2009 Fall Bardian

Bardian Bard College Fall 2009

Al-Quds and Bard Commencement Africa: Civil Society at the Edge SummerScape

cover, opposite page, and above Commencement 2009

Dear Bardians, Welcome to another fantastic issue of the Bardian. We celebrate here the achievements of the last of the aughts, the graduating class of 2009, and highlight some of the fascinating people and wonderful programs that make Bard such a special institution.

Being involved with Bard is irresistible. I have agreed to serve a second two-year term as president of the Board of Governors of the Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association. The Board is a volunteer group that works with Bard alumni/ae all over the country to plan events, recruit historically underrepresented students, recognize alumni/ae achievement, and find creative ways to keep Bard moving forward.

My thanks to the hundreds of alumni/ae donors and volunteers who have strengthened Bard over the years. I am grateful every day for the lessons I learned as an undergraduate and the opportunities I have as an alumnus. I urge you to join me in doing what we can to ensure that the next generation of Bard students has every opportunity that we had, and more, with chances to learn and experience things we could never have imagined.

If you’re not sure how to help, consider one or more of the three Cs: contributions, coaching, and collaboration. Your contribution doesn’t have to be huge; the important thing is that you give something. This shows foundations and larger donors that those who know the College best think it worth investing in. In today’s difficult fund-raising environment each contribution is especially meaningful and appreciated.

By coaching I mean sharing the benefit of your experience with current students and recent graduates who are trying to find their feet in a tough job market. Mentoring advice, internships, or job connections make a big difference. Log in to ANNANDALEONLINE. ORG, update your business information, and sign up to be a mentor.

Collaboration is an integral part of the Bard experience, from the admission interview, to determine if Bard is the right fit, to the Moderation board and the Senior Project, to the alumni/ae experience. The dedicated staff in the Alumni/ae Office, led by Jane Brien ’89, is a tremendous resource for helping you to get involved. In the same way that your Bard student experience was self-directed, so your experience as an alum is directly proportional to what you put into it. Bardians are fascinating people doing amazing things; I guarantee that giving of yourself to enhance Bard’s future is richly rewarding in unexpected and wonderful ways. If you’re ready to learn more, or if you’re not already receiving a monthly update from Bard, please send a message to alumni@bard.edu so you can get started.

Thank you again for all you do for Bard.

Walter Swett ’96 President, Board of Governors, Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association

Board of Governors of the Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association Walter Swett ’96, President Michael DeWitt ’65, Executive Vice President Roger Scotland ’93, Vice President Maggie Hopp ’67, Secretary Olivier te Boekhorst ’93, Treasurer Jonathan Ames ’05 Robert Amsterdam ’53 Claire Angelozzi ’74 David Avallone ’87, Oral History Committee Chairperson Dr. Penny Axelrod ’63 Belinha Rowley Beatty ’69 Eva Thal Belefant ’49 Joshua Bell ’98, Communications and New Technologies Committee Chairperson Dr. Miriam Roskin Berger ’56 Jack Blum ’62 Carla Bolte ’71 Randy Buckingham ’73, Events Committee Cochairperson Cathaline Cantalupo ’67 Pia Carusone ’03 Charles Clancy ’69, Stewardship Committee Cochairperson Peter Criswell ’89

Arnold Davis ’44, Nominations and Awards Committee Cochairperson Elizabeth Dempsey BHSEC ’03, ’05, Young Alumni/ae Committee Chairperson Kirsten Dunlaevy ’06 Kit Kauders Ellenbogen ’52 Joan Elliott ’67 Naomi Bellinson Feldman ’53 Barbara Grossman Flanagan ’60 Diana Hirsch Friedman ’68 R. Michael Glass ’75 Eric Warren Goldman ’98, Alumni/ae House Committee Cochairperson Rebecca Granato ’99 Ann Ho ’62, Career Connections Committee Chairperson Charles Hollander ’65 Dr. John C. Honey ’39 Elaine Marcotte Hyams ’69 Deborah Davidson Kaas ’71 Richard Koch ’40 Erin Law ’93, Fund-raising Committee Chairperson Larry Levine ’74 Cynthia Hirsch Levy ’65 Isaac Liberman ’04 Michelle Dunn Marsh ’95 Peter F. McCabe ’70, Nominations and Awards Committee Cochairperson

Mollie Meikle ’03 Steven Miller ’70, Stewardship Committee Cochairperson Anne Morris-Stockton ’68 Jennifer Novik ’98 Karen Olah ’65, Alumni/ae House Committee Cochairperson Susan Playfair ’62 Arthur “Scott” Porter Jr. ’79, Alumni/ae House Committee Cochairperson Allison Radzin ’88 Emilie Richardson ’05 Reva Minkin Sanders ’56 Joan Schaffer ’75 Barry Silkowitz ’71 George A. Smith ’82, Events Committee Cochairperson Dr. Ingrid Spatt ’69 Paul Thompson ’93 Erin Toliver ’00 Dr. Toni-Michelle Travis ’69 Brandon Weber ’97 Barbara Crane Wigren ’68 Dumaine Williams ’03 Ron Wilson ’75 Matt Wing ’06 Sung Jee Yoo ’01

Bardian FALL 2009 4

FEATURES 4 AL-QUDS AND BARD Inspiration Beyond Borders 6 SISTERS IN RESEARCH The Norton sisters take on HIV and breast cancer 8 COMMENCEMENT 2009 14 AN ISLAND IN ANNANDALE Olafur Eliasson’s installation is a haven for contemplation and debate 8

16 THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS AND BEYOND 18 AFRICA: CIVIL SOCIETY AT THE EDGE 22 A REVOLUTIONARY REDUX The Spirit of Richard Wagner Kindled Summer Festivals

DEPARTMENTS 14

24 ON AND OFF CAMPUS 25 BOOKS BY BARDIANS 28 CLASS NOTES 46 FACULTY NOTES

At press time Bard president Leon Botstein was honored with a 2009 Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award. The award carries a grant of $500,000, to be used at the president’s discretion in support of Bard’s academic initiatives. While leaders of many universities have been recognized through this prestigious program, Bard is the first college to have been honored for its leadership. For more information, visit www.bard.edu/news.

AT LEFT, TOP TO BOTTOM: On the campus of Al-Quds University, East Jerusalem; New York Governor David A. Paterson in the Academic Procession at Commencement; The parliament of reality,

by Olafur Eliasson; Erin Morley as Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, in the SummerScape production of Les Huguenots 22

Al-Quds and Bard In the realms of international education, Bard takes pride in going where no American college has gone before.

In 1996, Bard teamed up with Saint Petersburg State University to establish Smolny College, Russia’s first liberal arts college. Today Bard is joining with Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem, in a groundbreaking initiative that creates three new programs patterned on Bard’s signature styles of education.

The Al-Quds Bard Honors College for Liberal Arts and Sciences, opening this fall, offers a dual bachelor of arts degree from Bard College and Al-Quds University. The Al-Quds Bard Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program, based on the successful model debuted at Bard, holds that a teacher should be an expert in his or her field as well as educated in pedagogy. The Al-Quds Bard MAT Program, also beginning this fall, grants a dual master of arts in teaching from both institutions. The AlQuds Bard Model School, designed to serve as a laboratory for the MAT Program and to improve Palestinian secondary education, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2010 with grades nine through twelve.

The Palestinian system of secondary education depends strongly on rote learning and is more specialized than its U.S. counterpart. The most gifted students are tracked toward the sciences, to the detriment of the humanities and social sciences.

Bard President Leon Botstein and Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University, agreed that a broad general education in liberal arts and sciences would not only enhance educational standards, but also strengthen professional opportunities and open more avenues for political discussion in the Middle East.

The partner institutions are cooperating with the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education, nongovernmental organizations, and other expert organizations in the region.

On the campus of Al-Quds University

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Inspiration Beyond Borders

Students for the Honors College are being recruited from different types of schools within the region and beyond.

Admission is not based solely on test results; it also depends on a personal interview and evaluation of secondary school performance. The Honors College curriculum adopts key features of the Bard curriculum: a prematriculation course similar to the Language and Thinking Program, First-Year Seminar, a selfreflective evaluation similar to Moderation, and a Senior Project. The Honors College will take advantage of an international faculty, including Palestinian Ph.D.s who have trained abroad. An opening cohort of 80 to 100 students eventually will expand to approximately four hundred.

The Al-Quds Bard MAT Program integrates graduate study in an academic discipline and teaching methods with ongoing work in the classroom. A research project that emphasizes clinical experience and a disciplinary thesis cap the degree requirements. In this first year, the program has already enrolled more than 50 practicing teachers from more than 20 public and private Palestinian schools. Of these, six to eight will be designated “pioneer schools” because they demonstrate a schoolwide commitment to educational change and have a majority of teachers who are MAT Program students. After their research projects are completed, they will become mentors to the class that enters the program in 2010.

“The goals of the Al-Quds Bard MAT Program are to provide opportunities for current teachers, this first year, and future teachers to pose questions about how they teach and to become leaders for change in the Palestinian education system, from the classroom level forward,” says Ric Campbell, dean of teacher education and director of the MAT Program at Bard. “If you’re going to make a change in education, you have to begin

with the way the kids are learning.” Toward that end, Bard’s Institute for Writing and Thinking and MAT Program are offering workshops at the Al-Quds Bard MAT Program.

The curriculum of the Al-Quds Bard Model School is being developed with two objectives: to foster styles of teaching and learning that promote more independent thinking and stronger oral and written expression rather than rote learning, and to improve student performance on the Tawjihi, the universal Palestinian college matriculation exam.

In all three initiatives, Bard and Al-Quds share responsibility for curricular development, faculty training, recruitment, and governance, through joint committees of faculty and administrators.

Bard educators involved in the joint program are enthusiastic about the affiliation. “We are inspired by the faculty and students we have met at Al-Quds,” says Susan H. Gillespie, vice president for special global initiatives and director of the Institute for International Liberal Education. “Their desire to improve education and foster positive change is really impressive, and this gives us confidence that our joint programs will succeed in spite of the considerable difficulties they—and we— face there. The project evoked immediate support at Bard, where students responded by contributing hundreds of textbooks for First-Year Seminar. We hope it will be possible for a student delegation to visit Al-Quds this year.”

More than two dozen staff and faculty members are being exchanged in both directions. Robert Weston, visiting assistant professor of literature, was selected as the first Ottaway Faculty Exchange Fellow and is spending this academic year teaching at the Honors College. He also is director of faculty and curricular development at the Honors College. “I work closely with faculty and students to foment a teaching and learning environment that, while necessarily different, still reflects the core pedagogical values of a Bard education,” he says. “This is a tremendously exciting and, in many ways daunting, endeavor. The excitement

is palpable. Both at Bard and in Jerusalem there are deeply committed faculty and administrators working hard to make sure the Honors College is a success.”

“There is probably no better way of learning about the culture, politics, and goals of another region than by being involved in a project with this degree of ambition and intensity,” Gillespie adds.

Al-Quds is an ideal setting for the ambitious program, officials at both institutions agree, because it has been a pioneer over the past decade in working toward the kinds of educational approaches that Bard embodies. The university’s strategic goals already included development of a creative, cooperative, and multicultural way of thinking. Nusseibeh, who has headed Al-Quds for almost 15 years, has created academic exchange programs with other universities in the United States and Europe; the association with Bard constitutes its first jointdegree programs.

Botstein and Nusseibeh appeared together on PBS’s Charlie Rose Show in August, where the two agreed that the moment is right for such a collaboration. “This program comes at a terrific time,” Botstein said. “The people [of the region] want a normal life. They want to change the inability to understand the other person’s point of view.”

“It’s very important to create tolerance and pluralism through this form of education,” Nusseibeh concurred. “It will introduce new methods . . . that I hope are replicated, and I hope will awaken again the interest in education and culture as a way of enriching society.”

Campbell sums up the mutual goals of Bard and Al-Quds: “What’s brilliant about this initiative is that it is a form of international collaboration in a troubled area that shares a common concern for education. The questions they’re asking in Palestinian schools are not fundamentally different from the questions we ask in American schools.”

—Cynthia Werthamer

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in an urban HIV clinic. Her research, which was accepted last year by the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, examined the characteristics and risk factors of HIVinfected patients who were prescribed the medication.

“Our study found that Viagra was prescribed to about 15 percent of patients in the clinic,” she says. “Those patients did not necessarily present associated risk factors for erectile dysfunction such as advanced age or diabetes. As a doctor, you would never want to withhold proper treatment; however, Viagra is connected to high-risk sexual behavior, crystal meth use, and increased incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STI). Doctors need to see the request for Viagra as an opportunity to engage patients in STI and HIV prevention and treatment.”

Brianna’s decision to pursue medicine came at the end of her junior year, after she worked for two summers in chemistry research labs, at the University of Pennsylvania and University of California, Santa Barbara.

Prior to that, she had organized a summer camp on the Bard campus for underprivileged children and studied Spanish while living with a family in Oaxaca, Mexico. These disparate experiences made her realize that she wanted to find a way to incorporate her love of science with her desire to interact with local people.

“I loved doing research, presenting the work, and being part of the academic environment,” she says, “but sitting in a lab is an isolating experience.” As a chemist at Bard, she admired her professors’ passion for the purity of their fields. She knew that becoming a doctor would taint that—she would become more of a practitioner than a true scientist. “But in the end, direct human impact was more interesting to me.”

Brianna earned her D.O. degree from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. “The concept of osteopathy is that the practitioner learns everything in allopathic medicine and also learns a hands-on component, incorporating physical therapy, myofascial release, and manipulation into treatment.”

