CCE News

By Emily Costello ‘23

On September 30th, the Bard College Center for Civic Engagement hosted the third Community Partner Celebration at Blithewood Manor. The community partners being honored at the event were the Red Hook Community Center, Radio Kingston, and the Bard College Counsel that helped secure a polling place on Bard’s campus.

The Red Hook Community Center was the recipient of the Community Hero Award in honor of its dedication to provide an inclusive community space with free and low-cost programming for residents at all stages in their lives. The award was accepted by Sara Ugolini. Radio Kingston was the recipient of the Community Hero Award as well, in honor of its community-building in Kingston through creative programming and commitment to centering diverse voices not often heard in the media. The award was accepted by Jimmy Buff and Kale Kaposhilin. Lastly, the Bard College Counsel, comprised of Yael Bromberg, Esq., Michael Donofrio, Esq,. Doug Mishkin, Esq., was the recipient of the Champion Award in honor of tireless efforts to ensure student voting rights.

During the event, several community partners were interviewed for the CCE “What Is Your Why?” video segments that will be shared soon on the CCE site. The student-moderated interviews examined what the community partners do and why their partnerships with Bard College are so important.
 
Bard College and the CCE have been deeply involved in the local community for decades through partnerships, volunteer corps, administrative assistance, hosting of community events, and serving on organizing committees. To learn more about the community partners awarded, check out Red Hook Community Center, Radio Kingston, Timeline of Bard College Counsel’s work for voting rights. And stay tuned for upcoming “What Is Your Why” segments posted on the CCE website and social media.

Match by Open Society Foundations as Part of Bard’s Endowment Drive Will Create $50 Million Endowment Supporting Native American and Indigenous Studies in Undergraduate and Graduate Academics and the Arts

Bard College is excited to announce a transformational endowment gift from the Gochman Family Foundation, which will substantially advance its work deepening diversity and equity in American Studies with a Center for Indigenous Studies, faculty appointments and student scholarships, and the appointment of an Indigenous Curatorial Fellow at Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard). The College’s American Studies Program will be renamed American and Indigenous Studies to more fully reflect continental history and to place Native American and Indigenous Studies at the heart of curricular innovation and development. These initiatives, developed in partnership with Forge Project, will be supported by a $50 million endowment created by this visionary $25 million gift from the Gochman Family Foundation, with an additional $25 million matching commitment from George Soros and the Open Society Foundations as part of Bard College’s endowment drive.

The gift will accelerate Bard’s existing work in Native American and Indigenous Studies and develop broader College-wide programming initiatives in consultation with Forge Project Executive Director Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation). These initiatives include public programming and exhibitions, visiting scholars, archive and library acquisitions, and publishing.

The endowment will also support efforts to increase enrollment of students from historically-underrepresented populations and geographic regions, such as Native American and Indigenous communities, through dedicated undergraduate and graduate scholarship funds that cover tuition, fees, materials, and cost of living for students, as well as enhancing recruitment and retention support. 

The College will establish a chair for a distinguished/senior scholar of Native American and Indigenous Studies, to be named after a prominent Indigenous woman to recognize the academic contributions of Native women and educators, along with recruitment for additional faculty positions in interdisciplinary fields and Indigenous Studies. Library acquisitions and the development of archives dedicated to Native American and Indigenous history and culture will amplify this work.

Within the American and Indigenous Studies Program, the Center for Indigenous Studies will provide dedicated programming on key topics and methods in Native American and Indigenous studies throughout the Bard network and in public-facing events, including an annual lecture series, arts programming, curricular enrichment programming, and community-focused events. 

Forge Project Executive Director Candice Hopkins also joins the CCS Bard faculty as Fellow in Indigenous Art History and Curatorial Studies. Hopkins, who is a class of 2003 CCS Bard alum, will curate a major exhibition in 2023 to inaugurate the gift. The exhibition will center on the development of contemporary Native art through its exhibition histories and via thematic through lines including land, cultural sovereignty and self-determination, culturally-specific institutional critique, and the use and reuse of material and aesthetic practices drawn from the long history of Native cultural production in the United States and Canada. At CCS Bard, Hopkins will also teach one course per year focused on themes related to Native and Indigenous art history and curatorial studies, employing the Forge collection, a contemporary Native art collection, and engaging in conversations with living artists. Hopkins will lead archival acquisitions around Native and Indigenous exhibition histories in order to deepen CCS Bard’s purview in this area, strengthen emphasis on Native and Indigenous curatorial histories and art, and offer greater support to Indigenous students.

“I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Gochman Family Foundation for this generous endowment gift to support Native American and Indigenous studies in undergraduate and graduate academic programs,” said Bard College President Leon Botstein. “This is a fantastic contribution to the study of America, vital to a liberal arts education offering a broader understanding of the country.”

“I’m honored to work with Candice Hopkins and Bard to support Indigenous students’ ability to attend the College, and make possible the broader institutional transformation that will have an impact not just in the immediate term, but for generations of students, faculty, and staff to come,” said Becky Gochman.

“This gift represents institutional change, which has been building at Bard and is core to the vision of Forge Project. These lands are layered with histories that are inextricably bound by the displacement and forced removal of Indigenous peoples, yet also rich with knowledge,” said Forge Project Executive Director Candice Hopkins. “This gift provides the basis for the future building of this knowledge, to shift and expand discourses across fields of study, whether it be in Indigenous and American studies, art history, or curatorial practice. Critically, it also centers the needs of Indigenous students, reducing barriers to higher education, and recognizes that students want to attend programs where they see their interests reflected. Bard is at the forefront of this, and we are honored to be a part of this change.”

“The Gochman Family Foundation’s wonderful generosity allows us to sustain the work being undertaken in the Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck project, a curricular humanities and arts initiative to amplify and expand Native American and Indigenous Studies in partnership with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. We are proud to be in dialogue with and guided by the Tribal Nation whose ancestral lands the college is seated on around American and Indigenous Studies programming and to model such collaboration for peer institutions by our example. Importantly, the Gochman Family Foundation’s visionary gift and our collaborative efforts with Forge Project significantly expand crucial areas of curriculum development, research opportunities, and vital public programming,” said Christian Ayne Crouch, Associate Professor of History and American and Indigenous Studies and Dean of Graduate Studies, who steers the interdisciplinary team implementing Rethinking Place. “They have afforded American and Indigenous Studies a transformational opportunity, emphasizing the necessity of entwining Native American and Indigenous perspectives in our shared history, providing robust support for future scholars and leaders among our undergraduates and graduate students, and illuminating new points of connection between the wider, non-academic community and Bard.”

“This act of renaming of the program is no mere gesture but rather an evolution which offers recognition of how much American Studies as a discipline has changed since the inception of the field in the late 1930s,” said Peter L’Official, Associate Professor of Literature and Director of the American and Indigenous Studies Program. “Path-breaking, multidisciplinary American Studies scholarship has already acknowledged how the study of Indigeneity highlights Native studies’ extant intersections with fields like Black studies, Latinx studies, and Asian and Asian American studies. To paraphrase the Creek-Cherokee scholar Craig Womack, ‘tribal literatures and histories are not a branch waiting to be grafted onto the main trunk. Tribal literatures are the tree, the oldest literatures in the Americas, the most American of American literatures.’ This gift will help make more visible and tangible these essential, intertwined, and interdisciplinary histories and literatures to both our students and to the broader communities around—and beyond—Bard.” 

“Graduate students have long driven original research and scholarship around Indigenous art and curatorial studies alongside the faculty and staff at CCS Bard. Candice Hopkins’ powerful writing and exhibitions have been essential material in our curriculum, and it is truly thrilling to have her join our faculty and contribute to the future shape of the graduate program, its resources, and program,” said Lauren Cornell, CCS Bard Director of the Graduate Program and Chief Curator.

