Behind Every Person, a Story: Brothers@Bard Celebrates Ten Years of Peer Mentorship and Student Success

This spring, members of Brothers@Bard celebrated the initiative's tenth anniversary with a packed gala event in New York City marked by powerful stories and heartfelt speeches.  As the event demonstrated, members have much to reflect upon and celebrate. Brothers@ started in 2014 as a brainchild of peers who sought to build a supportive community of Black and of color male students at Bard. With a heavy commitment of time and sweat equity, members successfully created a space where male peers came together to talk about the challenges of navigating life in a predominantly white institution.

The group's efforts had a quantifiable impact on the Black and of color student experience at Bard. Currently, the four-year graduation rate for Black students at Bard is just over 70% while the four-year graduation rate for members of Brothers@Bard members is 90%.

In 2015, group founders Dariel Vasquez ‘17 and Harry Johnson ‘17 asked themselves how they could expand their project even further so it could address high school students’ need for guidance. With the assistance of Bard’s Trustee Leader Scholar (TLS) program under the greater CCE umbrella, Brothers@ launched a youth outreach program designed to assist high school students of color from low-income schools as they prepare for college or a career.

With the support of a combination of government and private grants and several key partnerships, the high school initiative has proliferated. Currently, 51 high schoolers are enrolled in the peer mentorship program that is fostered by ten members of the on-campus portion of Brothers@Bard. Kingston High School, a core partner, reports that its Black male graduation rate has almost doubled, leaping from 46% to 80%.


Recently, the current TLS co-leaders of Bard’s chapter, Williams Hernandez ‘27 and Jalen Smiley ‘27, reflected on their own experience mentoring young men of color, as well as some of the impacts they have had on mentees.

WH: Mentoring young men of color has offered me a unique opportunity for personal and professional growth. By sharing my experiences and knowledge, I can help these young men navigate challenges, develop life skills, and build confidence. I grew up not having some of the opportunities that these high schoolers have and I always wished that I would have had a program like Brothers@. I've had the chance to grow positive relationships with the students and mentors that accompany me and I feel like I have inspired (students) a little bit. I am unsure if they will remember me after I’m gone but I want to create a lasting impact on them while I am here. 

JS:  I have experienced mentoring in the past through my church, the Eta Nu mentoring group in elementary school, and the Omega Gents (Omega Psi Phi Fraternity) group. In these programs and spaces I was taught the core values of what it not only means to be a man, but also a Black man, and how to conduct myself as a Black man in a white society. Although I grew up and experienced these groups in predominantly Black and Hispanic communities, the common intersector I bring as a mentor is being taught how to navigate a society that essentially wasn’t made for me. Also, being at a PWI (predominantly white institution) like Bard, I have a new perspective that I bring to the mentorship of navigating enclosed spaces where I’m often not surrounded by those that look like me. 

We started the program with only three mentors and have recruited more than five times that amount. At Kingston High School, we aim to provide mentorship and guidance to young men of color by helping them with life skills and teaching them about experiences that we ourselves have gone through. And with such a large group of mentors by our side we get to each put our spin and our input into experiences. 

Going into my first session as a mentor during spring 2023 I was very nervous but Azriel “AZ” Almodovar and Heston Tucker (Brothers@Bard co-leads at the time) told me and my roommate Williams Hernandez we could just sit and observe, to get a feel for how the discussion sessions and interaction with mentees might go. Sessions often focus on being a man of color in this society and how to navigate various spaces. In my first session we talked about code switching, a topic I was aware of because it was something adults around me made sure I understood. But in this session I was met with the fact that these high schoolers had no idea what code switching was. This was mind blowing for me because I guess I just assumed that every person of color knew what this phenomenon was. I felt inclined to speak up and share my thoughts on code switching because ultimately it is something I experience everyday. This experience instantly changed the way I viewed myself as a mentor and it made me realize that I did have something to pour into the mentees, even though just one year earlier I was a high school student just like them.

WH: We often do “grind sessions,” where the high school guys can just do homework, study, or work on college applications and we are there to help in any way we can. But there was one time where we mentors, along with staffers in the space we were using, debriefed mentees on the presidential election. The mentees thought that since they weren’t 18, the outcome didn’t affect them but we, as the older and more informed individuals in the space, wound up sitting with them for forty minutes explaining how the election affects them now and in the future. They were stunned. Since then I see the Brothers@ space differently from when I first started mentoring, when I thought it was something chill where we just hang out with some high schoolers for 45 minutes out of my day and get food after. But it’s more than that. These kids are in a bubble where they are not exposed to the experience of being in the broader world as a man of color and it is our job to expose them to what the world really is and their place in it. 

JS: The Brothers@ logo (a silhouette of one young man extending his hand to help another) accurately reflects the mission of the organization. It exemplifies the fact that we, as brothers, are all we have in this world, especially in a place such as Bard where we are the definitive minority.  

WH: I am excited to see what the final outcome of our work will be and how the project will develop as Jalen and I are in these roles. I am also a bit nervous about what is to come. I am a leader now and I have to “manage” all the mentors and communicate with them if something happens or if we have to change something. Having them look up to me as a communicator and someone they can ask questions scares me because I am not sure if I will know all the answers.

But I truly feel like I have learned what it means to have strength. People's definition of strength mirrors what people want for themselves or are working on for themselves. …Being strong is being secure in who you are, having freedom and courage. You are in complete control of your thoughts and your reality and only you can say whether you have strength or not. 

Everyday, not only am I touched by the students but I am touched by the mentors and can 110% say that without me I know Brothers@ would be in great hands. Everyone has gone through struggles but that’s what makes us stronger and able to mentor. We all face hardships of some kind, and you never know the struggles a person is going through. Behind every person, there's a story. And I truly believe that we are able to bring that forward from the high school students.

Post Date: 05-08-2025