During medical school, Brianna participated in a Child Family Health International clinical rotation in Quito, Ecuador, where she worked in a pediatric clinic, a maternity ward, a rural hospital at an indigenous hill station two hours outside of Quito, and a military hospital. She also attended weekly medical Spanish classes and lectures on infectious disease in Ecuador.

Sisters in Research Brianna (left) and Kerri-Ann Norton

The Norton sisters take on HIV and breast cancer The Norton sisters, Brianna ’00, D.O., and Kerri-Ann ’04, are passionate about bettering the world through science. Their work in medical research—HIV and breast cancer studies, respectively—takes them across the nation and around the globe.

“My goals are to treat and to do research on HIV and HIVrelated illness in underserved communities around the world,” says Brianna, between seeing patients as chief medical resident at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. Brianna coauthored the chapter “AIDS: Social Repercussions of an Epidemic” in the medical textbook Atlas of AIDS, and led a study on the distribution of Viagra and similar erectile dysfunction medications

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“For the first time, I truly understood the connection between public health and medical treatment,” she says.

“Without the proper infrastructure, medical care is extremely difficult to provide. The most prominent medical problems these patients endured were lack of clean water, good nutrition, paying jobs, and safe shelter. People can be diagnosed, but without access to the most basic quality of life, that diagnosis is irrelevant.”

Brianna’s drive to help people broadened into a global context with her interest in HIV treatment and research. She chose Beth Israel Medical Center for her residency in part because of its diverse patient pathology. The hospital cares for underserved immigrant populations from China, Russia, and Latin America, as well as a local orthodox Jewish population, due to its kosher status. Brianna’s leadership qualities, intelligence, and commitment to the program shone through at Beth Israel, and her peers and program director elected her chief medical resident in 2008–09. As chief, she restructured the course in evidencebased medicine. “This is a new field,” she explains, “and physicians have to catch up.” Only recently have pharmaceutical funding and research allowed large clinical trials. The course teaches medical residents the skills to evaluate medical statistics, validate or invalidate the trials, make assessments, and apply the results to patients and the larger medical community.

This fall, Brianna begins her first year of an infectious disease fellowship at Duke University Medical Center; through Duke, she hopes to take advantage of institutional HIV research opportunities in Tanzania.

Across the globe, Brianna’s younger sister, Kerri-Ann, is also making a difference in the lives of others. She has been awarded a Hosei International Fund Foreign Scholars Fellowship to conduct breast cancer research in Tokyo for one year. Like her older sister, Kerri-Ann wants to translate her passion for science into helping people; however, she chose to stay exclusively in research. She is a Ph.D. candidate doing work in breast cancer modeling at Rutgers University. Her field is computational biology: a hybrid of math, computer science, and biology.

In her work, she has many collaborators, including Shridar Ganesan, a cancer M.D./Ph.D. physician and researcher; Troy Shinbrot, who specializes in biomedical engineering; and Gyan Bhanot, a computational biologist. “This kind of collaboration is extremely important to get science where it needs to be—we need mathematicians, physicians, physicists, and biologists all working together to solve some of the questions we have today,” she says.

Kerri-Ann and her colleagues have created a 2-D model of Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (DCIS), a preinvasive breast cancer categorized by increased growth of abnormal cells with no penetration of the basement membrane. If DCIS is left untreated, it is unclear under what circumstances it progresses to invasive

cancer. Kerri-Ann’s research seeks to understand the mechanisms that govern the disease’s progression during its early stages, when it is relatively well established without being invasive, and when intervention may be successful. Her model is a system of cells that interact, move, adhere to one another, reproduce, and die, based on a set of physical rules. She examines how the morphology (architecture) of the cell changes, based on changing parameters that include an internal pressure exerted on the cell by fluid (milk, in the case of lactation), cell division, and cell death.

“I’m trying to determine how quickly the cancer will develop. The ultimate goal is to measure the proliferation index, apoptotic (cell death) index, and internal pressure of the duct, and to use the model to predict how fast the cancer would manifest in a patient,” she says.

Kerri-Ann’s research paper on the 2-D model is in revision for the Journal of Theoretical Biology. Her dissertation is focused on building a 3-D computational model of the progression of DCIS. In order to diagnose what kind of breast cancer a patient has, doctors take a slide and look at a 2-D representation of the tumor. Her work will take this 2-D slide and build a 3-D representation of the breast cancer.

Cancer’s complexity fascinates Kerri-Ann, and as a woman, she finds herself particularly interested in breast cancer.

Despite the widespread nature of the disease, she is confident that with a variety of science, and scientists from different disciplines working together, “we can make headway.”

At Bard, Kerri-Ann switched majors from biology to math but kept the two fields closely integrated. Her Bard mentors, mathematician Karen Riccardi and biologist Rob Cutler ’94, were influential in shaping her professional path. “Having two advisers collaborating prepared me as an undergraduate for what I do today,” she says.

Kerri-Ann spends long days in the lab, but when she is not working on her research, she brings the same intellectual curiosity and drive to her extracurricular life. At Bard, she was captain of the varsity fencing team. Now, she likes to relax and stay in shape with swing dancing, Muay Thai (a Thai martial art), scuba diving, or movies and books in French (she is fluent).

This year, she looks forward to immersing herself in the Japanese culture while she does research in Tokyo.

Growing up in Hyde Park, 15 miles south of Annandale-onHudson, the sisters stayed close to home for college. Brianna applied through the Immediate Decision Plan and won a fulltuition Distinguished Scientist scholarship. Kerri Ann received an Excellence and Equal Cost scholarship. Bard’s uniquely integrated liberal arts model was a perfect fit. Kerri-Ann says, “I’m a scientist, but our minds are made up of many different things.

It’s what makes a person feel whole. A person is not only interested in science, or only art. That’s why I loved Bard.”

—Jennifer Wai-Lan Huang

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ONE HUNDRED FORTY-NINTH

COMMENCEMENT

A record 404 undergraduates, and 126 graduate students, received their degrees at Bard’s 149th Commencement on a sun-dappled Saturday in May. David A. Paterson, governor of New York, delivered the Commencement address.

Paterson received an honorary degree, as did Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone (which provides medical, educational, and social services), whom the graduates greeted with cheers; the Emerson String Quartet, one of whose members—violinist Eugene Drucker—is a faculty member of The Bard College Conservatory of Music; prominent recombinant DNA researcher Susan Gottesman, cochair of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the National Institutes of Health’s Center for Cancer Research; Jeffrey D. Sachs, economist and director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, which works to protect ecosystems and improve economic and social conditions worldwide; Israeli entrepreneur Stef Wertheimer, who has founded industrial parks where Jews and Arabs work together; and Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Garry Wills.

ON PRIORITIES New York Governor David A. Paterson gave the keynote address at Bard’s 149th Commencement. The following excerpt is adapted from his speech.

Throughout the centuries, women and men have taken first steps down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. They fought, they suffered, and they won, and what they won is what we celebrate in this country as freedom. Yet so often we continue to relearn that concept as innovators move forward, and institutions and societies oppose them.

We in New York should know more than anyone else the power of innovation. In 1817, when we struck shovels in the ground to build the Erie Canal, the ridicule toward the project was renowned. But those who wanted to build that canal went ahead. Twenty years later, they started to construct the ErieLackawanna Railroad, and the combination of those two innovations moved New York’s economic development far into the future. In the 1820 census, New York contained 3 percent of the national population and conducted 3 percent of the country’s business. By the mid 1840s, New York had climbed to doing almost half of the country’s business and the population had

risen to 13 percent of the nation. The people moved where the jobs were, just as they’re now moving away, as manufacturing leaves upstate New York, and Wall Street and financial services quit New York City.

We are going to have to look at innovations for creating economic development. In New York, we want to capitalize on the goal of converting 45 percent of our power usage to clean and renewable energy sources and improving energy efficiency by 2015. Not only will these changes help the environment, but realizing this potential will create 50,000 jobs in this state. So, graduates, you may travel around the world, but when you are looking for strong jobs in innovation, please think about coming back to New York State. Twenty-eight percent of college graduates—the highest number ever—who were born in New York State are now leaving. And, even though New York imports more students than any other state to attend colleges and universities here, fewer of them are staying.

Nevertheless, we feel that we can move to national leadership, not only in energy policy, but also in biotech and nanotech research and stem cell research. We are second only to California in investing in the development of stem cell research. We have great learning facilities, and companies that are conducting research and development in these areas. The state that finds the sources of energy storage will become a national leader.

A great book that I would commend to all of you, The Race between Education and Technology, documents how, in the 19th century, parents learned that students who had high school degrees made 35 percent more money than those who did not.

That gave rise to the movement to establish high schools in areas of at least 500 families. Massachusetts and New York were the first states to pass that legislation. By 1960, 70 percent of Americans had graduated from high school. Education, which derives from the Latin educo or educare, which means “to lead out,” is more than just the acquiring of information; it holds the key to all of our dreams and endeavors. Those of you graduating today have demonstrated great achievement and excellence. I thank you for your effort and, in congratulating you, I want to compel you to keep reaching for the stars.

I once asked former Governor Mario Cuomo, “What is the purpose of the speaker at a college graduation?” He said it was kind of like being the body at an Irish wake. They need you to have the party, but you’re not expected to say very much. So I would just ask all of you to remember that you will be standing up here. You might be presiding over a graduation, a classroom, a laboratory; you might be presiding over a family; you might just be presiding in a place where you are asked to show leadership.

Please don’t forget the wonderful faculty and the great institution that gave you the opportunity to serve. Remember your family and extended family, who may have helped you at a time of difficulty, and remember that you can pass along this help.

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The best demonstration of extending help is an incident I remember from my high school graduation. Our school valedictorian was one of the most brilliant people I ever met. When she came up to receive her diploma, a little child ran away from his mom and ran up to the front and then, realizing that he didn’t know where his mom was, lay on the ground, crying outrageously. She stepped right over him and picked up her diploma and went back to her seat. Then came Emory Cooper, who was always very gracious but had not had a very good lot dealt to

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him in life. He picked up the child and walked back into the audience and handed him to his mom. He taught me something at my graduation that I don’t know that I’d been taught the whole time in high school—I call it priority.

Below, clockwise from top left: Jeffrey D. Sachs, Doctor of Humane Letters; Susan Gottesman, Doctor of Science; Stef Wertheimer, Doctor of Humane Letters; Garry Wills, Doctor of Humane Letters; Emerson String Quartet: Eugene Drucker, Philip Setzer, Lawrence Dutton, David Finckel, Doctors of Fine Arts; Geoffrey Canada, Doctor of Humane Letters

VERUM GAUDIUM RES SEVERA Charge to the Class of 2009

By Leon Botstein Members of today’s graduating class, the Class of 2009, have completed their undergraduate years in a moment of history without precedent in recent memory. They have witnessed how, in this nation and indeed the world, a sustained period of economic growth and consumption has come quite abruptly to an end. For decades, with few, if any, interruptions, wealth has been accumulated. The rich have become richer. And although the gap between the rich and the poor has widened, the expansion of wealth appeared to be so fantastic that even the poor began to harbor hopes of prosperity and dreams of comfort. Expectations of luxury distorted our sense of fairness with regard to what constitutes just compensation. The fact that wealth emerged from genuine technological progress, as well as from a rudderless and manipulative ingenuity, made the past decades all the more confusing. All of this generated a world of illusion in which a premium was placed on easily gained wealth. Value was defined by what one owned and dreamed of owning.

The engine of this material boom was the United States, since 1989 the world’s leading power. But as the driving force of material consumption throughout the world, we Americans lacked any shred of discipline. Recklessness became routine. It extended into a collective lack of conscience with regard to nature itself. We as a nation chose to disregard poverty and disease and accept a facile reliance, whether in prisons at home or military power abroad, on mere force to solve conflict and keep the peace. It is no surprise, therefore, that many pundits came to regard America as the modern equivalent of Rome after the fall of the Republic, as a vast imperial power at whose core was a corrupt and autocratic government, ruling over a dissolute, narcissistic citizenry surrounded by pathetic institutional reminders of a great democratic and civic tradition.

Has America really become the modern Rome? Will the years ahead bring only more tyranny, more reality entertainment for the masses that celebrates violence and death, more loss of moral fiber, more fashionable pessimism, and a greater internalized sense of impending doom and decline? Has our collective moment in history as a beacon of enlightenment and progress passed us by, and with it our capacity for virtue, justice, and glory?

Today’s graduates, the Class of 2009, are reminders that the answer is no. Never before has there been so much talent with so much access to learning and knowledge. The crisis today’s graduates face is one shared by young and old alike. And it is a crisis we should welcome. It offers us all a singular opportunity to take a new look at what we do and how we do it. The crisis of today justifies a call to this rising generation to engage life with enthusiasm. The pain of today’s economic stress is not a cause for fear, but a signal to make real that which is possible, to refashion our world, to stem corruption, and to reclaim not only freedom but virtue.

We all too readily retreat from this challenge. We do so by speaking of hope. But hope is little more than the obverse of fear. Hope is passive. It is dreamlike. The more we hope, the more dismal reality seems and the more we fear that the dreams that seem to sustain us may never be realized. If you, the Class of 2009, are to take full advantage of life and the massive and systemic crisis we face, discard both hope and fear.

To this end, the wisest Roman from the first century CE has something to tell us. Perhaps if the Class of 2009 were to take the advice that was not taken 2,000 years ago, a way forward can be found.

Not long before his death in 65 CE, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, well into his sixth decade, wrote a series of letters, filled with advice, to a young friend. In the 23rd letter he counseled his young correspondent not to be “goaded by hope,” for hoping, he argued, is merely an expression of insecurity. One needed to live one’s life each day without regret for what had not happened or been left undone, but with gratitude for life as we had fashioned it in reality.

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Instead of hope, Seneca counseled, “learn to feel joy.”