Sonita Alizada ’23, Bard College student, international rapper, and human rights activist, participated in the European Council event “Women in Conflicts: Young Voices for Change” on Wednesday, September 21, performing original songs and speaking on a panel of youth advocates. The event featured young women survivors, activists, policymakers, and leaders working in conflict and post-conflict regions. Cohosted by UN Women, Nadia’s Initiative, and the Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation, the third annual “Women in Conflicts” event took place in conjunction with the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

Alizada is a human rights major at Bard, also studying music. She opened the event performing her song “Daughters for Sale,” which passionately criticizes the practice of forced child marriage and draws on her own experience of twice escaping forced marriage in Afghanistan and Iran.

In the panel discussion, she reflected on the anniversary of the Taliban banning girls from attending secondary school in Afghanistan, describing the situation as an emergency. Alizada also criticized global inaction and called on the humanitarian sector and international leaders to listen to and invest in women and girls who are living in crisis situations. 

“If another generation is born in poverty and illiteracy, the humanitarian crisis, child marriage, sexual abuse, health issues, (will grow) at an even faster rate,” she said, referring to conditions in Afghanistan and Iran. 

Similarly, panelists Nadia Murad, Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist, and Olena Zelenska, First Lady of Ukraine, discussed inadequate international responses to the plight of women and girls who have survived conflict-related sexual violence in Iraq and Ukraine. 

Jayathma Wickramanayake, the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, highlighted the problem of women frequently being characterized as victims of conflict instead of individuals who can play an active role in maintaining peace and security in their communities and countries.

Alizada performs at the beginning and end of the livestream and joins a panel of young activists at 32:18.

Endowment Coincides with CCS Bard’s Permanent Reinstallation of Keith Haring Wall Drawing Created During 1981 Visit to Bard College

Egyptian Author Haytham el-Wardany Appointed 2022-23 Fellow

Bard College announced today it has received $3.2 million to endow in perpetuity the Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism, an annual faculty position that brings a prominent scholar, activist, or practicing artist to teach and conduct research within the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard) graduate program and the undergraduate Human Rights Program. The endowment is made possible by a grant of$800,000 from the Keith Haring Foundation and matching funds from the Marieluise Hessel Foundation and benefactor George Soros. First launched in 2014, the fellowship embodies the shared commitment of Bard and the Keith Haring Foundation to imaginatively explore the complex connections between sociopolitical engagement and artistic practice. It also speaks to the historic relationship between the college and Keith Haring, which is further honored with CCS Bard’s permanent reinstallation of a wall drawing the artist created in an act of spontaneity while visiting the campus in 1981.

In conjunction with the gift and reinstallation, Bard simultaneously announced that writer Haytham el-Wardany has been named the 2022-23 recipient of the Keith Haring Fellowship and will be in residence on campus during the spring semester to teach and conduct research. El-Wardany brings to Bard students a deep knowledge of philosophy, critical theory, aesthetics, history, and literature with a focus on social movements in the Middle East and around the globe. Using collective reading as a vehicle for cultural research and debate, his teaching will bring a richly literary and global dimension to CCS Bard and the Human Rights Program's curricula, advancing Bard College’s mission of cultivating critical thinking and creative action through deeper understandings of human history, society, and the arts.

“To sustain this fellowship as a catalyst for new research and a benefit to our students, I am delighted that the Keith Haring Foundation has generated a permanent endowment for one of our most successful pedagogical and research positions,” said Tom Eccles, Executive Director of the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. “The Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism has, for eight years, drawn a broad array of scholars and activists, both local and international, with a diverse range of interests to Bard’s graduate and undergraduate programs. Responsive to current concerns and urgencies, the fellows are all changemakers in their respective fields.”

"Haytham el-Wardany is a complex and elegant thinker whose work as a writer and a teacher demonstrates the power of close reading for understanding and engaging in both the arts and politics,” said Thomas Keenan of Bard's Human Rights Project. “We look forward to welcoming him on campus to expand on a body of work that actively responds to current debates and provides new frameworks for students to build critical bridges between art and activism." 

“The Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism has been an enormous source of pride for the Keith Haring Foundation for the last eight years. It is a nod to the spirit and belief of Keith Haring that both art and activism can complement one another and bring about social and political change. We are honored to partner with the Marieluise Hessel Foundation and George Soros to ensure this critical work continues perpetually,” said Gil Vazquez, Executive Director of the Haring Foundation.

About the Haring Wall Drawing 
In the early 1980s, Keith Haring was invited by Bard College Professor of Art History Tom Wolf to speak at the Procter Art Center (now the Fisher Studio Arts Building) about his practice and personal ethics around graffiti art. Prior to the talk, in an act of spontaneity, using a fat Magic Marker, Haring drew a series of five crawling babies on the wall of Wolf’s office. During a phase of construction and expansion in the Fisher Arts Studio Building, a portion of the wall with the drawing was carved out and moved to Wolf’s new office located in a different building on campus. 

With Wolf’s imminent retirement from Bard College, the work will be transferred from the Department of Art and Art History to CCS Bard to undergo conservation and stabilization. It will be permanently installed in the CCS Bard Library, where students, researchers, and guests will have continued access to Haring’s work, illustrating the connection between Keith Haring and Bard College.  

About Haytham el-Wardany 
El-Wardany is a writer and translator, living and working between Berlin and Cairo, whose practice combines fiction, essays, prose, theory, poetry, and experimental writings. Reflecting on the experiences and aftermath of protests and uprisings in Egypt and the surrounding region, el-Wardany’s work explores what it means to live together. His current research concerns examining the fugitive and fragile spaces where the process of inheriting a (traumatic) past can take place. His forthcoming book, Banat Awa and The Missing Letters, considers forgotten expressions of hope within Arabic fables—where animals speak and humans listen—as crucial to a moment of post “Arab Spring” speechlessness. In previous publications, including The Book of Sleep (Al-Karma 2017, Seagull Books 2020) and How to Disappear (Kayfa ta 2013-2017), el-Wardany has examined the agency and potential of passivity, through regimes of listening and the dialectics of sleep and vigilance amid social protests.   

El-Wardany is the recipient of the Cairo International Book Fair award for best collection of short stories for his most recent book Irremediable (2021); art residencies with Thkio Ppalies (Cyprus, 2020) and Para Site (Hong Kong, 2018); and grants from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (Beirut, 2019) and the State of Berlin (2021). El-Wardany has organized and conducted workshops around creative writing and is a member of different collective learning and reading groups. He holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Cairo University.

El-Wardany’s appointment follows that of Constantina Zavitsanos, who was named the 2021-22 Fellow. More information on the Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism, as well as previous fellows, can be found at ccs.bard.edu.

Building on years of work supporting and cultivating college-in-prison programs across the United States, this summer the Bard Prison Initiative expanded its programmatic support internationally, formalizing partnerships with universities and affiliated programs in Africa, Europe, and across the Americas. In July, BPI issued 11 capacity-building grants to new and existing programs and began growing a larger community-of-practice with 21 programs across 14 nations and six continents, including educators from Argentina, South Africa, Brazil, Jamaica, Trinidad, Australia, Italy, Mexico, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and beyond. This critical expansion of BPI's work is made possible due to an investment by and partnership with the Open Society University Network (OSUN).

Hannah Arendt saw that in the face of hypocritical quasi-rational structures of power, rage can often appear to be “the only way to set the scales of justice right again.” The real source of rage, Arendt understood, is a sense of powerlessness born of “a much deeper hatred of bourgeois society.” Rage can seem righteous just as today rage against immigrants, white people, and experts is justified by those crusaders who argue that in an unjust and hypocritical system, rage is necessary for radical political change. Such collective rage may inspire virtues of courage, loyalty, and meaning; but the virtues of rage come at a cost: It is the disintegration of the common sense and common viewpoints that unites us beyond our political, racial, class, and sexual identities. We are witnessing, once again, the retreat of reason and the return of rage as a key driver of political and social relations. At a moment when materially comfortable societies are teetering and the visceral attraction of tribalism is rising all around us, we must ask how our liberal democracies can survive and thrive amidst intensifying partisanship and the decline of public reason. While social media is not to blame for the rage that is ravishing our society, the algorithms that drive social media do allow emotional and angry opinions to spread with unprecedented vigor and vitality. 

