual owes the community and what she owes herself,” Soloski writes. Dom Juan shows at the Fisher Center through July 17.

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Photo by Chris Kayden Photo by Chris Kayden

BHSEC Student Yuleisy Aguirre De Jesus on How Latin American Film and Other College Classes Changed Yuleisy’s High School Experience

Last year, Yuleisy Aguirre De Jesus was lost and failing in school. Taking college classes has revealed a new path. Yuleisy, a rising senior at Bard High School Early College in Cleveland, writes, “I just finished 11th grade, and it has been one of the most successful years of my life. I have pushed myself to do my absolute best, gaining many opportunities and lots of confidence in the process. My writing, reading, and speaking skills have grown exponentially. I’ve left behind the crushing weight of feeling like a failure.” Yuleisy is now on track to earn an associate’s degree alongside a high school diploma in 2023, and plans to continue her college education after BHSEC.

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Bard Family Leadership Council (FLC)

Members of the Family Leadership Council (FLC) play a key role in the Bard community through a range of optional activities: developing and participating in on-campus and regional recruiting and mentoring events, promoting and providing career opportunities for students, and participating in peer-to-peer fundraising. Parents and family members on the FLC play a prominent role in the success of the Bard College Fund through annual gifts of $1,500 or greater. The Family Leadership Council meets two times each year—once during Family and Alumni/ae Weekend and again in the spring. If you are interested in joining the Family Leadership Council, please contact Lindsay Davis Carr '06, Assistant Director of Development | Family Programs, at 845-758-7152.

New from Athletics:

Quartet of players leads Raptors to UVC All Academic Recognition

Four Bard College men's volleyball players and the Bard team as a whole have earned All-Academic Recognition from the United Volleyball Conference.

For individuals to qualify for the Academic List, they must be at least a sophomore or older and have a minimum GPA of 3.30. For a team to earn All-Academic status, the team GPA for the spring semester must be 3.00 or higher.

The players led Bard to a 3.36 overall GPA and made the Academic List, and they are from all over the world. Josh Kim (Seoul, South Korea), Azriel Almodovar (Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic), Lazaros Panagiotounis (Athens, Greece) and Quincy Ross (Red Hook, N.Y.) all produced GPAs better than 3.30.

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News from Career Development:

Bard Career Development Office (CDO) is open ALL summer long to work with students. Summer is a great time to work on polishing up materials for internships, on-campus jobs, post-graduate employment, and graduate schools. Would your student like to talk about ideas for post-grad plans or gain career insight? Please have them contact [email protected] to schedule a time to meet virtually or in person. 

News from the Center for Civic Engagement:

Students and mentors from Get Engaged 2022 pose for a group portrait at a festive night out in Bishkek.
 

The Ninth Annual Get Engaged Student Action and Youth Leadership Conference, organized by the OSUN Civic Engagement Initiative at Bard College in partnership with the American University of Central Asia (AUCA), was a rousing success. Held from June 23-30, and hosted by AUCA on their beautiful campus in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the conference brought together 55 undergraduate student leaders and 33 mentors from 17 OSUN universities and 28 countries.  ⁠

For the first time in two years, students, faculty, and staff met in person to discuss the civic engagement projects students have been developing and implementing in their respective countries. Students learned new skills, honed leadership styles, and networked with likeminded innovators who are collaborating with community partners across the globe to develop solutions to pressing local and global challenges.

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Thank you for your support

Thank you to everyone who has made a gift to the Bard College Fund since August 1st. Your generosity makes it possible for Bard to educate thousands of students each year:

Matthew R. Arruda '21 ● Jeannette G. Benham '12 ● Jennifer Bennett '84 ● Matthew Cameron '04 and Meredith Danowski ● Philip J. Coppola '19 ● Jack Fenn '76 ● The Estate of Inge S. Hoffmann '50 ● Moira Holohan '98 ● William K. Johannes '70 ● Leona A. Kanaskie '86 ● Arthur Kilongo '20 ● Catherine A. Koutsavlis '13 ● Matthew Langan-Peck '10 ● Woanjun Lee '20 ● Jake Lester '20 ● Mollie Meikle '03 and Nathan Smith ● Patrick Murtagh '07 ● Dr. Kerri-Ann Norton '04 ● Jennifer Novik '98 ● Johan V. Orellana '21 ● Aviv J. Porath '21 ● Esteban Rubens '97 ● David and Ruth Schwab II '52 ● Maro Rose Sevastopoulos '00 ● George A. Smith '82 ● Selda J. Steckler '48 ● Olivier te Boekhorst '93 ● Emily C. Tomasi '19 ● Alan M. Wallack '65 and Robin Liebmann Wallack '67 ● Diane Williams '66 ● Dr. Dumaine Williams '03 and Erika van der Velden '04

Recent donations will be acknowledged in the October Insider Newsletter. To make a gift to the Bard College Fund, please click here.