But the joy Seneca had in mind was not cheerful. For Seneca, filling one’s life with joy demanded that one “cast aside and trample under foot all those things that glitter outwardly and are held out to you as obtainable from another . . . look toward the true good and rejoice only in what comes from your very self, the best part of you.” For Seneca, true joy came from virtue. Virtue came in turn from knowledge, and action, in its turn, from virtuous knowledge. Joy was acting in the world to combat evil with wisdom, and with friendship toward the whole of humankind. Joy was not mere pleasure. Like Jefferson’s formulation of happiness in the Declaration of Independence, joy was an ethical sensibility beyond pleasure. For Seneca, pleasure not kept within proper bounds led only to the abyss of sorrow.

The hallmark of Seneca’s advice in the 23rd letter, which I pass on to you today, was distilled into the phrase Mihi crede, verum gaudium res severa est: “Believe me, true joy is a serious thing.” True joy for Seneca required the capacity to endure pain and poverty, to exercise the discipline of the mind, to reach inside to live a life measured by how much greatness and good each of us can achieve by the use of our intellect and imagination.

That phrase—Verum gaudium res severa or “True joy is a serious thing”—became the motto, during the late 18th century, of one of the greatest civic musical organizations in all of Western history, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, an association of free citizens devoted to making and teaching music. This year, 2009, we celebrate the 200th birthday of the composer Felix Mendelssohn, who in the late 1830s and early 1840s led the Leipzig Gewandhaus to greatness. Mendelssohn was persuaded that making music at its highest level was more than an act of pleasure. It was an act of civic virtue, an antidote to hate and violence, a constituent of wisdom and the human community of the spirit. All singers, instrumentalists, students, and listeners who entered the Gewandhaus hall saw the motto of Seneca inscribed above them. It was a call to exercise the discipline of the heart and mind to experience true, serious joy.

Felix Mendelssohn, who knew his Seneca well—he published his own translation of Terence when he was 18—agreed that in art as in life, it is the rigorous enthusiasm of tireless thought, contemplation, and work, based on a passion for beauty and truth, that brings true joy. The education you have received here at Bard, and the further acquisition of knowledge that I hope each of you will pursue in the years ahead, has offered to you the privilege of leading a life of thought and virtuous action that can usher into being a new world out of the ashes of the old. Let us join together to make that world one in which our sense of worth is no longer measured by glitter and wealth, but by justice and truth. Let us fashion that world without fear or hope. Let us conduct our daily lives with true joy, in all its just severity and informed seriousness.

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THE PRESIDENT’S AWARDS CEREMONY AND DINNER The President’s Awards Ceremony and Dinner took place this year at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts.

Alumni/ae, faculty, staff, and guests mingled outdoors on a glorious May evening, then repaired indoors to the Sosnoff Theater for presentation of Bard awards to pioneers in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Dinner was served in Theater Two and the Felicitas S. Thorne Dance Studio, which were elegantly transformed for the occasion.

Robert C. Edmonds ’68, attorney, former president of the Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association, and chair and longtime member of the Board of Directors of the Bard Music Festival, received the Bard Medal. Credited with a “Bardian sense of delight,” Edmonds in turn touted Bard for teaching him about “digging deeper.”

Miriam Roskin Berger ’56, a pioneer in dance therapy, earned the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters for her “crucial role in the expansion of this invaluable artistic endeavor.”

Stephen A. Wertheimer ’59, a distinguished orthopedic surgeon (and marathon runner), received the John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science for his “depth of commitment” to his medical and research practice.

Mary D. Janney, academic director of the Bard College Clemente Course in the Humanities in Washington, D.C., received the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service. “The real honoree is Bard College,” she said, for being “unafraid” to start innovative programs.

Zadie Smith, novelist, was this year’s Mary McCarthy Award recipient for “engagement in the public sphere by an intellectual, artist, or writer.” In accepting the honor, Smith called McCarthy “the definition of rigor.”

Mark Lambert ’62, Asher B. Edelman Professor Emeritus of Literature, who spent 50 years at Bard as student and teacher, received the Bardian Award. “I was absolutely enchanted” upon arriving at Bard, he said, “and always have been.”

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An Island in Annandale Olafur Eliasson’s installation is a haven for contemplation and debate One enters through a walkway canopied by a lattice of stainless steel, as intricate as the web of a surpassingly enterprising spider. On the far side, a theatrical setting presents itself: an island of bluestone, its floor incised with patterns that echo the meridian lines of nautical charts, its perimeter ringed by a score or so of dolomite boulders that double as stone chaise longues.

The pond encircling the island is itself encircled by an elevated pebbly bank, topped by a band of wild grasses and a ring of golden raintrees. And lastly, the yellow trees, the water, the huge rocks, and the tiny island are bounded on all sides by the Bard campus and its college community.

This place of circles within circles, a marriage of natural beauty and human artifice, is The parliament of reality, a sitespecific installation on the north end of campus that was designed by the Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson and commissioned by the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard), in collaboration with the LUMA Foundation. The permanent installation, Eliasson’s first in North America, was formally dedicated on May 16, with a slate of presentations and performances attended, at the day’s peak, by

about 175 people, including the artist. The previous day, a conference addressing music and torture, cosponsored by CCS Bard and the College’s Human Rights Project, took place in conjunction with the opening. The conference was very much in keeping with Eliasson’s vision for his site, which drew its inspiration from Iceland’s original open-air parliament, the Althing, and seeks to provide a place for students and visitors to freely discuss issues, have arguments, and practice the arts of negotiation and critical thinking.

“This work, The parliament of reality, is not so much a thing to look at, although it is tremendously beautiful, as it is a place to shift perceptions and stimulate the mind,” said Tom Eccles, director of CCS Bard, at the opening ceremony. “At a time of tremendous change, both good and bad, it has never been so important for educational institutions to promote bold, ambitious, and often contentious thinking. It is something we cherish at Bard.”

Only time will tell if Eliasson’s installation, like the Althing, will be the locus of heated debates or thought-provoking powwows. But the setting is definitely conducive to contemplation and relaxation. Three days before the opening, I strolled the island’s perimeter, sat comfortably on some of its low-slung, sun-washed boulders, and occasionally peered into the water, where black tadpoles darted like thoughts in the pool’s pebbled mind. The rumble of nearby cars and trucks gradually receded, while the chirping of birds and the soughing of the breeze in nearby maples and in the great sycamore just south of the Fisher Center came to the fore. As so many other visitors have discovered since its opening, The parliament of reality is the perfect place to write a poem, or read one, or ponder a philosophical problem, or play a flute, or research a Senior Project on the Internet (the island has Wi-Fi), or just simply sit and do nothing, soaking up sunlight.

Eliasson, who is based in Berlin, made something of a splash in the national press last year with his New York City Waterfalls project, a temOlafur Eliasson addresses the attendees at the opening of his permanent installation at Bard. porary installation on a grand scale that featured

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four colossal fabricated cascades at different sites in New York Harbor. Reviewing the project for Bloomberg.com, Carly Berwick observed that “these man-made waterfalls are just as absorbing as natural ones,” particularly in “the interaction between their rushing movement and the city’s solid monuments—and how movement and monument can switch place as the eye turns to look from one to the other.”

Such interplay—between solidity and fluidity, light and shadow, nature and artifice, and especially between spectator and site—is essential to Eliasson’s practice as an artist. Look around, and subtle juxtapositions abound. For instance, writer and artist Carol Diehl, who attended the opening, noted in her blog that the “latticework pattern [of the bridge] mimics that of the ripples in the pond. Did he know it would do that?” And Bard’s architect Robert Nilsson, who built the pond to Eliasson’s specifications, told a reporter that he was charmed by the con-

trast between the wrought disc of inscribed bluestone and the rough boulders hefted from the hills of Amenia, nearby in Dutchess County, arrayed along its circumference.

Four years in the making, Eliasson’s parliament could not have been a reality without the generous support of the LUMA Foundation. Established in 2004 by Maja Hoffman, a member of the CCS Board of Governors, LUMA exists to promote and realize interdisciplinary projects that explore the relationship between art and culture, protect the environment, and further the cause of human rights. Additional support for the opening festivities was provided by the Pro Suecia Foundation.

Eliasson’s pond project is an unprecedented undertaking on the part of College, says Eccles. It is part of a concerted effort “to make the Bard campus a destination—not a sculpture park, but a place where you can see art outdoors any time.”

—Mikhail Horowitz

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THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS

AND BEYOND In the United States and around the globe, financial and economic statistics represent a gloomy state of affairs. Housing markets continue to plummet in the United States, Europe, Japan, and elsewhere. Despite the historically unprecedented measures of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the Treasury, and of central banks and governments of other nations, which have led to increased liquidity, banks have barely begun to lend again. In the United States, the homeowner’s equity continues to disappear—mortgages go underwater as debt exceeds the home’s original value—which wipes out wealth and generates defaults on home equity loans and other secondary securitization loans against real estate. Unemployment is rising and consumers have decreased their spending as their confidence slips. World gross domestic product is projected to decline by –1.7 percent. In the United States, the first quarter of GDP clocked a –5.4 percent annual rate decline. Further declines are expected for the remainder of this year and into the next.

This year’s international trade flows of advanced and emerging economies are estimated to grow at levels much lower than those in 2008 and 2007, when growth was 15 and 22 percent, respectively. The prospects, then, for world trade—the engine of economic growth for many countries for almost a decade—are discouraging. In the United States, modest increases in exports and lower imports have improved the trade deficit, but corresponding exports are significantly down in U.S. trading partners China, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Germany, and India, among others. These conditions indicate a global decrease in aggregate demand and a high probability of exports not fueling growth.

What is to be done? First, let’s consider the evidence. While the U.S. economy heated up during 2005 and 2006, largely because of a real estate boom, the Fed began raising interest rates. Nevertheless, real estate values continued to appreciate unabated. The deterioration of lending standards allowed borrowers to keep on borrowing and lenders to push loans. Rather than imposing stricter lending rules, the Fed kept tinkering with interest rates. By the summer of 2007 problems began to appear in many of the mortgage-backed securities; eventually markets seized up when the demand for such products collapsed.

The Fed then began to lower interest rates, but losses continued to accumulate and to spread to other institutions and instruments; market after market experienced liquidity problems. Lower interest rates did not do the trick, as the real problem was elsewhere: financial institutions and investors in mortgaged-backed securities were highly leveraged, and the

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financial products they held were complex, illiquid, and modeldependent for their value. Lack of confidence was not a psychological issue: institutions and investors all knew that the rules of the game they had been playing by assuming risk were unsustainable. As this became abundantly clear to all involved, the resulting fear was based on the stark reality of the impending massive collapse of the Ponzi structure they had created.

When real estate markets cooled, U.S. and foreign speculators looked for other profit opportunities. Speculation moved to the physical commodities, which filled storage facilities to their limits with goods to sell later at higher prices. Soon the move was to the commodities futures markets, with managed money buying paper commodities—not to speculate, but to hold as an inflation hedge in a diversified portfolio! The global collapse in commodities prices and the failure of many hedge funds have come to pass.

This failure began with the subprime mortgage market, then spread to all mortgages, so that today no portfolio of mortgages is safe—hence, the U.S. government’s bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Estimates of losses on mortgages are more than $1.5 trillion, and more than $10 trillion of wealth has dissipated. Financial losses include commercial loans and paper, bond insurers, credit card debt, student loans, retailers, auto leases and debt, municipal bonds, and a wide array of esoteric financial instruments—such as auction rate securities and default swaps, as the AIG bailout demonstrated. Interest rate spreads still remain wide as financial players avoid private debt in favor of safe Treasury securities.

The Fed’s actions have met or exceeded the market’s anticipations for interest rate cuts. In addition, the Fed provided massive infusions of liquidity, in concert with the European Central Bank, Bank of England, and other central banks. The Fed’s continued intervention as a lender of last resort is necessary and helps prevent runs on at least a portion of banking system liabilities—as does the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Still, the interest rate cuts and liquidity infusions have not yet had any impact in quelling financial market unrest or restoring prospects for economic growth. The inability of current policy interventions to settle markets is demonstrated daily. The problem is not simply liquidity but solvency: market participants do not trust their counterparties.

What went wrong? The processes by which U.S. output was sustained through the long period of growing imbalances in the private and external sectors could not have taken place without

China and other Asian countries’ running huge account surpluses along with a “savings glut” and a growing accumulation of foreign exchange reserves that prevented their exchange rates from falling, flooding the U.S. financial markets with dollars and thereby helping to finance the lending boom. This was an interdependent process in which all parties played an active role.

The United States could not have maintained growth without encouraging, or permitting, the private sector—particularly the household sector—to borrow on such an unprecedented scale.

The reforms made to bank regulations were based on a mistaken view of the proper role of banks, as the belief grew that bank assets should be “marked to market.” During an upswing, however, this belief generates exceedingly risky behavior, since the market discounts the probability of default, allowing banks to assume greater risks and use enormous leverage ratios. In a downturn, banks see asset prices declining and are forced to recognize market-to-market losses and even sell into declining markets, pushing prices down further. Such behavior is precisely the opposite of the behavior that public policy ought to encourage. Private market discipline should be replaced by a thorough reform that would make it difficult for banks to take part in off–balance sheet operations that involve complex products that are difficult to evaluate without regulation and scrutiny by the central bank.

The turmoil in financial markets has repercussions on the real economy, and the responses so far have been the revival

of Big Government (expansionary fiscal policy) and Big Bank (dramatic injections of liquidity by the Federal Reserve). Recent statistics show the federal government’s budget deficit heading south at more than 12 percent of GDP while the Fed’s liabilities, at the time of this writing, are more than $2 trillion—an increase of more than $1.3 trillion from 2007. Large as these figures may be, when they are expressed as percentages of GDP, they are still lower than the corresponding levels of the 1950s. Big Government and Big Bank were even bigger in earlier times.