Presented by OSUN, Hannah Arendt Center, and Center for Civic Engagement, the Hannah Arendt Center Conference “Rage and Reason” responds to the undeniable fact that rage and emotions are increasingly a force in our political and cultural lives. The conference asks: How can democratic rage be harnessed in social and political movements? Is rage essential to call out systemic and ingrained injustice? How can a politics of rage acknowledge rational and expert authority? If humans are tribal beings, how can they live in multicultural liberal societies? Are experts and elites themselves simply one tribe defending their self-interests? Must social media contribute to the fracturing of society into raging tribes? Is there a common interest in society knowable through reason? Above all, how can we uphold our liberal institutions and our common world in the midst of the polarization and fracturing of that world?

The two-day conference takes place on Thursday, October 13 and Friday, October 14 in Olin Hall, on Bard’s Annandale-on-Hudson campus. Register here.

ALL registrants are REQUIRED to upload proof of vaccination and booster. The full conference will be available via Live Webcast. During registration, you will be asked to choose between attending in-person or virtually via the live webcast. In-person attendees will also receive the link to the live webcast. Online registration will close on Monday, September 26, 2022.

Featured speakers include:
Roger Berkowitz, Founder and Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College; Leon Botstein, President of Bard College since 1975, where he is also the Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities; Myisha Cherry, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside; Mike Cosper, writer and podcast producer, and the Senior Director of Podcasts at Christianity Today; William Davies, Professor of Political Economy at Goldsmiths, University of London; Nicholas Dunn, Klemens von Klemperer Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College; Frances Haugen, advocate for accountability and transparency in social media; Catherine Holland, Director of Political Analysis at the Center for Social Computation; Mie Inouye, Assistant Professor of political theory at Bard College; Jamil Jan Kochai, Afghan writer; Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger: A History of the Present (2017) among numerous other works; Uday Singh Mehta, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center and the 2022 Yehuda Elkana Fellow (awarded by Central European University and the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College); Suzanne Nossel, Chief Executive Officer at PEN America and author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All; Colin Megill, cofounder of pol.is and President of The Computational Democracy Project; Dylan Sparks, Bard student majoring in Global and International Studies; Allison Stanger, Russell Leng ’60 Professor of International Politics and Economics at Middlebury College; and Thomas Chatterton Williams, author of Losing My Cool and Self-Portrait in Black and White.

Arendt Center conferences are attended by nearly a thousand people and reach an international audience via live webcast. Past speakers have included maverick inventor Ray Kurzweil; whistleblower Edward Snowden; irreverent journalist Christopher Hitchens; businessman Hunter Lewis; authors Teju Cole, Zadie Smith, Masha Gessen, and Claudia Rankine; Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead; and political activist and presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Previous conferences have explored citizenship and disobedience, crises of democracy, the intellectual roots of the economic crisis, the future of humanity in an age increasingly dominated by technology, the crisis in American education, and American exceptionalism. 

Bard College will host an abridged screening of The US and the Holocaust, a new PBS documentary directed and produced by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein, on September 21. The short 30-minute screening will be followed by a panel discussion with codirector and producer of The US and the Holocaust Sarah Botstein; Dean of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of History Christian Ayne Crouch; Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Human Rights Program Thomas Keenan; Associate Professor and Patricia Ross Weis ’52 Chair in Jewish History and Culture Cecile E. Kuznitz; and Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities Daniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, who shares his family’s story in the film. The event will be introduced by President Leon Botstein and followed by an audience Q&A session. This event will be held on Wednesday, September 21 at 7:30 pm in the Sosnoff Theater at The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. It is free and open to the public. 

The US and the Holocaust is a three-part, six-hour series directed by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, that examines America’s response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Americans consider themselves a “nation of immigrants,” but as the catastrophe of the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, the United States proved unwilling to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge. Through riveting firsthand testimony of witnesses and survivors who as children endured persecution, violence and flight as their families tried to escape Hitler, this series delves deeply into the tragic human consequences of public indifference, bureaucratic red tape and restrictive quota laws in America. Did the nation fail to live up to its ideals? This is a history to be reckoned with. The series will air September 18, 19 and 20, at 8-10 pm ET (check local listings) on PBS stations, and all three episodes will stream the night of premiere on PBS.org and the PBS Video app. To learn more about The US and the Holocaust, please visit pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/.

Event sponsors include Bard College’s President’s Office, Dean of the College Office, Center for Civic Engagement, and Human Rights Program.

“November’s upcoming election serves as an unfortunate reminder that New York still has an election oversight problem,” writes Jonathan Becker, executive vice president and vice president for academic affairs, in an opinion piece for the Times Union. The issue begins with the appointment of election commissioners, who “are not selected by expertise or commitment to voting rights,” but are instead selected by county political committees and are “thus incentivized to create electoral advantage for their patrons rather than facilitate political participation.” Further, there is very little accountability for election commissioners, as citizens must engage in “costly litigation through Article 78 proceedings” in order to challenge violations of their voting rights. Becker proposes multiple solutions to these issues, including greater consistency and transparency with respect to the operations of election commissioners and county boards. “These steps will not solve all problems with New York state voting,” he writes, “but they will bring accountability and empower citizens to defend this most sacred of democratic rights.”

Bard has admitted approximately 85 displaced Afghan students, the majority of whom are young women whose education was disrupted by the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government last August. Forty-four have already begun their semesters, and others are still in third countries awaiting visas to move to the United States in coming semesters. “Resiliency is certainly a characteristic that they all have, and they would not be here without that,” says Jennifer Murray, the dean of international studies at Bard. “I think there’s ambition and absolute dedication to their families, and, of course, there’s a lot of sadness and trauma.”

Representatives of Bard College have filed a complaint with the enforcement division of the New York State Board of Elections against the Dutchess County Board of Elections in order to protest “the repeated violations of the New York State and federal constitutions, and state and federal statutes and regulations related to equal protection, the right to vote, youth voting rights, disability accessibility, and election law, that have occurred and continue to take place in District 5 in the Town of Red Hook.”

The complaint outlines a pattern of discrimination and malfeasance by the Board of Elections that includes understaffing and underequipping the polling site at the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College, and repeated actions that violate the rights of voters with disabilities. It notes that the polling site at Bard is the only one in the county to be understaffed, and one of only two in the county with just one voting machine. The complaint singles out Republican Election Commissioner Haight for his reported insistence on understaffing the poll site at Bard, ignoring decisions of the State Board of Elections, and making false representations to the New York State Supreme and Appellate Courts. It also highlights his insistence on using a false disability access survey and suppressing efforts for a new survey: a long overdue report released last week by the office oif the County Executive confirmed that the polling site at St. John’s Episcopal in District 5 in Red Hook is neither handicap accessible nor ADA compliant.

The complaint is part of Bard’s longstanding effort to protect the rights of youth voters under the 26th Amendment to the US Constitution and preserve the rights of voters with disabilities. Over the past decade, Bard College and its students have been party to four successful federal and state judgements against the County Board of Elections.

Bard President Leon Botstein, who votes in Red Hook District 5 says, "The continued discrimination against youth voters and the targeting of the polling place at the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard is shameful and unfortunately follows a pattern of discriminatory practices in the county. The Board of Elections should encourage young people to vote, not obstruct them."

According to Erin Cannan, Bard College’s Vice President for Civic Engagement, “As a poll worker in Red Hook for over a decade, I was shocked to find only three poll workers, two Democrats and one Republican, at the Bertelsmann Campus Center and object to the plan to have only three poll workers in the upcoming special election. It seems to directly contradict the Dutchess County training I have been required to attend annually, where the emphasis is on equal representation of political parties in all aspects of the voting process and voting accessibility.  This understaffing makes for an unnecessarily long and stressful experience and does not reflect the values or the protocols provided by the Dutchess County Board of Elections to its poll workers.”

