Greetings on Reunion Eve! As of today we have almost 600 alumni/ae registered and there will, no doubt, be many more who succumb to the gravitational pull of Blithewood at sunset and their old school.

We can't wait to see you! If you can't make it, but you still want to watch U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock’s Commencement address, or any other live-streamed events over the weekend, you can find all of the streaming links here.

I'm just heading out to Senior Dinner, under the big tent overlooking the river at Blithewood—remember yours?  Awards, speeches, waiting for the wine… That's the last big in-house event before all the families and alumni/ae come back and the carnival begins.

May has been full of festivities: SPROJ drop-off and BBQ party, senior art shows (@bardstudioarts), senior photo shows (@bardphoto), SRO film screenings (@bard.film) and some amazing SPROJ music performances.

Last week, my colleague Tyler Williams BHSEC '17, '19, MAT '21, assistant director of alumni/ae affairs, spoke at the first ever First-Generation Graduate Celebration. Students who are the first in their families to graduate from college were recognized with speeches, toasts and cake! First-gen faculty presented first-gen students with graduation cords and stories of their own journeys. This weekend, Bard is proud to have 75 first-gen students graduating.

Thanks again to everyone who signed up and is coming back. Everyone else, stay in touch and we will see you on the other side.

Be seeing you,
Jane '89

P.S. There's always so much alumni/ae news it's hard to keep up, and we still want to know yours—email us at [email protected]. You can sign up to read all Bard news here and remember to follow @bardalumni on social media.

Thrift 2 Fight, Cofounded by Masha Zabara ’21 and Jillian Reed ’21, Profiled in the Times Union

Thrift 2 Fight cofounders Masha Zabara ’21 and Jillian Reed ’21 both studied music at Bard’s Conservatory of Music. However, it was their shared mission to support grassroots social justice organizations that brought them together. Recently profiled in the Times Union, Thrift 2 Fight originated as a yard sale in 2020 to raise donation funds in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and has since expanded into a sustainable business model—raising and redistributing almost $65,000 to date through secondhand clothing sales.

Bard Alumna Lisa Kereszi ’95 to Launch Mourning, a New Photo Monograph

Lisa Kereszi ’95, photographer and Bard College alumna, is launching Mourning, a new monograph that explores family grief through photographs. In 2018, Kereszi’s father passed away, less than a year after she lost her grandmother. She asked family members to install a trail camera so she could view her father’s grave plot, which automatically generated photos she could view every day. In this way, she was able to regularly experience visiting her father’s grave through thousands of images taken over a seven-month period, despite being hundreds of miles away.

Stranger Love, a Six-Hour Opera by Dylan Mattingly ’14 and Thomas Bartscherer, Goes On for One “Euphoric” Night Only, Writes the New York Times

The New York Times profiled the “singular, tender, euphoric, hypnotic opera” Stranger Love and its collaborators, composer and Bard alumnus Dylan Mattingly ’14 and librettist Thomas Bartscherer, Bard’s Peter Sourian Senior Lecturer in the Humanities. The Times also reviewed the opera, naming it a Critic's Pick, calling it “an earnest exercise in deep feeling that takes sensations and stretches them from the personal to the cosmic, and goes big in a time when contemporary music tends to go small.”

Bard Alumnus Gabriel Kilongo ’15 Interviewed by Artnet News

Gabriel Kilongo ’15, Bard alumnus and founder of the art gallery Jupiter Contemporary in Miami, was interviewed by Artnet News about the founding of Jupiter and its upcoming exhibitions. In March 2022, he founded the gallery with the intention of highlighting and fostering emerging artists. “Our focus is to identify, exhibit, and develop artists who are off-the-beaten-path, and offer a breath of fresh air to the discourse of the art industry.”

Alex Auder ’94 Profiled in the New York Times and Interviewed on Fresh Air for Her New Book, Don’t Call Me Home

What began as a Senior Project is now Don’t Call Me Home (Viking, 2023), a new book by Alex Auder ’94 chronicling her relationship with her mother, Viva, the larger-than-life personality and Warhol superstar. “Don’t Call Me Home is fully cooked, wicked in its humor and often heartbreaking,” writes Penelope Green in a profile of Auder for the New York Times.