Warnings, then, by politicians and some economists, of the impending inflation, are misplaced, given the deteriorating nature of current trends of employment, consumer and business confidence, and other economic indicators. On more than one occasion, the Federal Reserve has assured us that it possesses a panoply of tools to mop up the excess liquidity when such time comes. In the meantime, renewed calls for yet another fiscal expansion should be seriously considered and expeditiously implemented. The time for action is now, if we are to prevent the Great Recession we are enduring from turning into another Great Depression.

—Dimitri B. Papadimitriou The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, of which Dimitri B. Papadimitriou is president, is on the cutting edge of research into economic conditions that affect the quality of life in the United States and abroad.

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AFRICA Njabulo S. Ndebele: “Persecuted,” “compromised,” “exiled,” and “reinvented”—these words from our speakers suggest that we’re going to look at some difficult issues. But looked at together, as a progression from persecution to reinvention, there is also, perhaps, the promise of hope. The last 20 years have seen a marked decrease in the level of interstate conflict on the continent of Africa. At the same time, the number of governments elected as a result of a democratic election has increased.

A third trend is the growth of strong market economies in some countries. All this seems to promise the likelihood that, with greater stability, there will be more and more internal, but nonviolent, contestations in which various sectors try to position themselves as best as they can in this space. What form that positioning will take, and how it will express itself, is at the heart of this evening’s discussion.

in many african nations, civil society is in crisis, threatened by repressive regimes, tribal divisions, and economic collapse, among other destabilizing forces. Last spring, six distinguished members of the Bard community examined the state of civil society—the political, labor, advocacy, and community organizations that together constitute a functioning society—in Africa, specifically Zimbabwe, Sudan, Kenya, and Morocco, and shared their hopes and fears for what lies ahead. Panelists included moderator Njabulo S. Ndebele, Senior Scholar in Residence at Bard (2008– 09) and a prizewinning author and educator from South Africa; Zimbabwean human rights specialist Augustine Hungwe, visiting assistant professor of political studies (2007–09); John Ryle, Legrand Ramsey Professor of Anthropology and chair of the Rift Valley Institute, a nonprofit organization working in East Africa; Binyavanga Wainaina, a Kenyan author and director of the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists at Bard; and Youssef Yacoubi, assistant professor of Arabic and comparative literature, who is working on a book about the writings of Salman Rushdie. Chinua Achebe, Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature, spoke briefly about his recent visit to Nigeria, the first he has made to his homeland after many years in exile. Edited excerpts of their remarks follow.

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Augustine Hungwe: Zimbabwe, a country of about 15 million people that shares a border with South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, and Botswana, has been in crisis for almost a decade.

Half of its people will require food aid this year. Life expectancy has dropped to 37 years. Inflation is currently at 256 million percent. I’m holding five billion Zimbabwean dollars in my hand, and you’d be lucky to buy a banana with it.

Last year’s elections in Zimbabwe were extremely controversial. The second part of the election, a runoff between Robert Mugabe—who has been in power since Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980—and opposition party leader Morgan Tsvangirai, was characterized by a lot of violence.

Tsvangirai [who received more votes than Mugabe in the first round of the election] withdrew from the ballot [citing the violence against his supporters], and Mugabe went on to declare himself the winner.

In response to the controversy, the African Union asked former South African president Thabo Mbeki to try to find a common ground. Eventually, Zimbabwe’s major political parties signed a power-sharing agreement that led to the creation of the current inclusive government [Mugabe remains president, with Tsvangirai as prime minister]. This government, which has been called the government of national unity, is supposed to exist for two years, with the understanding that Zimbabwe would go through a constitutional reform process that would lead to free and fair elections.

One problem that has already arisen is that the inclusive government has become very oversized. The United States has a

CIVIL SOCIETY AT THE EDGE cabinet of 20 or 21 members; Zimbabwe, poor as it is, has 71 cabinet ministers, each entitled to many benefits, including a house, maids, and chauffeurs. On top of that, we have a parliament made up of 300 members, each of whom is also entitled to a lot of benefits.

Western countries have refused to give developmental assistance to Zimbabwe, which is what it needs. President Obama extended sanctions on Mugabe and his ministers for another year. The West has continued to provide humanitarian aid, particularly to assist with the control of cholera, which has killed more than 4,000 people so far. My sense is that Western countries are going to maintain a wait-and-see position.

As to civil society in Zimbabwe, there are more than 500 organizations that cover issues as diverse as women’s rights, constitutional reform, environmental issues, and labor.

However, a number of draconian laws have made it very difficult for civil society to operate. One law requires that any NGO wishing to operate in Zimbabwe be registered by the government, which retains the right to reject any application without disclosure. As you can imagine, a lot of NGOs that wanted to work on human rights issues were never given the opportunity.

Under the Public Order and Security Act, leaders of civil society have been detained for up to 21 days without trial.

Another law makes it illegal to publicly criticize the president.

This is the very difficult environment in which Zimbabwean civil society functions, and as a result, part of the country’s civil society is now operating in the diaspora.

In my view, the inclusive government is not a sustainable arrangement. Tension already exists between the new government and civil society, and there is a lot of acrimony between Mugabe’s political party and the opposition. The government is bloated and expensive, and it does not solve the fundamental problems that created the crisis in the first place. Last year’s elections were inconclusive. My recommendation would be for immediate free and fair elections, organized by the United Nations and open to international observers.

John Ryle: Sudan is the biggest country in Africa, and as diverse as it is big. The civil wars, for which Sudan is unfortunately known, have been, in part, about national identity—civil society, if you like. You often read about Sudan in terms of the Arab North and the African South, or even within Darfur, of Arabs and Africans. This is a false dichotomy. Everyone in the Sudan is an African; they’re proud of it. About a third of the

inhabitants are Arab, which is a cultural definition that can be embraced at will, meaning that an Arab is basically someone who says they’re an Arab. About two-thirds of the inhabitants are Muslims; the one-third who are not are located mainly in the south, west, and north.

The main civil war in Sudan was a north-south war; it ended in 2005, after 20 years, with a peace agreement that is still pretty fragile. Around this time, a long-brewing conflict in Darfur, in the west of Sudan, became more intense. These conflicts have in common the fact that they are on the edge of the country—a country largely created by British colonial power.

People in the south and in Darfur also have in common that they consider themselves, correctly, to be economically and developmentally marginalized.

The problem of Sudan has been characterized as a centerperiphery problem. The Sudanese understand this. There are many northern Sudanese intellectuals who come from the heartland, the central part of Sudan along the Nile River, which has always held power. This elite group inherited most of the power of the state at independence, and they are largely inheritors of an Arab-Islamic culture. I think they recognize this as one aspect of the deep problem of racism in Sudan, which is felt very keenly by people from the south and in the west—and is a component of the wars.

I want to stress that this debate is happening in Sudan.

Sudanese like to chat. Having the space and freedom to talk is a very important aspect of civil society, because these are conflicts that, if not worked out by talking and debate, are worked out all too often by shooting and repression.

Sudan is often in the headlines these days, usually because of bad news. Most recently, the International Criminal Court indicted President Omar al-Bashir for genocide. This is hailed by some as a triumph for human rights; others see it as a danger to the peace process, saying it will put peoples’ backs against the wall—and the people who say this are not all supporters of the regime.

The regime’s response to the indictment was the expulsion of 13 international NGOs from Darfur, which undoubtedly increased the mortality among displaced people. The regime also suppressed, sequestered, and closed down four of the leading indigenous human rights and humanitarian NGOs in northern Sudan. Offices were closed, computers confiscated. A colleague, a distinguished human rights defender who worked with the Khartoum Centre for Human Rights, was arrested,

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tortured, and detained for about two weeks. The organization has closed, and he has gone into exile.

The prospect for civil society in Sudan does not seem very encouraging. Sudan is reverting to a period of repression that was probably at its worst in the first years of the Inqaz (Salvation) Revolution [the Islamist-inspired regime that came to power in a military coup in 1989]. There has been a systematic suppression of the institutions of civil society, including a clamp-down on the press. At the same time [in February 2010], Sudan will hold its first multiparty election in 20 years, as specified under the agreement that ended the war between the north and south.

Also as a result of that agreement, the south has a quasiautonomous government—another source of hope. In 2011, a referendum will allow the people to vote for separation or

Civil society is a precondition for democratization. Its focus is on social life beyond family and class affiliation that is separate from the state and the market.

against it. Separation has seldom worked in Africa, but there’s no doubt that if the referendum were held tomorrow, the vast number of southerners would vote for it.

Southern Sudan doesn’t have human rights organizations or similar institutions; they’ve been fighting a war for 20 years.

But they are having a debate, explicitly and implicitly, about what civil society could be. As in the north, they have inherited a military regime. This was a liberation organization that now holds the majority of seats in government; at the polls in February, it will try to transform itself into a political party. It has a huge international backing, and it just might establish a functioning democracy.

But the south also has oil, and one of the tragedies of oil in Africa and elsewhere is the resource curse: with oil, you get political repression. The hopes for the south are balanced by the fear that we’ll end up with two oil-based kleptocracies on the Nile, instead of one.

The situation in Sudan is so critical. The election is about to happen. There are rumblings of war again in the south, and war continues in Darfur. And yet, somehow, the space for talking and action—what I call civil society—continues.

Binyavanga Wainaina: In 2007, Kenya had a contested election that was similar to the one in Zimbabwe, and perhaps set the precedent for a power-sharing arrangement. But the previous election, in 2002, had been a very hopeful election, not so much

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because of who won or why, but because there was no rigging.

This was partly because of technology. The results were posted on the wall after counting, and people were text-messaging the news to each other. The whole country was following the results. Soon after, we were voted the most optimistic people in the world.

So how did we get from there to the crisis of 2007 [about a thousand people were killed in postelection violence, and a million displaced]? In December, after the announcement of election results was delayed and the incumbent was sworn in, even though the electoral commissioner said he didn’t know who had won, everything imploded. The news went off [the air], so there were text messages, rumors: people are being attacked, people are attacking. But we didn’t know who, when, where, how. The government’s decision to shut down the media made it feel like Kenya was closed for business. There has been debate since: Was it premeditated? Was it tribal? Was it ideology? The death of market economics? A deal was subsequently signed, and members of parliament hugged and said “never, never” again. Now there is order, and yet things have happened that concern me.

There’s a lot of competence in Kenya. In recent years certain things worked much better than they had since the ’60s, so there’s not an easy, rational way of explaining how we got to the crisis—because of economic problems, or this or that. In a way, it’s more that the spirit is not willing.

Kenya was created by British colonialists, basically as a way of protecting the Suez Canal. They shaped it like this and drew it on the map, put settlers in the highlands, and built a railroad, but there was no other real agenda. I was born in that Kenya, a Kenya that could not tell you what it did for a living or where it was going. But I went to a good school, as many people did, and we felt that we were good. When the violence broke out after the election, and a mob of people lifted that railway— suddenly, you recognized the fraility of the whole enterprise. On the one hand you’re saying “democracy,” but you’re thinking “don’t look too deeply.”

I’m coming to the heart of where the fears are. Kenya has quite a large middle class and a relatively sophisticated economy. It has the best functioning army on the continent and has sent peacekeepers to Congo and Sudan. But after the election, when you saw thousands of warriors, young men, coming down the hills . . . we were all just powerless—not so much powerless in activity, but in will, desire. The instant reaction was “we’ll do this and we’ll do it now!” But then everyone was like, “Do I stay?

Do I go?”

What does this have to do with civil society? In the 1980s, during a repressive phase in Kenya, the writer Ngügï wa Thiong’o was one of the spiritual leaders of the movement toward multiparty democracy. He and his generation, whether you agreed with them or not, were asking deep intellectual and spiritual questions about who we were, how we were, where we were.

After he left Kenya [for exile in California], we had multiparty elections in the ’90s, but we also had a new generation of leaders who were NGO technocrats and human rights activists. It was all very competent, but very bullet-point: if you fix the constitution and you move this thing to that place, etcetera. There was little sense of spirit.

There is peace in Kenya now, and there seems to be shamefacedness in some of the places where there was violence.

But is it sustainable? You hear things that are deeply disturbing.

The government recently tried to get food aid to people who desperately needed it, but despite decent roads and competent people, in the course of a month they were not able to get food from the port to the mouth. It wasn’t about systems. Rather it’s come to the point that trust is so weak, good faith so weak, that you can’t even get your own guys, your allies, to do things. It seems that little faith is located in civil society. And what do we do about that?

Youssef Yacoubi: Morocco is a constitutional monarchy officially known as the Kingdom of Morocco. It has an elected parliament, but the king has vast executive powers, including the power to dissolve the government and deploy the military.

Morocco is a major non-NATO ally of the United States. As a point of interest, it was the first nation to recognize the independence of the United States in 1777.

The modern history of Morocco, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of its independence in 2006, has three phases. The phase immediately after independence, which was marked by political unrest; the decade before King Hassan II’s death in 1999; and the years under the new king, his son, Mohammed VI. The latest stage, the most interesting stage, is where civil society, or civic consciousness, develops.

As has been discussed, civil society is a precondition for democratization. Its focus is on social life beyond family and class affiliation that is separate from the state and the market.

This was starting to happen in the 1990s, the last decade of Hassan II’s rule [he came to power in 1961]. First came more freedoms of association, as well as the launch of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission [a human rights and truth commission], more or less on the model of South Africa. The purpose was to reconcile the central government with its people and to address repressions.