According to Bard Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Political Studies Jonathan Becker, “Commissioner Haight’s actions represent everything that is wrong with how elections are carried out in many parts of the United States. He is a public official has ignored the law and the rights of voters and has made repeated false representations to the court. I believe he has chosen to discriminate against voters with disabilities and youth voters for partisan political advantage. His efforts, which have been halted by decisions in numerous federal and state lawsuits, have cost the county nearly $130,000 in legal fees in the past decade, including more than $70,000 in the last two election cycles. We call on the New York State Board of Elections to ensure that all voters in Red Hook District 5 are treated equally at the polling place.”

Find a link to the Full Complaint here.

For the first time in two years, Bard students were able to join in person for the Annual Get Engaged Student Action and Youth Leadership Conference. This year's conference took place June 23–30 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on the beautiful campus of the American University of Central Asia, bringing together undergraduate student leaders and mentors from 28 countries and 17 institutions in the Open Society University Network. 
 
Students, faculty, and staff at the Get Engaged conference discussed the civic engagement projects students have been developing and implementing in their respective countries. Students learned new skills, honed leadership styles, and networked with like-minded innovators who are collaborating with community partners across the globe to develop solutions to pressing local and global challenges.

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.

On Monday, May 23, Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Bard to meet with 34 of the Afghan students currently enrolled at the College. The students gathered at Blithewood, where they shared their stories with Clinton, who has a longstanding interest in helping Afghan women and students. 

Most of these students came to Bard after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban last August as part of an effort by Bard, OSUN, and our other international partners to help Afghan students continue their education in safety. Bard has already accepted more than 100 Afghan students to its campuses. Bard expects the Annandale campus cohort to grow to at least 50 students by fall 2022. 

In addition to meeting with the Afghan students, Clinton spent time with administrators and campus leaders of several Bard initiatives, including the Bard Prison Initiative, Bard Early Colleges, Bard College Clemente Course in the Humanities, as well as civic engagement programs such as [email protected], La Voz, [email protected], and Sister2Sister.

Bard Senior Vice President and CFO Taun Toay Discusses the College’s Sustainability Efforts in an Interview for DOE’s Better Climate Challenge “Decarbonization Download” Series

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recognized Bard College for committing to reduce portfolio-wide greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% within 10 years and to work with DOE to share successful solutions and decarbonization strategies. As a partner in DOE’s Better Climate Challenge, Bard College is one of only 50 organizations across the U.S. economy that are stepping up to the Challenge and driving real-world action toward a low-carbon future. As a place of higher education, Bard College’s campus and buildings are its biggest carbon footprint. Bard is the only small liberal arts college in the country that is converting its built environment to carbon neutral as a Better Climate Challenge partner. 

Bard College has set ambitious pollution reduction goals including to cut energy use in campus buildings through efficient lighting and HVAC retrofits, to eliminate fossil fuels by converting to geothermal, to generate 10% of electricity with on-campus solar (and micro hydropower), and to purchase off-site renewable electricity for the remaining 90%. This will be supported by Net Zero design goals for all new construction. As Bard College undertakes this challenge, DOE will support its efforts with technical assistance, peer-to-peer learning opportunities, and a platform for the organization to demonstrate its commitment to being part of the solution to climate change.

“Better Climate Challenge partners like Bard College are committing to decarbonize across their portfolio of buildings, plants, and fleets and share effective strategies to transition our economy to clean energy,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “Their leadership and innovation are crucial in our collective fight against climate change while strengthening the U.S. economy.”

“Colleges and universities should take leadership roles on such pressing issues as global climate change,” said Bard College President Leon Botstein. “We’re gratified to be working with the Department of Energy as we move forward with our ambitious goals, and we encourage others in higher education to follow suit.”

“Bard is pleased to join a who’s who of 80 global companies committed to mitigating climate change. As an early adopter of geothermal and narrowing in on our carbon neutrality target, Bard is the only college to represent higher education along with four universities throughout the nation to be a first mover with the DOE,” said Taun Toay, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Bard College.

“Decarbonization Download: 5Qs with Bard College” is a video interview featuring Toay discussing Bard College’s sustainability goals, including the development of a Climate & Energy Master Plan that will provide a roadmap to transform campus infrastructure from being dependent on fossil fuels to being operated on 100% renewable energy. Watch the interview here.

In March, Bard College also launched the Worldwide Teach-In on Climate and Justice, a flagship event organized by the Graduate Programs in Sustainability (GPS) at Bard College, with support from the Open Society University Network. Bard’s Worldwide Teach-In on Climate and Justice brought together climate-concerned educators and students at universities and high schools from around the globe for bottom-up conversations about changing the future. Building on a foundation of more than 300 participating organizations this year from Liberia to Colombia, Taiwan to Vienna, and Florida to Alaska, the teach-in organizers hope to engage 1,000 colleges, universities, and other institutions next year, targeting at least 100,000 participants worldwide.

The DOE Better Climate Challenge is the government platform that provides transparency, accountability, technical assistance, and collaboration to identify decarbonization pathways and provide recognition for leadership across the US economy. The Better Climate Challenge builds on over a decade of DOE experience through the Better Buildings Initiative. Through Better Buildings, DOE partners with public and private sector organizations to make commercial, public, industrial, and residential buildings more efficient, thereby saving billions of dollars on energy bills, reducing emissions, and creating thousands of jobs. To date, more than 950 Better Buildings partners have shared their innovative approaches and strategies for adopting energy efficient technologies. Discover more than 3,000 of these solutions in the Better Buildings Solution Center.

The town of Red Hook has moved to stage two of the Audubon certification project, developing a vision plan with action items to support sustainability in areas including agriculture, economic development and tourism, public safety, and transportation. The sustainability designation project is being led by Chief Sustainability Officer at Bard and Chair of Red Hook’s Conservation Advisory Council Laurie Husted and Nick Ascienzo of the Ascienzo Family Foundation. “It’s such a difficult thing to define. We have a system to do it in higher education. It was exciting to think we could look at this as a municipality,” Husted said.
 
“What I think about as we celebrate our progress is that we inherited decisions that were made before we were born, and we are passing on a legacy to people who aren’t born yet,” said Erin Cannan, vice president for civic engagement at Bard. “What do we want this moment to mean for them?”

Bard College alumnus Gabriel Braunstein ’20 is among the first Peace Corps volunteers to return to overseas service since the agency’s unprecedented global evacuation in March 2020. The Peace Corps suspended global operations and evacuated nearly 7,000 volunteers from more than 60 countries at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I hope to serve a new community as best I can,” said Braunstein. “I am excited to work in a classroom and meet my new neighbors.”

Braunstein graduated from Bard in 2020 with a degree in literature. He will serve as an education volunteer in the Eastern Caribbean, working in cooperation with local community and partner organizations on sustainable development projects.

The volunteer cohorts are made up of both first-time volunteers and volunteers who were evacuated in early 2020. Upon finishing a three-month training, volunteers will collaborate with their host communities on locally prioritized projects in one of Peace Corps’ six sectors—agriculture, community economic development, education, environment, health or youth in development—and all will engage in COVID-19 response and recovery work.

Zarlasht Sarmast is a recent graduate of the American University of Central Asia, Department of International and Comparative Politics. She has previously served as the Spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kabul, Communications specialist for GIZ in Central Asia. Zarlasht is currently working for OSUN as a Program Coordinator for the Global Engagement Fellows program. She is the Director and CEO of the project “Afghanistan Politics on the Verge of Transformation.” Zarlasht recently finished her first MA in the department of International Relations and Security at the OSCE academy in Bishkek and is currently doing her second Masters Degree in applied psychology at AUCA. 