So civil society was understood as a cluster of institutions and associations strong enough to prevent tyranny by the central government. Some speak of society as a three-legged stool, one leg being the government; one, the economy; and the third leg being the civil society. Each leg must be strong in order for the stool to be steady. While civil society in Morocco existed in fragmented and repressed forms between independence and the 1990s, most agree that its consolidation comes with the arrival of Mohammed VI.

Let me give you two examples. First, the transformation of Moudawana, or the family code. The previous family code was restricted in terms of rights, especially for women. Polygamy, for example, was allowed; now it’s almost impossible. Mohammed VI plays a religious role, as commander of the faithful, but he is also the arbiter in political terms. In 2005, he publicly endorsed amending the code to offer citizenship to children of Moroccan mothers and foreign fathers. Since 1958, citizenship had been limited to children born only of Moroccan fathers. That’s a radical change. In all, there were 11 reforms that affected the family, and the code itself was written according to a new lexicon, where the relationship between a man and a woman is a relationship of partnership.

The second example concerns reforms related to freedom of the press. The press played an important role in promoting conversation about civil society. Le Journal, a weekly news magazine founded in 1997, and its Arabic counterpart were the first entirely independent journals that did not act as mouthpieces for either the political parties or the monarchy. They used investigative journalism to cover Morocco’s political and social themes. These and other journals began to deal with topics such as AIDS and prostitution as well as the monarchy, religion, and territorial integrity—taboo issues that had never been discussed during the reign of Hassan II. Le Journal has become one of the most popular news magazines in Morocco.

The development of civil society in Morocco is irreversible.

It has galvanized a process that is moving with difficulty, but moving. The outstanding issue, in my view, is that serious constitutional reform requires that essential power, held almost completely by the king, be shared more.

The constitution gives the king powers that considerably reduce the authority of parliament and subject the government to the royal will in most cases. The challenge is how to curb his power and allow, in particular, the Ministry of the Interior and the Supreme Court to be more autonomous. More steps must be taken before Morocco has a fully constitutional monarchy.

But a huge debate is taking place in the press about how the country will evolve, and there is confidence that Morocco will move toward the model of Spain or the United Kingdom, as a constitutional monarchy in which the king has no political power at all.

As part of this evolving contstitutional reform, Morocco has borrowed from other African models, including South Africa on issues of justice and Tunisia on family law. It is also dealing with NGOs in Europe, especially in France and Spain.

So there are a lot of cross-border influences and learning from the experiences of other nations.

Njabulo S. Ndebele: The modern shape of Africa is taking place in front of our eyes, and tonight’s engrossing presentations have addressed, in various ways, the pressing issues at stake there.

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A REVOLUTIONARY REDUX The Spirit of Richard Wagner Kindled Summer Festivals Friction between the mythic and the modern produced a great shower of sparks on the Bard campus this summer, as both SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival (BMF) played host to concerts and programs inspired by the charismatic life and revolutionary times of Richard Wagner.

The 2009 installment of SummerScape featured performances of masterful works by Giacomo Meyerbeer and Felix Mendelssohn, two composers with whom Wagner had notoriously problematic relationships. Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots, a grand opera on the theme of religious intolerance, was praised by the Wall Street Journal for being “strongly cast and insightfully directed” and for an orchestral performance by the American Symphony Orchestra, led by Leon Botstein, that “capably balanced the grandeur and the intimacy of the score and fused its varied musical styles into a grand, architectural sweep.” And a single performance of Mendelssohn’s rarely heard oratorio St. Paul received a standing ovation from the full house at the Sosnoff Theater.

Also echoing the epic mythos of Wagner was a production of The Oresteia, the trilogy of ancient Greek tragedies by Aeschylus, and a festival of films that made many allusions, thematic and musical, to the German composer, including Fritz Lang’s two-part silent masterpiece, Die Nibelungen.

This summer’s terpsichorean offering was Dance, the restaging of a memorable 1979 collaboration by choreographer Lucinda Childs, composer Philip Glass, and artist Sol LeWitt, whose black-and-white film (remounted and remastered by Bard) was projected on a scrim at the front of the stage. The New York Times lauded the work of the trio, as well as that of an “unofficial fourth collaborator: the architect Frank Gehry,” whose Sosnoff Theater provided a “scintillating frame.”

Once again, the Spiegeltent—a magical pavilion of mirrors, imported from Belgium—proved a popular locus for late-night festivities and entertainment, including return appearances by the Wau Wau Sisters and Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, and a rollicking series of Thursday Night Live performances curated by Raissa St. Pierre ’87.

The 20th Bard Music Festival—under the guidance of artistic directors Leon Botstein, Christopher Gibbs, and Robert Martin, with Thomas S. Grey as this year’s scholar in residence— offered a novel perspective on the life and legacy of Richard Wagner, concentrating on concert presentations of his music. Among the many noteworthy programs were orchestral performances of excerpts from the Ring cycle; an exploration of Wagner and the choral tradition; and a program of Wagnerian parodies by Jacques Offenbach and other masters of deflation.

The variety of SummerScape 2009. This page: Les Huguenots.

Facing page: Top, from The Oresteia trilogy, left to right, Agamemnon, Choephori, and The Eumenides; middle, the American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein; bottom, Dance and the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, entertaining children in the Spiegeltent.

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ONANDOFFCAMPUS WELCOME Among the 506 members of the Class of 2013 are students who have played at Carnegie Hall, or against nationally ranked chess players.

Others have built robots, tended organic gardens, assisted at births, and mastered circus skills. Many of the class members have put in countless hours performing community service—as volunteers in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, or working with immigrants, or orphans, or for the Obama campaign. They were chosen from 5,510 applicants and include 10 members of Bard’s first Posse Foundation cohort, from Atlanta; 13 members of Bard’s second group of Davis United World College Scholars; and one student from the Iraqi Student Project. Class members hail from 40 countries and from all over the United States. Say hello, hola, ni hao, shalom, mar-ha-ba, namaste, and saluton to the Bard Class of 2013.

Stars of the American Ballet Theatre perform three world premieres on October 2, 3, and 4 at the Sosnoff Theater of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. Premieres choreographed by Aszure Barton, Benjamin Millepied, and Alexei Ratmansky (ABT Artist in Residence) are generously supported through an endowed gift from the Toni and Martin Sosnoff New Works Fund. The October performances also include Jerome Robbins’s Other Dances (1976) and Clark Tippett’s Some Assembly Required (1989).

The 2009–10 fellows and scholars at the Hannah Arendt Center for Ethical and Political Thinking at Bard are Eveline Cioflec, who comes from Romania as a Fulbright Scholar; Ursula Ludz, editor of Letters: 1925–1975 by Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger; Hans Teerds, faculty of architecture, Delft University, the Netherlands, an architect and urban planner at work on the idea of public space; and Silvia Zappulla, a doctoral student from the Classics Department at the University of Siena who is studying the relationship between Greek tragedy and the development of the political thought of Hannah Arendt.

The Class of 2013 has arrived, 506 strong.

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Kenyan filmmaker Judy Kibinge screened her 2008 film Killer Necklace in April in a program presented by the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists and the Bard College Multicultural Center.

The screening was followed by a Q&A with Kibinge and Binyavanga Wainaina, director of the Achebe Center and a Bard Center Fellow.

Kibinge’s first feature, Dangerous Affair, is credited with having kicked off a new wave of contemporary filmmaking in Kenya.

Alexander Voronov, senior lecturer at the Institute of Psychology, State University of Humanities, Moscow, delivered the Andrew Jay Bernstein ’68 Memorial Lecture in April. Voronov, who also teaches at Dubna International University in Moscow, titled his talk “The Legacy of Stanley Milgram and the Study of Obedience to Authority in Russia (1990–2009).” The Psychology Program presents the annual lecture in memory of Bernstein, who was a psychology major.

Todd Haynes, who combines narrative genres with experimental techniques and political ideas in films such as Far From Heaven and I’m Not There, discussed his work in an April talk presented by the Film and Electronic Arts Program, Office of Alumni/ae Affairs, and Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. In 1987 Haynes attended Bard’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts and shot his classic film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story using Barbie dolls on an elaborate miniature set he had built.

KUDOS Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) was cited as a model for the future of secondary and higher education by President Barack Obama in his July 16 speech marking the centennial of the NAACP. In a passage on improving education in the United States, Obama said, “We should also explore innovative approaches being pursued here in New York City; innovations like Bard High School Early College and Medgar Evers College Preparatory School that are challenging students to complete high school and earn a free associate’s degree or college credit in just four years.” As of September, BHSEC serves 1,000 students in four grades on its two campuses, in Manhattan and Queens.

Sung Eun Lee and Yulia Van Doren in the 2008 premier of A Bird in Your Ear, commissioned by The Bard College Conservatory of Music

Sung Eun Lee, who graduated this year with a master of music degree from the Graduate Vocal Arts Program of The Bard College Conservatory of Music, was one of four winners of the prestigious Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Lee, a tenor from Seoul, South Korea, was selected from eight finalists who performed arias with the Met orchestra. Nearly 1,800 singers participated in this year’s auditions, which are held annually in 45 districts and 15 regions throughout the United States and Canada and considered among the most important for singers seeking an operatic career.

Judy Pfaff, Richard B. Fisher Professor in the Arts, was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters last spring, one of nine new members of the 250-member organization. J. D. McClatchy, president of the Academy, praised the new members as “an eclectic group of exceptional individuals—each a pioneer of the imagination and an artist of resplendent gifts and achievements.”

Books By Bardians Haiti

by Jane Evelyn Atwood ’70

actes sud These dramatic, full-page photographs by Atwood, winner of Bard’s Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters, offer an intimate, troubling, and compassionate portrait of a beleaguered country.

North Arrow

by Dennis Barone ’77

quale press This collection of 17 stories, which takes the reader from New Jersey to the Netherlands, presents the clashing worldviews of characters who confront memory and change in very different ways.

Norman Manea, Francis Flournoy Professor in European Studies and Culture and writer in residence, was named a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In bestowing this, France’s highest cultural honor, the Ministry praised Manea’s “great talent,” and his literary work as “without concession, vigilant, humanistic.”

California

Seven students, the first group of women to matriculate in the Bard Prison Initiative, received associate in arts degrees at BPI’s sixth Commencement, held on May 14 at Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan.

All Fall Down: Stories

by Amra Brooks MFA ’05

teenage teardrops Chapters in this slim coming-of-age novel, titled by place and date, jump through time, giving the first-person narration a disjointedness that is resolved with an understanding of the characters and their motives.

by Mary Caponegro ’78, Richard B. Fisher Family Professor in Literature and Writing

coffee house press In the story that gives this book its title—representative of the sensitivity to

2009 Fulbright U.S. Student scholarships were awarded to Molly Anders ’09, who majored in literature and creative writing, for study of media and democracy in Jordan; Ting Ting Cheng ’02, a dual major in political studies and music (law, South Africa); and Gergely Lodinsky ’09, a multidisciplinary studies major (international relations, Austria). Jonathan Peyster ’09 is conducting research at Qingdao University in China through the Fulbright-Hays–Group Projects Abroad Program. Mary Donovan ’08 received an English Teaching Assistantship in Spain.

detail and language in the narratives—a man cares simultaneously for his pregnant wife and dying mother.

MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan: Typographic Tastemakers of the Late Nineteenth Century

by Doug Clouse BGC ’07

oak knoll press This study of the longest-operating and largest American type foundry examines (with lively illustrations) its many typefaces, business practices, and history.

Hagiography

by Jen Currin ’95

coach house books These poems are devoted to the strangeness of life, expressed in surrealist language; the title comes from the Greek, meaning “sacred writing.”

Island of Daemons: The Lough Derg Pilgrimage and the Poets Patrick Kavanagh, Denis Devlin, and Seamus Heaney

by Terence Dewsnap, professor of English

university of delaware press For centuries pilgrims have gone to Lough Derg, an Irish lake island associated with St. Patrick; Dewsnap charts the history of the pilgrimage and examines how these three poets treat the experience.

Graduates of the Bard Prison Initiative at their Commencement at Bayview Correctional Facility

ON AND OFF CAMPUS | 27

Martin, Conservatory director, in two chamber music concerts. On June 25, the group performed in Beijing at The Courtyard of the Pangu Plaza for an invited audience of about 60 people. Their hosts were Miles Kwok, developer of the Pangu Plaza, and Mileson Kwok, his son.

Mileson and his sister Mei attended Bard. On June 28, the musicians played in Shanghai at the Oriental Arts Center in a public concert for several hundred people presented by Zhenhua Ling, a maker of violins and cellos. Ling has invited the students back for a performance next summer. The Bard Conservatory students who performed were Luosha Fang, Shuangshuang Liu, and Jia Cao from the Class of 2010; Shawn Moore ’11; and Yuan Xu, Lin Wang, and Yang Li from the Class of 2012.

Robert Martin (cello, center) performs with students from The Bard College Conservatory of Music at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center.

Guggenheim Foundation fellowships were awarded to an alumnus and two faculty members. Thomas Bradshaw ’02 (drama and performance art), a playwright who lives in Brooklyn, is an assistant professor at Medgar Evers College of CUNY. Medrie MacPhee (painting), who is Sherry Burt Hennessey Artist in Residence, has shown work in more than 20 solo exhibitions internationally. Kelly Reichardt (film), whose films include Old Joy (2006) and Wendy and Lucy (2008), is a visiting assistant professor of film and electronic arts.

The 2009 Tribeca Film festival was flush with Bardians: City Island, directed by Raymond De Felitta ’85, won the prestigious Heineken Audience Award; Eric Goldman ’98 was a producer on Handsome Harry, starring Aidan Quinn and Steve Buscemi; Jim Browne ’86 is a programmer at the festival and his company, Argot Pictures, is distributing American Casino, the new film on the mortgage crisis; Jennifer Glynn ’00 screened her first feature, TiMER, a science fiction romantic comedy; and Mark Street ’86 returned to the festival with his short experimental film Trailer Trash. Cree Nevins ’95 is director of content for the festival and its parent company, Tribeca Enterprises.