Huy is the founder of YUU Organization, a youth-led non-profit organization working to empower ethnic minority children and youth in the Central Highlands of Vietnam through education, employment, and cultural conservation since 2017. Huy follows the servant leadership model, inspired by Mother Teresa, and focuses on work with the Indigenous community in his hometown. In his third year with the Global Fellows Program, Huy aims to amplify the voice of youth in civic engagement across the network.

Mikelison is the C.E.O. and founder of the Earth's Tomorrow Foundation and a Junior at Bard College Studying Environmental and Urban Studies. He is a Posse Scholar and Public Policy and International Affairs Fellow from Atlanta, Georgia who started The Earth's Tomorrow Foundation to assist K-12 students in becoming more environmentally conscious through hands-on sustainability projects. Mikelison's research has been displayed in the T.E.L.L.U.S Museum of Science and internationally recognized at the Genius Olympiad International Science Fair. He aims to make change by using collaborative education methods to encourage young minds to become innovative thinkers and the world's next generation of leaders. As a Global Fellow, he plans to encourage those who want to create positive, sustainable change to get engaged in their communities and guide them in developing projects that will ultimately help better the world.

Henry runs the Bard chapter of Our Revolution, a political organization dedicated to electing progressive politicians who work for the people. He also serves as a member of the Morris County Democratic Committee, and as Sergeant at Arms for the Pequannock Township Democratic Committee. Henry believes that being politically active is an essential part of democratic civic life, and as a Global Fellow, works to promote political civic activities. 

During her gap year, Emi, a first-year intended Economics major at Bard College, initiated a community development project in a rural village on the Coast of Kenya. The project is centered around education and addresses issues of food insecurity. Emi built a library for a local primary school, delivered food and supplies to local community members, and created income generating programs to help the community sustain itself. The future of the project is focused around building sustainable infrastructure and educating local farmers to help them increase agricultural productivity. As a global fellow, Emi is committed to mobilizing Bard students to participate in civic engagement. Emi is hoping to bridge the connection between Bard students who feel passionate about social and environmental justice and opportunities to get involved with advocacy and mutual aid.

Aleksandar Vitanov is a sophomore international student from North Macedonia at Bard College studying Political Studies and Trumpet Performance at the Bard Conservatory of Music. He came to Bard after spending his junior and senior years of high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. He is on Bard’s Student Honor List, founded a Trustee Leader Scholar initiative called Musical Mentorship Initiative which provides free music education to families that cannot afford it, serves on Bard’s Student Government as the chair of the Pier Review Board, he is the Co-Chair of the Constitutional Court at Bard, and is the founder of the Alexander Hamilton Society Bard College Chapter. His goal as a Global Fellow is to increase awareness of the importance of civic engagement on campus, serve as a resource to fellow students, and connect with other Global Fellows around the world.

A liberal arts student double majoring in Ethics and Politics and Literature and Rhetorics, Lara's main goal is to encourage an approach to life that emphasizes the importance of students’ participation in civic life. As a Global Fellow, she wants to help provide students with the tools they need to take an active role in their community and work with others to help make the change they want to see happen.

Rokhila is the founder of social non-profit projects such as "No to bullying in Tajik schools," as well as co-founder of the Sociological Club AWAKE at AUCA. As a Global Engagement Fellow, I am committed to helping and guiding emerging and future leaders in building structures, organizing ideas, and developing their own projects. She wants to raise awareness and engage bright new minds in civic engagement both on campus and across the network.

As a Global Fellow, Aidin strives to build a strong and proactive community at AUCA that will be passionate about improving local societies. He has been working at the National Democratic Institute and American Councils for International Education as a community mobilizer and coordinated several volunteering clubs with 40 and 80 club members. Through his “Basketball for All” project, he seeks to create an inclusive space for children with autism and Down Syndrome and spread the spirit through AUCA students who volunteer and work one-on-one with children on campus.

Sayed Anwar Ibrahimi is a second year Software Engineering student at the American University of Central Asia. He built his first website when he was in 10th grade and then started to build websites and do back-end programming for different companies.  As a Global Fellow he wants to be more active civically, create and implement projects that focus on issues that the community of Afghan students face and experience while integrating into new institutions and societies, in particular the evacuated students from American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) now at other OSUN institutions. 

As a social activist in her community and beyond, Sitora joined the OSUN Global Fellowship Program to contribute to society's development by helping students at the AUCA campus and implementing her project in the near future. Having an enriched experience in community service and project implementation, she hopes to gain valuable experiences and contribute to the development of the OSUN Global Fellowship Program.

Patricia is the co-coordinator of CEU Debate Society and the President of the CEU Student Union in Vienna. Her aim as a Global Fellow is to motivate not only students, but every member of the community to make their voice heard.  Patricia plans to take the position of a “bricoleur,
who aims to bring together the ideas and initiatives of every student both in CEU and across OSUN in order to build a sustainable channel of communication, debate and solutions.

Code4All is a foundation Chinenye co-founded with five Ashesi University seniors in 2020, and she currently serves as president. The project seeks to empower young students aged between 10-15 years from unreached communities in Ghana, with ICT and programming skills. She wants to see civic engagement on campus reach an optimum high, and also expand the reach for the Code4All project. As a fellow, she expects the qualities instilled from the fellowship will go a long way in assisting her in implementing current and future project ideas and sharpening the way she understands and cooperates with the communities she hopes to transform.

Samantha is the Founder of Aim To Shine, an initiative that seeks to empower primary students in Chitungwiza community in Zimbabwe through teaching and mentoring. The long-term objective is to reduce the number of school dropouts, early child marriages, and drug and substance abuse by helping students excel in their academic and social lives. As a Global Fellow, Samantha hopes to dedicate time to nurturing student-led projects within the OSUN network and helping them create the change the world needs.

Freda Agyeman is the founder of Project Photo4her, a project dedicated to educating adolescent mothers about photography, how to take photographs, and how to run a photography business. The project was recognized as a model for removing cultural stigmatization of teenage mothers, gender inequality, lowering poverty in most households, empowering girls, and boosting employment opportunities for these teenage mothers, all of which are SDG targets 1,5, and 8. As a Global Fellow, Freda aspires to devote her time to assisting other student-led projects like hers in obtaining funding and, more significantly, developing their projects to the point where their overarching goal is to solve problems in society.

Originally from Afghanistan, Yalda is a sophomore at American University of Beirut majoring in Political Studies with plans to minor in women's and gender studies. She is the prize winner of the AUB Founders Day essay contest. Prior to coming to AUB, she worked with several organizations dedicated to human rights, women's rights, and youth advocacy in Afghanistan. As a Global Fellow, she wants to promote and support civic engagement activities that not only empower and encourage young leaders but also allow her to learn from them. With launching her initiative "Equal World," she seeks to promote gender equality and build civic engagement opportunities for students, and support the discussion of such ideas. In brief, her goal is to work toward an equal and inclusive community.

Hala is a junior at Al-Quds Bard and a Program Exchange Graduate from Bard Berlin. She is also the founder of AQB Mental Health Club and Project, which seeks to raise awareness about mental health among AQB students and to introduce students to the process of psychotherapy and mental healing. The project specifically sheds light on female students, abuse survivors, and refugee students through conducting special sessions for and with them under the monitoring of mental health experts. As a Global Fellow, she aims to create a space at AQB where students interact with and connect with the OSUN community, helping them build their own change-leading initiatives and provide necessary support.

As rising authoritarianism threatens democracies and liberal education worldwide, networks like the Open Society University Network (OSUN) become all the more necessary, writes Jonathan Becker, Bard’s vice president for academic affairs and vice chancellor of OSUN, for Liberal Education. A founding member of OSUN, Bard has brought 25 years of experience in global engagement with the liberal arts and sciences—experiences that Becker says “taught us lessons in resilience and lasting impact.” Building on Bard’s history of supporting refugees dating back to 1956, its participation in OSUN is another hallmark of its commitment to civically grounded education. Now, with Afghan and Ukrainian refugees, and especially students, in need of safety and support, Bard and OSUN are engaged in a “mosaic of efforts,” protecting democratic values, helping students to thrive, and sharing resources for the common good.
 