Paramount Bard Academy in Delano, California, opened on August 3 with approximately 200 students in two class years, sixth and ninth grade. With the goal of educating regional teacher leaders, the Bard Master of Arts in Teaching Program will be integrated into the daily life of this new charter school beginning in the summer of 2010. In addition to a master of arts in teaching degree, graduates of the California program will earn New York State Initial Certification for grades 7 to 12 and California Initial Certification for grades 6 to 12. Thanks to Bard trustee Stewart Resnick and his wife, Lynda Resnick—longtime supporters of Bard College and innovative education—who have committed their resources and those of Paramount Agricultural Companies, their farming concern, to fund the first few years of the school.

Students of The Bard College Conservatory of Music who were in China this past summer, home for vacation or, in one case, studying Chinese in Bard’s language program in Qingdao, were joined by Robert

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George A. Kellner, a member of the Bard Board of Trustees and the Board of Advisors of the Institute for International Liberal Education, was awarded the Cross of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in a ceremony at the Embassy of Hungary in Washington, D.C., in May. At Bard, Kellner supports the Kellner Hungarian Scholarships, for Hungarian students who are participating in the Program in International Education (PIE), and the Paul J. Kellner Scholarships, named in honor of his father, which enable students to attend Bard under the Excellence and Equal Cost Program. He provided major funding for “The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and After: Impact and Contributions,” a conference held at Bard in 2007. Kellner also supports the Bard Music Festival, Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, SummerScape, and Bard Graduate Center.

The president of Hungary praised Kellner for providing Hungarians with opportunities to study in the United States and for assisting the expansion of American studies in Hungary. Zoltan Feher, a 2001–02 PIE student and Kellner Scholar, is second secretary and press attaché at the Hungarian embassy. He initiated Kellner’s award as a way of expressing his own gratitude, yet most important, he said, was that the acknowledgment came from the Republic of Hungary.

Bard College joins the Liberty League athletics conference beginning with the 2011–12 academic year. Member institutions of the Liberty League place the highest priority on the education of their student athletes and on those athletes’ successful completion of their academic programs. The League, which is a member conference of the NCAA’s Division III, includes Clarkson University, University of Rochester, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, St. Lawrence University, and Hamilton, Hobart and William Smith, Skidmore, Vassar, and Union Colleges.

ON VIEW Dutch New York between East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick runs through January 3, 2010, in the galleries at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture. Organized by the BGC in its first collaboration with the New-York Historical Society, Dutch New York explores the life and times of a fascinating woman. Van Varick was born in the Netherlands in 1649 but spent much of her life at the extremes of the Dutch colonial world, in Malacca (now Malaysia) and Flatbush (now Brooklyn). The research conducted for the exhibition and accompanying catalogue contributes to the history of New York City and the Dutch overseas colonial and commercial network.

Dutch New York is on view within the BGC’s recently completed renovation by Polshek Partnership Architects LLP. The BGC’s adjacent townhouses at 36 and 38 West 86 Street have been combined to provide a total of 17,000 square feet, more than double the previous space. This expansion allows for the full integration of the library program and teaching spaces and the addition of a modern teaching media laboratory and conference center, along with more classroom space.

Transmitting Inequality: Wealth and the American Family

by Yuval Elmelech, associate professor of sociology

rowman & littlefield This analysis explores the influence of race, ethnicity, and class on the distribution of wealth from one generation to the next.

The Journey

by H. G. Adler, translated by Peter Filkins, visiting professor

PARTNERSHIP

of literature

random house Written in 1950, this German novel of multiple voices is based on the

The Bard College Dance Program and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company begin a partnership this fall. Company members teach dance technique and choreographic methods from the standpoint of the company’s physical aesthetic and rigorous mental approach to movement. The company will also present a campuswide event each semester to explore the intersection of art and public life. “This partnership represents our desire to develop a more wideranging vision for what dance can be in a liberal arts community,” said Maria Simpson, professor of dance. The 10-member company, based in Harlem, has performed worldwide in more than 200 cities and 30 countries. It has received numerous awards, including six New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Awards, and is recognized as an innovative and powerful force in the modern dance world.

author’s experiences in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Sleepers’ Republic

by David Gruber ’00, visiting assistant professor of First-Year Seminar and writing

astrophil press These poems of existence and allusion are elongated or shortened in keeping with the poet’s speeding up or slowing down of time.

Blithewood: A History of Place

by Bessina Harrar (Posner) ’84

bluebird press With emphasis on the 2009 quadricentennial of Henry Hudson’s first voyage up the river named for him, this book tells the story of the Bard

COLLOQUY “John Cage at Bard College: A Symposium” takes place October 30 through November 1, presented by the John Cage Trust at Bard College, Bard College Conservatory of Music, Office of the Dean of Graduate Studies, and Institute for Writing and Thinking. Bard faculty, students, alumni/ae, and friends will celebrate the work of the great American composer John Cage (1912–92) with performances, talks and panel discussions, installations, class presentations, and film screenings. Faculty and students of the Bard College Conservatory will join forces in a far-reaching concert of Cage’s chamber works.

College mansion overlooking the river.

The Kindly Ones

by Jonathan Littell, translated by Charlotte Mandell ’90

harper The poetic language of this novel (which won the Prix Goncourt, France’s highest literary honor) contrasts with the unsettling subject: the postwar “memoirs” of a former Nazi physician.

Knee Surgery: The Essential Guide to Total Knee Recovery

by Daniel Fulham O’Neill ’79

st. martin’s griffin “Lying in Politics: Hannah Arendt and the Persistence of Political Prevarication” was the subject of a roundtable discussion presented in May by the Hannah Arendt Center for Ethical and Political Thinking at Bard and the Human Rights and Political Studies Programs. Participating were Verity Smith of Harvard University; Julia Honkasalo and Krista Johannson, both of the University of Helsinki, Finland; and Jack Blum ’62 and Cassie Cornell ’09.

This renowned knee surgeon has written a comprehensive and comprehensible recuperation manual, complete with schedules of activity and photographs of exercises.

Koninklijke De Vries Scheepsbouw Quality Manual

by Bruce Pfund ’72

koninklijke de vries scheepsbouw b.v.

The painstaking process of building De Vries yachts, from steel hulls to

“Interdisciplinary Environmental Education in the 21st Century: Training for Leadership” concluded the 2005 Learning Across Borders grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to the Bard Center for Environmental Policy. Highlights of the April conference included international perspectives on the goal of environmental education from Luce partners in Mexico, South Africa, and China; a curricular panel that focused on Bard’s signature approach to interdisciplinarity; and keynote conversations with Andrew Revkin, New York Times science journalist; William Schlesinger, president of the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Services; and Leon Botstein, president of Bard.

paint, is documented in text and photographs taken at the Aalsmeer shipyard in the Netherlands.

Point Sal

by Jonathan Schwartz ’64

magic lamp press In this thriller by the author of Marina Man and Caviar Crimes, attorney Tom McGuire’s adventures begin when someone buys a Lincoln Navigator with a credit card in his name—for which he never applied.

ON AND OFF CAMPUS | 29

CLASSNOTES

Reunion 2009 Alumni/ae Weekend was especially festive this year. The Down the Road party got a facelift, becoming Annandale Roadhouse at the Bertelsmann Campus Center, with a rooftop bar/lounge, movies for kids, alumni/ae films playing in the Weis Cinema, and a disco.

Alumni/ae from as far back as the Class of 1939 returned to Annandale to catch up with friends, enjoy glorious weather and the stellar fireworks at Blithewood, and celebrate the Class of 2009.

Board of Governors of the Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association

’07 Caity Cook lives in Brooklyn and is working toward her master’s degree in Near Eastern studies at New York University. After graduating from Bard, she worked for a year at the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge.

’06 Class correspondent Kirsten Dunlaevy, kdunlaevy@gmail.com Cameron Bossert had his play Consumption directed by Darrel Larson as a staged reading at the Riverspace Arts Center in Nyack, New York, in December 2007. His trio Celeritas was performed by the Da Capo Chamber Ensemble at Bard in April. Most recently, he won an NYU Film Festival award for best original score for Jonathon Sanden’s short film, Extropy, and finished directing a documentary, K116, produced by John Turturro and Katherine Borowitz.

Jonathan V. Cann continues to write the young adult fiction series School Kids SG and finished book three, The Arc of Time. He posts these stories and other writing at www.sk-sg.com. Jon lives among friends in New York City, and solves puzzles for a living at D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P. Liv Carrow has achieved her dream of pseudo-rock-stardom, playing bass with Brooklyn-based band and art collective Huggabroomstik, which completed a monthlong European tour and released its fifth fulllength album in April 2009. She recorded and self-released her second solo album of original folk songs, and performs frequently in New York City and environs. By day she works as the café manager at Housing Works Used Bookstore in SoHo, where 100 percent of the profits fund programming and housing for homeless New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS. For contact and music, see livcarrow.com.

In September, Christopher Chung began graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. He is pursuing a two-year master’s degree in city planning, with a concentration in international development.

After graduation, Shlomit Dror moved to Boston, where she lived for one year while interning at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center. Additionally, she obtained an assistantship at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University and worked closely with curator Jose Falconi. In 2007 she moved to Los Angeles with her husband and worked as a gallery manager at a prominent Latin American art gallery. In September, she moved back to New York to pursue her master’s degree in museum studies at New York University.

Parris Humphrey will be spending the next half-decade based in the Sonoran desert, pursuing a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. Katherine Bayer (Vassar ’04) will be joining him in his new Tucson abode, constantly admonishing him to wear sunblock and not stare at the mountains all day. Parris would like to remind those still living in northern climes that he will be riding his bicycle while in short sleeves all winter long. He invites those planning an East Coast escape route to feel free to drop by.

’05 5th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Kate Pistey, 845-758-7657 or pistey@bard.edu Jacqi Rose Anderson is the office manager for Hudson Valley Clean Energy in Rhinebeck, New York, and is working toward a Ph.D. in natural health and a doctor of naturopathy degree. Her master of science degree in natural health is scheduled for completion this fall.

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5th Reunion, Class of 2004

After working as a journalist in San Francisco, Elizabeth Daley earned a master of arts degree from Emory University’s Institute of Liberal Arts. She now lives in Atlanta, and is looking for employment as a writer. Her e-mail is iconoclassy@gmail.com.

Suzanne Rose Richardson is working on her M.F.A. in creative writing at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Emily Steele Sauter was accepted to the Center for Cartoon Studies M.F.A. program in White River Junction, Vermont, and started classes in September. The center opened in 2005 and offers a two-year course of study on the creation of comics, graphic novels, and other forms of visual literature. Experienced and internationally recognized cartoonists, writers, and designers teach the classes. Emily’s cartoon, “Adventures in Bardland,” ran in the Bard Observer from 2002 to 2005.

’04 In April, Berlin-based photographer Yishay Garbasz had her first solo exhibition in Japan, including works from three series: In My Mother’s Footsteps; In the Same House: Where a Family Lived for Four or More Generations, a project developed in Taiwan; and The Fence, a series that depicts the landscape along the Israeli-Palestinian border.

Liz McGovern and Ian McBee ’02 welcomed their son Cassidy James into the world on December 15, 2008.

’03 Georgia Mastroieni is the curator of education at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina. She is in charge of designing and executing all of the museum’s educational programs, for children and adults. She is also a teaching artist at Dreams of Wilmington, a nonprofit art school that offers free art classes to local children.

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’02 Class correspondent Toni Fortini Josey, toni.josey@gmail.com Gabriel Blau and his husband, Dylan Stein, welcomed their son, Elijah Matan Blaustein, on February 24, 2008. Gabriel writes that Elijah “loves cars, testing gravity with his food, and testing the acoustics of our apartment.”

Alyson (Voynick) and Danny Gibson were married on August 11, 2007.

Their daughter, Madeline Charlotte Murray Gibson, was born on February 9, 2009.

Jean-Marc Gorelick has graduated with a master’s degree in international development studies from the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He is a democracy and governance officer in the Africa Bureau at USAID. Toni Fortini Josey and her husband, Allen, welcomed a baby girl, Jacey Dale Josey, on April 10, 2009.

Katheryn Ross-Winnie and her husband, Will Winnie, are the proud parents of a baby girl, Ellis Joslyn Winnie. Katheryn writes, “Ellis was born in the wee hours of March 21 and was the perfect way to welcome spring.”

Jesse Sposato is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. She founded and edits Sadie Magazine (www.sadiemagazine.com), an online counterculture magazine for young women, with fellow Bard alum Josie Schoel ’03 and Susannah Wexler, who got her degree at Vassar.

Jennifer Udvardi-Morris and Ashton Morris welcomed a baby girl, Maeve Abigail Morris, on November 7, 2008.

10th Reunion, Class of 1999

’01

’98

Class correspondent Sung Jee Yoo, sujeyo@gmail.com

Class correspondent Jennifer Novik, jnovik@gmail.com

Amy Mulzer and Chris Van Dyke ’00 welcomed their son, Nat Mulzer, in February 2009. Nat enjoys smiling, putting things in his mouth, and attempting to become mobile at the earliest possible moment. Amy is a staff attorney at the Brooklyn Family Defense Project, where she represents low-income parents in Family Court. Chris is on parental leave from his job as an English teacher at the Bronx School for Law, Government, and Justice. Amy, Chris, and Nat live in the Washington Heights section of New York City.

’97

’00 10th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Brad Whitmore, 845-758-7663 or whitmore@bard.edu James Kendi lives in Brooklyn and is the founder of Kendi Ties, a design company that began with ties and has branched out to other clothing. He was profiled in Time Out New York last spring. His wares are sold in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo. For more information, visit www.kendities.com.

Carmella La Bianca drove around the country last spring and summer, collecting stories and drawing comics.

Liza Palmer (Shippey) is the creative and fine art librarian at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She and her husband, Tim, have a son, Riley Tate, who is two.

’99 Heather Duffy Stone’s first novel, This Is What I Want to Tell You, was published in March. She lives in Brooklyn and is the guidance counselor at Bard High School Early College II in Queens.

Class correspondent Julia Wolk Munemo, jmunemo@roadrunner.com Raman Frey hosted an alumni/ae party in April at the Frey Norris Gallery in San Francisco, with a talk and Q&A with Bard president Leon Botstein. The Frey Norris Gallery presents between seven and nine exhibitions each year in its two spaces, with a focus on contemporary artists working on the West Coast and in Asia. This year the gallery also exhibited at Art Dubai and the Hong Kong International Art Fair.

In early 2008, Priya George and the other producers of the Brian Lehrer Show received a George Foster Peabody Award for Broadcasting Excellence. Priya has since left WNYC, but hopes to continue producing radio in some form in the future. She still lives in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, along with the rest of the freelancing media world.

Joshua Lutz ’97, MFA ’05, was among a number of artists commissioned to photograph the “borders” of Amsterdam, resulting in an exhibition that ran from May to August at Stadsarchief Amsterdam. He also had work on display in May at the Festival de films de Portneuf sur l’environnement in Québec. In June, a piece of his was auctioned off at Christie’s in Paris to help benefit multiple sclerosis research in France.

Natasha Neal lives in Chicago with her husband, her daughter, Bella, and her son, Jacob. She is still on hiatus from a career in social work, while she stays home and cares for her two little ones.

After spending six tough years in Peru working in urban, community, and transportation planning, Sebastian Salazar-Chavez returned to Montréal in 2008 and now lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, working for the city’s planning department.

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15th Reunion, Class of 1994

’96 Class correspondents Gavin Kleespies, gwkleespies@hotmail.com Abigail Morgan, abigail@floatchinesemedicalarts.com Brent Armendinger’s first poetry collection, Archipelago, was published by Noemi Press in February.

Michael Deibert was named as a senior fellow at New York’s World Policy Institute, which develops and champions innovative policies that require a progressive and global point of view. Michael lives in Paris, where he continues to report on Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean.

’95 15th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Brad Whitmore, 845-758-7663 or whitmore@bard.edu On the books, Megan Demarkis is the director of organizational excellence at Harlem RBI, one of the city’s most progressive and influential youth development organizations dedicated to educational equity. Off the books, she runs Rentaurant, a semimonthly underground café and speakeasy in Washington Heights, with her partner.

In April, Malia Du Mont completed a stint doing counterterrorism policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where she was involved in the Obama Administration’s Afghanistan Strategic Review. She is now very excited to have started a new job as intelligence liaison and threat/vulnerability analyst in the White House Military Office. In response to myriad requests, unfortunately she cannot give any tours!

’94 David DeMallie is settled on a 10-acre fruit forest farm in the Finger Lakes Region of upstate New York with his wife, Alice, and two kids— Celia, five, and Louise, two.

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Gannt Gurley has been enjoying his time at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard, “although the coffee could be better.” He has accepted a position as visiting professor of Scandinavian in the Department of German and Scandinavian at the University of Oregon, and is “super excited about moving back west!”

Eric Hoffman traveled to Bhutan in 2008 to see an expansion of the Sewala monastery—a project funded by Eric and his partner, Michael Reynolds, and featured in the Wall Street Journal. Since returning to New York, he has focused on his design firm, Hoffman Creative. For more information, visit hoffman-creative.com.

’92 Class correspondent Andrea J. Stein, stein@bard.edu Catherine Blanquet (Pegram) is still in Paris with Pascal and their children, Julia and Quentin. She is working at Starbucks as a part-time barista and loving it.

David Cote was awarded a MacDowell Colony Fellowship for AugustSeptember. David’s one-act opera with Stefan Weisman, Fade, was presented in concert by American Opera Projects at Brooklyn’s Galapagos Art Space in July. He’s still theater editor at Time Out New York and lives in Manhattan.

Sarah B. Davis happily lives in her favorite U.S. city, Portland, Oregon, with her partner, John. She continues to practice massage therapy and is on the faculty at East West College of the Healing Arts. She hopes to honor the amazing professors she had at Bard through her own teaching.

Rob Greenbaum has helped start Tanaro River Imports, an Irvine, California–based business now importing family-owned Old World wines from the Piedmont region of Italy and the Alsace region of France. In his day job, he is the graduate studies chair at Ohio State’s John Glenn School of Public Affairs.

20th Reunion, Class of 1989

Kelly Munn is a freelance yoga and movement teacher. As a teaching artist with Pilobolus Dance Theater’s Educational Institute, she teaches their creative process and choreographic collaboration classes. Kelly lives in New York near the Connecticut border with her best friend/husband, Timothy Hochstetter, and their two wonderful children, Anzu Tate and August Ray. She can be reached at munnkelly@gmail.com.

Dan Sonenberg’s wife, Alex Sax, gave birth to identical triplet boys on November 23, 2008. Satchel, Pablo, and Levi were born at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine, “and they are awfully cute.” Dan has been blogging about it at www.saxandsons.wordpress.com.

A short review of Brian Stefans’s most recent book of poems, Kluge, appears at http://bostonreview.net/BR33.2/microreviews.php.

Stefan Weisman received a Meet the Composer grant to participate in the soundON Festival in La Jolla, California, in June. His one-act opera, Fade, written with librettist David Cote, was performed by the San Francisco Cabaret Opera in May.

’91 Khani Shaw is keeping a low profile, but can be reached at khanishaw@gmail.com.

’90 20th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Jane Brien ’89, 845-758-7406 or brien@bard.edu Morgen Bowers lives on a farm in Claverack, New York, raising alpacas and chickens. She still practices law in nearby Chatham. For more on the farm, visit www.dreamwoodfarm.com.

Marcos Morales is New England regional director of INROADS, Inc., an organization whose mission is to develop and place talented minority youth in business and industry. He and his wife, Nancy, have two boys— Marcos II, six, and Eric, two.

Amara Willey bought her first house in Clinton, New Jersey, and her son started kindergarten in September 2008. She relocated her personal organizing and closet design business to Clinton, and reports, “We are loving it here!”

’89 Class correspondent Lisa DeTora, detoral@lafayette.edu Michael Monsour and Julia Smith are married. He looked her up after many years—they knew each other from living in Robbins—and the rest is history. They have a five-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old.

Kimberly Menard O’Flaherty came back to Bard for her 20th reunion last May with her husband, Douglas, and their two children, Meaghanne (12) and Julianna (10). She writes: “We all had a great time at the Friday night ‘Annandale Roadhouse’ party, and I continued the party with Clare Blackmer ’89, Ray Brahmi ’89, Chris Marino ’89, and Rachel Towel ’90. Watching the Saturday evening fireworks on the blankets at Blithewood was grand—so many people, such a fantastic time! I loved the fact that so many mates from surrounding classes were there, and professors Natalie Lunn and Jean Churchill, too. I plan on being there next year—who else will be?” On another note, Kimberly is, after four years, still breast cancer–free.

’88 Class correspondent Tena Cohen, callejero@earthlink.net Amy Kupferberg is an artist who lives and works in New York City. She recently participated in two group shows: Interplay: The Evolution of Artistic Process at Henry Street Settlement in lower Manhattan, and Patterns of Growth at NURTUREart in Brooklyn. One of her videos was featured in Little Secrets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and one of her works was chosen “Pic of the Day” on Artcritical.com during Armory Week.

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25th Reunion, Class of 1984

Minna Scherlinder Morse and Fred Scherlinder Dobb are pleased to announce the addition of a son to their family: Gilad Martin Scherlinder, born March 1, 2009, and adopted on March 11. Minna is now a career adviser to School of Communication students at American University.

As part of “Team Ria,” Linda Murphy helped solve a treasure hunt in Catskill, New York, that lasted 17 years. For details, visit www.teamria.org.

Allison Radzin spent many months in training, then ran in the May 2009 San Diego Marathon to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Dena Seidel teaches documentary filmmaking as creative writing at the Rutgers University Writers House. She directs the Writers House Master Class series, bringing professional filmmakers to Rutgers to discuss the creative process with students. In August 2008, Dena’s documentary Spiritual Soccer was broadcast on the PBS series Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.

’87 Class correspondent David Avallone, ednoon@aol.com Anne Wallace Allen and her husband, Eric, live in Boise, Idaho, with their two kids, Jamie (9) and Sophie (10). She makes a living as a freelance writer, doing web content and occasional stories for the Associated Press.

David Avallone produced the spoken word CD Tales of the Frightened, a collection of horror short stories read by cult film icon Vernon Wells with music by Eban Schletter. The stories were written by David’s father, Michael, and originally recorded in the 1950s by Boris Karloff.

Tales is to be released just in time for Halloween 2009 by Oglio Records.

David is in preproduction on the film The End of the Day. Most important, he made good on his proposal (made at Blithewood) and married Augusta in November 2008.

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Tanya Bart reports “no births, marriages, promotions, or pilgrimages for this alum, but on the upside, no paroles or divorces either.” She still lives with her partner of 13 years, Jim. She is one of the many who was “downsized” out of a job last year, but is enjoying and welcoming the time to work on her house and her “to-do” list. She hopes everyone she knows out there is well. She can be reached at tbart@aristotle.net.

Steven Carpenter and Amanda Gott ’96 welcomed their daughter, Katherine Athena, into the world on June 16, 2008.

In 2008 Chris Hume completed the documentary Red State Road Trip 2, a 10,000-mile political road trip/weird America journey. For more, visit redstateroadtrip.com. Chris lives in Wyoming, where he teaches yoga and edits movie trailers here and there.

L. Syd M. Johnson received a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University at Albany. Her dissertation was titled “Proactive Procreation: Ethical Implications of New Genetic Technologies for Parental Obligations to Future Offspring.” In September, Syd began a two-year postdoc research fellowship in neuroethics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

By the time you read this, Chris Pennington and his partner, Jeff, will have figured out how to celebrate their 25th anniversary.

Pedro Rodriguez runs Summit Entertainment affiliate International Distribution Company, one of the top independent distributors of films for Latin America. He handles theatrical, video, and TV distribution of films in 23 countries “south of the border.” His life in Los Angeles’s west side is a busy one but a good one. He spends most of his free time sailing and playing tennis or being consumed by family activities. His two older kids are in high school and the two younger ones in middle school. He misses Bard and has very good memories of his time there.

’86 Class correspondent Chris LeGoff, cak64@comcast.net

30th Reunion, Class of 1979

Mary Ann Steiner lives in Pittsburgh, where she is working on her doctorate in the newly established Learning Sciences and Policy program at the University of Pittsburgh.

’85 25th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Anne Canzonetti ’84, 845-758-7187 or canzonet@bard.edu

’84 Hal Hisey stopped practicing law and moved to Japan in 2007 with his wife, Hiroko, and their son, Rivers (who was born in New York City and is completely bilingual). They live at the beach about an hour south of Tokyo. Hal teaches freshman English, international relations, business, communications, and filmmaking at a university there. He writes, “Adolfas would be proud.”

Karen Lehmann lives in the mountains south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her husband, daughter, four dogs, and a horse. She is a freelance writer and editor, juggling business, high-tech, and creative projects.

’82 Alexander Black, having started Alexander’s Famous Food and the Fudge Fatale brand of products (www.fudgefatale.com), has now taken a lifelong passion for photography to a unique level, deep inside the world of plants and flowers. For details, visit www.alexanderblackphotography.com.

In May, Terence “Ted” Bertrand Dewsnap, national director of the Bard College Clemente Course in the Humanities, was invited to speak in Seoul, Korea, at the inaugural World Civic Forum “Building Our Humanitarian Planet,” sponsored by Kyung Hee University and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. While Kyung Hee’s humanities programs for the poor are new, they already have about 20 courses inspired by those at Bard.

’81 In April, Kristin Bundesen passed the oral defense of her doctoral dissertation at the University of Nottingham. Her research has been on dynastic politics in the Elizabethan court, specifically the relationship between gender and political agency. She would like to tell Professor Emeritus John Fout that she finally made good, after all of his prodding.

’83 Gina Caruso is curator of film and director of the Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the only accredited art museum in Hawaii. The film program includes seven ongoing film festivals, Friends of Film Friday, a membership film program in which filmmakers and critics introduce films, and an ongoing concert program. She lives in Honolulu with her husband and their 11-year-old son, Emmett. If you have a film you’d like her to see, e-mail gcaruso@honoluluacademy.org.

Glenn Stout has been a full-time author since leaving the Boston Public Library in 1993. He has served as series editor of the annual anthology The Best American Sports Writing since its inception in 1991, and edited a posthumous collection of sports writing by David Halberstam, titled Everything They Had. His latest book is Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World.

Glenn lives in Vermont.

Andrea K. Zimmermann, along with some colleagues, was awarded a Citation/Certificate of Appreciation by the New York City Council (sponsored by Jessica Lappin, D-Manhattan) for her community service with the East 79th Street Neighborhood Association. Andrea received her award in May at a reception held at Gracie Mansion in honor of the association’s 25th anniversary.

’80 30th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Anne Canzonetti ’84, 845-758-7187 or canzonet@bard.edu

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35th Reunion, Class of 1974

’79

’75

Anne Alexander is a sculptor and lives in Maine. She had a solo show on the theme of fossils at the Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland, Maine, in June.