Read More in Liberal Education

I am a teacher in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya and my goal is to serve as an advocate for refugee children who need access to schooling. I look forward to interacting with other Global Fellows this year so I can gain from their experience. This will help me in my project “Children Out of School,” which promotes civic engagement activities that support vulnerable children in refugee camps or elsewhere who need schooling.

As a Global Fellow, Robert's aim is to assist and support youth from his community in Kakuma Refugee Camp in an effort to prevent them from using harmful drugs, a problem that has affected many youths, causing them to drop out of school and engage in criminal activities. His long term goal is to enroll in a degree program in order to take youth empowerment at Kakuma Refugee Camp to a greater level.

Legislative Win Follows Years-Long Fight for Student Voting Rights

The Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities at Bard College is pleased to announce the findings of the Kingston Air Quality Initiative (KAQI) after its first two years of research and data collection, as well as the availability of a new dashboard so that people in Kingston can access real-time information about their air quality. 

KAQI began in January 2020 as a partnership between Bard’s Community Science Lab and the City of Kingston Conservation Advisory Council’s Air Quality Subcommittee to conduct a first-ever Kingston-centered air quality study. Since then, Kingston residents and Bard College students, staff, and faculty have conducted air quality monitoring in both indoor and outdoor environments.

KAQI’s main monitoring efforts focus on a regional assessment of air pollution from fine particulate matter (PM2.5), as measured from the roof of the Andy Murphy Neighborhood Center on Broadway in Kingston. PM 2.5 is made up of microscopic particles that are the products of burning fuel, and is released into the air through exhausts from oil burners, gas burners, automobiles, cooking, grilling, and both indoor and outdoor wood burning. PM 2.5 particles are so tiny, they stay suspended in the air for long periods of time, allowing them to travel long distances before depositing. When these particles are inhaled, they can enter the bloodstream through the lungs, creating or exacerbating health issues. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that “Small particulate pollution has health impacts even at very low concentrations–indeed no threshold has been identified below which no damage to health is observed.”

After two full years of monitoring, KAQI found that while many signs point to Kingston’s overall air quality being decent, conditions do sometimes reach unhealthy levels for some individuals, and there is certainly room for improvement. 

Two important measures of PM2.5 air quality are the annual mean standard and the 24-hour average standard. For the period of measurement, Kingston met both the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) and the WHO’s annual mean standard. While the city was well below the EPA’s standard, it was much closer to the WHO’s stricter standard. For the 24-hour standard, Kingston met the EPA’s criteria, but was over the WHO’s 24-hour standard. For context, as of 2019, 99% of the world’s population was living in locations that do not meet the WHO’s air quality standards. 

Long term trends can only really be evaluated on a multi-year time scale. These first two years of monitoring will provide a baseline for KAQI’s monitoring efforts in the next few years, and allow them to assess how Kingston particulate matter pollution levels are changing over time.

You can see these findings and more detail at the Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities website: https://cesh.bard.edu/kingston-air-quality-initiative-kaqi/.

The Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities at Bard College, in collaboration with KAQI, has developed a dashboard that allows Kingston residents to access real-time information about their city’s air quality. The current PM2.5 and PM10 conditions are shown and interpreted, and one can see the air quality sensor’s reading from the past 12 hours. A separate page allows users to explore the hourly readings of particulate matter from the whole Andy Murphy Neighborhood Center dataset.

The dashboard can be found at: https://tributary.shinyapps.io/AMNC_live/

“KAQI is an important model for ways that academic institutions can contribute concretely to the communities who surround and support them,” said Eli Dueker, Director of Bard’s Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities. “We are combining serious efforts to monitor long-term air quality in Kingston with tools that allow us to put the data in front of residents in real time and give them feedback about what is going on in their city today.”

“This Kingston Air Quality Initiative monitoring project is such an important step that Kingston is taking toward assuring that its residents will breathe clean air into the future. This project responds to the need for both regional and neighborhood monitoring so that all residents’ air quality is taken into account. That the initiative focuses on PM 2.5 is especially important,” said Judith Enck, former EPA Regional Administrator.

Emily Flynn, City of Kingston Director of Health and Wellness, added “As we know, air quality can have significant impacts for respiratory infections, heart disease, stroke and lung cancer, and more severely affects people who are already ill. We applaud the work of the Center for Environmental Science and Humanities at Bard and thank them for their work here in Kingston.”

“Through the Kingston Air Quality Initiative dashboard, the Bard Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities has provided a valuable tool to the City of Kingston and its residents: the ability to assess the health hazards posed by air pollution in real time. The long-term trend data recorded will be a resource for decision makers to see the patterns of air quality within the city and to understand the impacts of local changes on air quality.” said Nick Hvozda, Interim Director of the Ulster County Department of the Environment.

These figures demonstrate daily pm2.5 averages for 2020 and 2021. Each point represents a single day, with vertical lines representing the range of variation in hourly readings that day (if no vertical line visible, the variation was smaller than the graphic point). The blue line provides a smoothing line to give a sense of seasonal trends.

For more information or ways to get involved, visit https://kingston-ny.gov/airquality  or https://cesh.bard.edu/kingston-air-quality-initiative-kaqi/

Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, has received a $150,000 state grant to partner with Southern Berkshire Regional School District on a three-year pilot early college program. The Early College Full School Impact Planning Grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will support a large-scale, or “full school,” immersive program at Mount Everett Regional High School in Sheffield, Massachusetts, drawing upon elements from Simon’s Rock and the Bard Early Colleges.

Last week, as Bard College students gathered with faculty and staff to talk about climate solutions, they joined tens of thousands of students worldwide doing the same. The Worldwide Teach-In on Climate and Justice brought together climate-concerned educators and students at universities and high schools from Liberia to Colombia, Taiwan to Vienna, and Florida to Alaska, for bottom-up conversations about changing the future.

Bard alum Karianne Canfield ’20 helped facilitate a teach-in session on “Dealing with Climate Depression.” Following the discussion, a student said that this was the first time they had felt empowered to address their deep anxiety about the planet heating up, and what it meant for their future.

Dr. Eban Goodstein at Bard, one of the directors of the global teach-in, said, “We are living at a moment of extraordinary agency, with the tools at hand to solve the energy half of climate change by 2030. The teach-in is moving young people from despair about climate change to engagement.” He added: “As voters, volunteers, interns and in their career choices as artists, activists, scientists, or business people, young people are working to stop climate change.”

The Bard College headline event began with a “low-carbon” dinner and a dance performance. Over the next three hours, 25 faculty from multiple disciplines joined students in discussions including “Climate and Justice,” “Climate Stories and Songs,” “Climate Science: What You Need to Know,” and “Food Systems and Climate Solutions.” Students also learned about New York State’s ambitious climate law, and were invited to provide public comment.

In the Philippines, there were teach-ins at eight different locations. Adrienne Hangad, who helped organize an event at the Open University in Manila, was most engaged with the discussion about women and climate solutions. Prompted by a pre-teach-in discussion noting the absence of a climate change “anthem,” a team of Filipino organizers composed a powerful song, “Change Climate Change,” that was played at the event. 

In Kyrgyzstan, climate workshops were held at 15 sites across the capital city of Bishkek. And from April 20 to 21, there will be an Africa-wide teach-in based in dozens of cities and towns, organized by the African Network of Young Leaders for Peace and Sustainable Development.

Commenting on her teach-in experience, Sofía Gómez, a student from Bogotá, Colombia, said, “I'm a strong believer in a mandatory class on climate change in schools and universities. This information allows us to open our eyes to how close we are to the climate crisis.” Khadija Ghanizada, a Bard student, added, “The teach-in was a window of hope for students. Most students I interact with are scared of climate change but also skeptical of the authorities and the work they are doing to mitigate it. We talked about how to push those in power to do their job in combating climate change.”

Building on a foundation of more than 300 participating organizations this year, the teach-in organizers hope to engage 1,000 colleges, universities, and other institutions next year, targeting at least 100,000 participants. “There are tens of thousands of climate-concerned educators around the world,” said Project Director Goodstein. “The teach-in provides a global platform for us to work together, to equip the rising generation with the tools and mindset to solve the climate crisis.”

The Worldwide Teach-In on Climate and Justice, and Bard’s flagship event, is a project of the Graduate Programs in Sustainability (GPS) at Bard College, with support from the Open Society University Network. GPS degree programs include MS degrees in Environmental Policy and Climate Science and Policy; the MEd in Environmental Education, and the MBA in Sustainability, ranked the #1 Green MBA for 2021 and 2022, and among the top 10 MBAs nationwide for Nonprofit Management for both years by the Princeton Review. 

Vice President for Civic Engagement Erin Cannan and Sadia Saba ’21, former Andrew Goodman Foundation ambassador at Bard College, discussed Bard’s polling location win on Live the Legacy. Offering lessons from decades of on-campus organizing, including efforts dating back to 1998, Cannan said that Bard’s involvement in securing voting rights for students stemmed out of a sense of pedagogical duty. “From an institutional perspective, Bard considers itself a private college in the public interest,” she said. “Institutions themselves have to play an active role in protecting rights as a form of education for students to understand what that takes.” In 2021, the New York Appellate Division unanimously affirmed the decision of Dutchess County Supreme Court Judge Maria Rosa to situate a polling place on the Bard College campus for District 5 voters, creating a more equitable and accessible voting site for Bard students and the Bard College community. Read more about that decision here.
 
Listen Now

Bard College student Elisabeth Sundberg ’22 has won a Davis Projects for Peace prize for her proposal, “Tracing The Turnrow Web: Appalachian Rising.” Human rights and studio arts major Sundberg will receive $10,000 to facilitate a series of collaborative art projects across the Turnrow network in West Virginia. Turnrow Appalachian Farm collective is a food hub connecting 100+ farms across West Virginia and providing fresh vegetables to their local communities. Working with farmers, artists, activists, and students, her work will “strengthen connections between the organizations within Turnrow and those between food producers and customers and celebrate the work that the different parts of the Turnrow food hub are doing, including education, food access, and strengthening local food landscapes.”

Sundberg’s project proposes to engage West Virginian residents with each other and their food systems through a series of community art events. Over the summer, she will facilitate a two week-long art project that includes the creation of a participatory mural painting, patchwork table cloth, and celebratory communal meal in each of four larger regions that Turnrow serves. This project is a continuation of a grant-funded community project Sundberg facilitated last summer. Like a traditional quilting bee, the community will gather to create these artworks together. The murals serve as a lasting visual representation of community work and the table cloths as an artifact which will be used by the network for potlucks, yearly business meetings, fundraising, and other events that Turnrow organizes. “Peace is not possible without food security and food justice. Many small towns in West Virginia don’t have a grocery store and rely on the Dollar General chain for their groceries. It is important to acknowledge that poor eating habits are not due to ignorance about healthy food choices, but due to lack of access. Peace is promoted when everyone has the right to local, sustainable, and nutritious produce, which is why organizations connecting farming and food access are so important,” says Sundberg.

Projects for Peace was created in 2007 through the generosity of Kathryn W. Davis, a lifelong internationalist and philanthropist who believed that today’s youth—tomorrow’s leaders—ought to be challenged to formulate and test their own ideas. To learn more, visit: middlebury.edu/office/projects-for-peace.

Sydney Oshuna-Williams ’24, who is majoring in film and electronic arts and philosophy, has been recognized for her commitment to solving public problems. Campus Compact, a national coalition of colleges and universities working to advance the public purposes of higher education, has named Oshuna-Williams one of 173 student civic leaders who will make up the organization’s 2022–2023 cohort of Newman Civic Fellows. The Newman Civic Fellowship recognizes students who stand out for their commitment to creating positive change in communities locally and around the world. 
 
As the founder of the Me In Foundation, Oshuna-Williams seeks to increase artistic education opportunities for underrepresented youth through social and cultural awareness year-round programming. In her first semester at Bard College, Oshuna-Williams created the Me In Foundation as a Trustee Leader Scholar project. The Foundation allows youth scholars to share their stories through a variety of different art forms and currently works with over one-hundred and fifty K-12 students in Upstate New York and Atlanta. Oshuna-Williams is also a Mogul in Training at Usher Raymond’s non-profit organization, Usher’s New Look, where she facilitates conversations centered around college and career readiness as well as financial literacy. Oshuna-Williams continues to use her passion for storytelling to bring untold truths to the surface because, as she says, “Every story deserves to be heard by the characters who live it."
 
Through the fellowship, Campus Compact will provide these students with a year of learning and networking opportunities that emphasize personal, professional, and civic growth. Each year, fellows participate in numerous virtual training and networking opportunities to help provide them with the skills and connections they need to create large-scale positive change. The cornerstone of the fellowship is the Annual Convening of Fellows, which offers intensive skill-building and networking over the course of two days. The fellowship also provides fellows with pathways to apply for exclusive scholarship and post-graduate opportunities.
 
The fellowship is named for the late Frank Newman, one of Campus Compact’s founders, who was a tireless advocate for civic engagement in higher education. In the spirit of Dr. Newman’s leadership, fellows are nominated by Campus Compact member presidents and chancellors, who are invited to select one outstanding student from their campus each year.
 
“Sydney Oshuna-Williams, a second year Posse scholar at Bard College, is a very active student addressing mental health healing in our student body (as a peer health educator specializing in the healing of BIPOC students) and securing pathways to creative careers for kids in our neighboring communities. Sydney is currently serving as a peer counselor (Bard's version of residential advisor) to support students in their living environments and a Sister2Sister mentor (a student-led mentorship program providing guidance and opportunity to young women of color). Sydney also partners Bard's neighboring school districts with schools in her home state of Georgia to bridge opportunity across geographical limitations,” said Bard President Botstein.

By Jae Zimmerman

Earlier this week Bard Farm co-hosted a workshop on Organic Garden Planning with Four Corners Community Farm. On a Sunday afternoon, 13 people joined Samuel Rose from Four Corners and Jae M. Zimmermann, Bard graduate student and Bard Farm community education coordinator, as they led a session about organic gardening.

“Everyone engaged with the material and asked lots of questions. Some even started designing their own gardens and got feedback from their peers and the instructors," said Zimmerman. "The gathering began as a group of strangers but had a community feel by the end."

One popular part of the event was an outdoor stretching activity that helped participants visualize the path and angle of the sun at different times of the year.

This event was the first in a series of workshops spanning the entire gardening season. The next workshop will cover seeds and seeding techniques and include hands-on work in the greenhouse. It will take place at the Four Corners Community Farm in Red Hook on Sunday, March 13 from 2-4pm.

Register for "Seeding Techniques" by March 10th to secure transportation from the Bard campus, or to request childcare or Spanish interpretation.

For more information, email [email protected]. 

[email protected] is a high school retention and college persistence organization cofounded by Dariel Vasquez ’17 and Harry Johnson ’17 when they were students at Bard College. The organization works to improve the academic and social-emotional outcomes for young men of color in both secondary and postsecondary education.
 
The organization mentors roughly 50 Kingston High School students each year, teaching them life skills, aiding in academics, and organizing trips to colleges and conferences. Student outcomes and success stories at Kingston High School have been impressive. Principal Vincent DeCicco says their graduation rate for black male students has increased every year since [email protected] began their mentorship program at Kingston High School, rising from about 47-48% when [email protected] first came in, to the most recently reported 80-81% graduation rate. 
 
In a video produced as a case study for Open Society Network (OSUN), of which Bard is a founding partner, [email protected] Executive Director Vasquez asks: “What happens when you take those people who are closest to the problem and often furthest from the resources . . . and position that group to lead the work and not just be objects of it? They tend to have the most creative solutions. They tend to be those who can see the problem and understand it and break it down and address it better than anyone else.”
 
Partnering locally with Kingston High School and other organizations including Camp Ramapo in Dutchess County, [email protected] has pioneered a model for near-peer mentoring programs, which is becoming a national model. “What we realized was when you do same-generation mentorship it’s like a mirror that’s put up . . .  It makes them feel like they can literally be that person tomorrow,” says Vasquez. 
 
Kingston High School student Damien Figueroa, [email protected] mentee, says, “[email protected] is a brotherhood. It’s laughter, it’s love, it’s a safe space.”
 
About [email protected]
Since 2014, [email protected] has grown from a student-led pilot program ([email protected]) and institutional initiative, to a state-wide scalable model focused on expanding to college campuses and local communities across NY State and all 5-boroughs ofCa NYC. The organization serves as a platform for hope, self-empowerment, and engagement—pressing needs among low-income and underrepresented students in secondary and higher education. 
 
Today, [email protected] works with nearly 200 young men of color annually—recruiting, training and hiring collegiate men of color to become mentors and positive male role-models to young men of color in high school through our weekly programming during the academic school year—ultimately providing access to meaningful opportunities, and creating pathways to full-time employment on college campuses, local communities, high schools, and youth-serving nonprofits and organizations. 
 
Through cross-sector collaborations and partnerships with public and private institutions, corporations and nonprofits, [email protected] is a blueprint for addressing the ever-growing opportunity gaps YMOC face, and challenging historically exclusive and predominately white institutions to become inclusive spaces for young people.
 
To learn more, please visit brothersat.org or follow @Brothersat_ on Twitter and @Brothersat_ on Instagram.

In an opinion piece for Inside Higher Ed, Bard College President Leon Botstein and Arizona State University President Michael Crow assert the time is now for the Biden administration to act on establishing a new university sponsorship program for refugee students. 
 
“A little more than a year ago, President Biden issued an executive order to revitalize the U.S. refugee program, and his administration subsequently articulated plans to launch a pilot program allowing private entities to identify refugees for sponsorship and support their resettlement. Higher education leaders mobilized in response, knowing this could create a college and university pathway for refugee students to resettle, study and stay in the U.S.,” write Botstein and Crow, whose institutions are leaders in the evacuation and resettlement process of Afghan students. “[ . . . ] As we continue to respond to urgent needs of Afghan evacuees, and as we watch the unfolding situation in Ukraine, we must recognize that the challenge is far greater than just one country’s displaced population.”
 
Calling on the administration and other higher education leaders to join in these efforts, they write: “As our two examples demonstrate, support for refugee students’ higher education does not have to be limited to only one type of institution: ASU is a state university with one of the largest enrollments in the nation, while Bard is a liberal arts college with an enrollment of about 2,000. Despite our differences, we share in the commitment to refugee students’ education and recognize that now is the time—and the new university pathway the vehicle—to meet this global challenge facing higher education.”
  
ASU’s Education for Humanity initiative and Bard are helping lead the Refugee Higher Education Access Program, a pillar of the Open Society University Network. This program serves learners who require additional university-level preparation in order to transition into certificate or degree programs.

This story was originally published by the Open Society University Network.

By Jonathan Becker, OSUN Vice Chancellor and Daniel Calingaert, OSUN Managing Director

As Hyazinth Baumann completed her senior year at Bard, a small liberal arts college known for its vibrant classrooms and intensive faculty engagement with students, she made a surprising observation: one of her favorite courses as an undergraduate was taught online. She appreciated the opportunity to learn together with students living all  around the world. Even as institutions transition back to a full slate of in-person classes, many students like Baumann want to maintain the valuable international connections they made through online courses during the pandemic. The global classroom looks set to become an essential feature of higher education.
 

Bard Students: Get Involved! Learn More about OSUN Online Courses Join OSUN Events Sign Up for the OSUN Newsletter Follow @opensocietyuniversitynetwork on Instagram

While a “global classroom” typically refers to a small set of courses cotaught with one other university overseas, Bard and other partners in the Open Society University Network (OSUN) have offered students a distinctly different international experience. OSUN online courses have brought together a highly diverse mix of students and faculty for the duration of a semester and given them ample opportunities to share knowledge and perspectives they previously might never have encountered.  

The civic engagement courses taught by Bard’s Jonathan Becker, for example, included students from partner universities in Afghanistan, Austria, Bangladesh, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Haiti, and Myanmar and from Tuskegee, a historically Black university in the United States. Other OSUN courses have incorporated displaced people from Somalia, Sudan, Congo, and Burundi in Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya.

This diverse mix exposes students to a far broader range of perspectives than they previously had. Bard student Maureen Blackmore, for example, was inspired by the determination of her fellow students in the face of upheavals within their countries, such as the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in Haiti, and the crackdowns on political dissent in Myanmar. She had previously approached civic engagement as participation in democratic processes. Through the OSUN course, Blackmore gained appreciation for the value of collective action regardless of circumstance to promote civic life, or at least to preserve it in the face of authoritarianism and civil strife. 

Yaw Kwakyi, a student at Ashesi University in Ghana, says “An OSUN course is an opportunity to be part of a global experience.” Before taking the OSUN course on "Media, Communications, and Discrimination," Kwakyi had limited global or virtual experience, and his knowledge of current events was focused mainly on Ghana and the United States. The course exposed him to a wider range of perspectives, including from students in Belarus. “In that space I had now become an international or foreign exchange student,” says Kwakyi. 

OSUN’s enhanced version of the global classroom challenges students’ assumptions and worldviews like no other does. Sabina Rashid, Dean of the School of Public Health at OSUN partner BRAC University in Bangladesh, calls it a “multidirectional sharing of knowledge.” Unlike many international programs that, in essence, export American academic programs, the enhanced global classroom actively invites knowledge from professors and students around the world.

A separate category of OSUN courses, called network collaborative courses, are codesigned across partner institutions and offered simultaneously at multiple campuses. Enrollment per course typically involves several campuses and can extend to a dozen institutions. The codesign of the global classroom thus has evolved from a set of bilateral collaborations to multilateral partnerships.

In 2020–21, OSUN offered more than 180 courses across 25 campuses worldwide to more than 3,000 students. They began as a reaction to the pandemic but quickly grew to scale. As courses moved online in the summer of 2020, OSUN institutions opened enrollment to students at other campuses, and students responded enthusiastically. In course evaluations, the vast majority of students said they planned to take another OSUN course. The number of OSUN courses has diminished this academic year, now that most OSUN students are back in person, but dozens of OSUN courses are still on offer.

OSUN courses have significantly expanded the course offerings for students across the network, and in some institutions, had a transformative effect. At Ashesi University, for example, the introduction of OSUN courses more than tripled the university’s course offerings in the liberal arts each semester, according to Provost Angela Owusu-Ansah.

The geographic diversity of OSUN among its 41 member institutions has allowed it to create a significantly enhanced—and multidirectional—global classroom and bring the global classroom to scale. The global classroom, in turn, invigorates the network by building common purpose across partner institutions and immersing students in widely diverse perspectives.

The possibilities for growth are promising. OSUN is developing certificate programs that will require one or more shared courses. The offerings of OSUN courses will be planned further in advance so that they can be better integrated into degree programs at partner institutions, including anticipated dual degree partnerships. And the enhanced global classroom can facilitate greater access to in-person student mobility. First-generation students at Bard, for example, might take the leap to study at the American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan junior year because they already know students there from the OSUN courses they have taken.

The enhanced global classroom is expanding the horizons for students and faculty, whose enthusiasm is palpable. It may well set the trend for international collaboration in higher education over the years ahead.