35th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Anne Canzonetti ’84, 845-758-7187 or canzonet@bard.edu

Nancy Amis completed her master in fine arts degree in 2006 from Maryland Institute College of Art. She now lives in Charleston, South Carolina, where she is seeking employment after being laid off from her position as the director of education at a local museum. She writes that “with all of my free time I can focus on painting.”

’74

Bob Kramer is sorry to have missed the 30th reunion last May. He would like to hear from old classmates and find out what they are up to.

Charles Moore has worked for 30 years in the “entertainment biz,” including production on NBC’s The Today Show and the Nightly News with Brian Williams. He is also a film composer (Moore Music Works, LLC).

Willa Owings is on the faculty in child development and family studies at City College of San Francisco. She has two children at San Francisco High School of the Arts and her daughter started at UC Berkeley this fall.

After 10 years as chair of the Women’s Studies Department at Washington State University, Dr. Noël Sturgeon has returned to teaching. Her second book, Environmentalism in Popular Culture: Gender, Race, Sexuality, and the Politics of the Natural, was published this year by University of Arizona Press.

’77 Dennis Barone teaches at Saint Joseph College in Connecticut, where he is director of American studies. His most recent academic work is “‘Machines Are Us’: Joseph Papleo and the Literature of Sprawl” in Forum Italicum 42.1 (2008), and a new long story, Now and At the Hour, which appears online at the BlazeVOX website, www.blazevox.org. He and Debbie Ducoff-Barone ’78, who directs human resources at Hartford Financial Services, have been married for more than 30 years.

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Raymond Gross would love to hear from anyone and everyone by phone or mail because he’s “super curious about what became of you all!” He can be contacted at 2006 St. Maru Lane, McKinleyville, CA 95519 or 707-839-2350.

’70 40th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Jane Brien ’89, 845-758-7406 or brien@bard.edu Gary Haber and Martha Simpson Haber ’71 keep busy with their own sports team of six grandchildren: Ella Ruth Haber, Caleb Haber, Esther Miller, Eliyah Miller, Grace Miller, and Alexander Haber.

’69 Class correspondent Elaine Marcotte Hyams, eshyams@yahoo.com Ellen Giordano Cartledge, having been “restructured” from Guy Carpenter LLC, has landed at Peter Paul Electronics, Inc., doing various activities. She finds the transition from the world of reinsurance to the world of manufacturing “fascinating.”

Paula Elliot works for the Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council in Washington. This past spring she organized the quirky Celluloid Bainbridge Film Festival and a series of community events for National Poetry Month. She has a “side” job, singing for a church.

Bill Gleason and his wife, Maxine, celebrate their 42nd anniversary this year. They have two sons and two grandsons.

40th Reunion, Class of 1969

Roseanne Kanter is doing just fine, and is down to one dog and visits from her children (although she did “fall in love with Tokyo last summer”). She writes, “Simple is good.”

’67

Mark Karlins published his fifth children’s book, Starring Lorenzo and Einstein Too (Penguin). In a “zany, most Bardian adventure,” Lorenzo builds a rocket ship on his Brooklyn roof and zooms through outer space and meets Albert Einstein.

Mack McCune “is up to the same old stuff,” running a landscape business in the Washington, D.C., area, and watching the grandchildren roll out (numbers seven and eight are on the way).

Class correspondent Pamela Dendy Knap, pdknap@optonline.net

’65

Minda Novek is a researcher/picture editor in Brooklyn. Her projects include Once in a Lifetime Trips, The Inner World of Farm Animals, and a documentary on Alice Walker (in development). Minda also teaches a class for kids at the 14th Street Y, called Focusing through the Arts. For more information, visit www.meaninginforms.com.

Class correspondent Charlie Hollander, chas956@rcn.com

Thomas Phillips owns two bookstores on Cape Cod, both called Books By the Sea.

’64

Norman Weinstein’s Carlos Santana: A Biography (Greenwood Books) was published this summer. His other projects include a book on teaching architects how to write and a new poetry collection. He teaches creative writing classes at the Log Cabin Literary Center in Boise, Idaho, and Canadian studies at Boise State University.

Emilie Grieg Wolitzer writes that, after 40 years, “I wish I hadn’t left Bard for NYU.” She taught languages in Florida for three decades, and now teaches English literature to high school students in North Charleston, South Carolina. A dance major, Emilie fondly remembers the December ’65 performance at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, and good reviews for The House of Bernarda Alba. She has two sons and two grandchildren.

45th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Jane Brien ’89, 845-758-7406 or brien@bard.edu

Rikki Ducornet had an exhibition of her paintings in March at the W. Stephan Gallery in Lafayette, Louisiana.

’63 Class correspondent Penny Axelrod, axelrodp@earthlink.net

’62 Class correspondent Susan Playfair, srplayfair@comcast.net In March Eve Odiorne Sullivan received a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Excellence Award in recognition of her volunteer work in cofounding the Parents Forum (www.parentsforum.org) along with Christine Bates, another longtime MIT employee.

’68 Class correspondents Diana Hirsch Friedman, wowdiana@optonline.net Barbara Crane Wigren, bcwigren@aol.com

’60 50th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Tricia Fleming, 845-758-7089 or fleming@bard.edu

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Peter Lee is retired and enjoys writing, photography, and playing piano.

He attended the Southampton College Writers Conference in the summer of 2008, and studied with essayist Roger Rosenblatt. He has had two plays performed by the Northport Readers Theatre on Long Island.

He also has two grandchildren.

’59 Frank Robinson has been living at the Masonic Care Community for about five years and finds it “a most wonderful place to be.” He is very active and enjoys attending SUNY Institute of Technology “to keep a light burning.” He would enjoy hearing from other alumni/ae.

’57 Barbara Polack Silver has been married to Richard T. Silver, M.D., since 1961. They have one son, Adam.

’55 55th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Tricia Fleming, 845-758-7089 or fleming@bard.edu

’54 Elinor Levin wrote to us after the death of her husband, Jud Levin, whose obituary appeard in the Spring ’09 Bardian, and asked that we share this poem that he wrote, reflecting on an experience at Bard: 2.

1.

I renounced my hill.

When I was eighteen years of age And each day was the early page 3.

Of a book, When I became a lawyer, too, While walking down a wooded hill I did the things that lawyers do Near my college dorm, And thought the thoughts I stopped to look That lawyers think At a squirrel.

And gave them form in voice and ink, In the arrogance of ignorance But through the years repeatedly And contrived humility, I saw the hill, I saw the tree, I reflected, And again I wondered.

Wrote these words, 4.

And called them When I see them, A poem: As I still do— “I saw a gray squirrel The hill, the tree, the squirrel, too— Climbing up a tree, I do not wonder less, And I wondered— I must confess, Is it important, Than I did Or is it trivial Then.

To think about a gray squirrel Climbing up a tree?”

I read my words, Unguardedly, To a friend, who always knew that he Would be A lawyer And never dared or cared To see Himself as anything else.

“It’s trivial,” Were his words to me.

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’53 Class correspondent Naomi Bellinson Feldman, nada1500@comcast.net

’52 Class correspondent Kit Ellenbogen, max4794@netzero.net Mona Monroe continues to work as a volunteer three to four afternoons a week at a small public elementary school in East Harlem, most recently teaching computer skills and helping fifth-graders to “publish” their creative writing and research reports. She believes that working with kids has kept her young in energy and outlook.

’50 60th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Tricia Fleming, 845-758-7089 or fleming@bard.edu

’47 Walter Liggett continues to paint and write poetry in Berkeley, California.

’45 65th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Tricia Fleming, 845-758-7089 or fleming@bard.edu

’40 70th Reunion: May 21–23, 2010 Staff contact: Tricia Fleming, 845-758-7089 or fleming@bard.edu Class correspondent Dick Koch, rfkoch@macdave.com, 516-599-3489

Bard Center for Environmental Policy ’09 After receiving a professional certificate from BCEP, Taryn Morris coordinated an undergraduate research program that studied the influence of elephants on faunal communities in Kruger National Park, South Africa, for the Organization of Tropical Studies. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, at the University of Colorado, Boulder, she started work on a Ph.D. in August. She is studying in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and her research involves nitrogen cycling in the South African fynbos, the biologically rich shrubland that occurs in the Western Cape province of South Africa.

’08 This past spring found Matt Clancy exploring the northern part of Minnesota, from International Falls and Grand Portage to the southern parts of Duluth, Minnesota, off Lake Superior. As conservation crew leader for the Minnesota Conservation Corps, Matt and his team of three cleared downed trees from forest roads and trails, surveyed forests and wildlife, and got ready for the fire season. He lives in Evelth, Minnesota, and says that one of the greatest gifts of his job is the regular sighting of the diverse wildlife of the area, including timber wolves, lynx, pine marten, sharp-tailed grouse, and moose.

Back at Bard (left to right): Richard Koch ’40; Miriam Roskin Berger ’56 and her husband, Rabbi Meir Berger; Arnold Davis ’44 and his wife, Seena Davis; Ruth Schwartz Schwab ’52 and David E. Schwab II ’52; and Paul B. Munson ’47

David Conrad works for Innovar Environmental, Inc., a company commonly contracted by the U.S. military, in Albany, New York. His position as an environmental specialist requires him to visit different army installations in New York State, and ensure that all facilities and equipment are up to code with current regulations and standards.

’07 Amy Faust began work this fall on a master’s degree in urban planning at New York University. Along with Jennifer Peters ’07, Lindsey Lusher Shute ’07, Sarah Smith ’08, and Kristen Wilson ’07, she attended BCEP’s spring conference, “Interdisciplinary Environmental Education in the 21st Century: Training for Leadership,” which took place at Bard in April.

Jivan Lee, who earned 3-2 dual degrees (B.A./M.S.) at Bard, now lives in northern New Mexico, where he leads a grant-funded regional survey of sustainable agriculture with the Taos Pueblo. Jivan authored a report published in January for Common Cause New Mexico titled “Connecting the Dots: How New Mexico Oil and Gas Industry Campaign Contributions Affect State Policy Making.” He writes that he lives on a farm in a small casita with cows outside his windows, “making some art, playing the guitar, and doing some climate change work.”

Dalit Marom is employed as an environmental consultant at SRK Consulting in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she lives with her husband, Steve Magid. For the past two years she has helped prepare several environmental impact assessments for infrastructure projects involving pipelines, power lines, and mining. She has also been working on an environmental policy for the South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, and on a mining environmental and social impact assessment in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Lindsey Lusher Shute was among the participants at the BCEP’s April conference at Bard, “Interdisciplinary Environmental Education in the

21st Century: Training for Leadership.” She added her expertise to the panel, “Payment for Ecosystem Services: A Model Field Experience for Training Environmental Policy Makers.”

Timothy Treadwell works as a program analyst at the California Center for Sustainable Energy and is involved in implementing the California Solar Initiative (CSI). Funded by the California Public Utilities Commission, CSI provides incentives to existing businesses, public agencies, and homeowners to lower their energy costs, reduce reliance on fossil fuel–fed power plants, and create a sustainable energy future by using solar technology. Tim lives with his family in San Diego.

Katie Van Sant was awarded her first grant, $165K from the state of Colorado, to start up a company called Clean Air Waste and Recycling— a partnership between Clean Air Lawn Care and National Recycling.

The company will offer a full-service waste, recycling, and composting curbside hauling service to participating communities.

’05 Rachel Baker started work as Kaiser Permanente’s environmental supply chain manager in Oakland in April 2008. In this role, she oversees the development and implementation of Kaiser Permanente’s environmentally preferred purchasing program. Kaiser owns more than 40 hospitals and 400 medical office buildings, and is the largest health-care system in the United States. It purchases more than $12 billion in products and services each year, and Rachel is working on “greening” that supply chain. She and her husband live in Berkeley, California.

Jessica Daniels (Butts) is an environmental protection specialist with the air quality division of the District of Columbia’s Department of the Environment.

Jon Sarno is the standards engineer for Borrego Solar Systems in Boston. The company designs and installs power systems for businesses, homes, and government.

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’04 In May, Lillian Gonzales was completing her first year as a Ph.D. student in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at Ohio State University. Her current research interests include how government influences collaboration and citizen participation in brownfield redevelopment projects.

Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture ’09 Stephanie Lake owns and operates a custom jewelry line that specializes in found and reworked vintage pieces. Her designs have appeared on several red carpets, including the People’s Choice awards, and on the entertainment news show Extra. Her work is also featured in the DVD for season two of the television series Mad Men, which became available in July.

Over the summer, Haneen Rabie interned in the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and began her studies for a Ph.D. in art history at Princeton University.

’07 Serena Newmark owns Spurlock Antiques and Decorative Arts, an antique store/consulting firm in Chicago. Bardians are welcome to visit the store’s website—www.spurlockantiques.com.

Marcella Ruble presented a paper at the national conference of the Pop Culture Association and American Culture Association in New Orleans in April. The title of her paper was “The Playboy Bunny Costume: The Creation of an Icon.”

’04 After graduating in May with an M.B.A. from Duke University, Gabriela Allen spent the summer at Davidson College, teaching business strategy to gifted middle school students from around the country. She plans to return to New York City this fall.

’96 Anne Eschapasse was appointed assistant to the director of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in September.

’95 Majda Kallab Whitaker has developed a furnishings plan for the Dvorˇák Room, an exhibition and study space in the recently restored Bohemian National Hall (1896) in New York City. She is associated with the Dvorˇák American Heritage Association, which “commemorates, celebrates, and continues to explore Czech composer Antonín Dvorˇák’s extraordinary musical contributions, with special emphasis on his influential residency in the United States in the years 1892–95.” In May 2008, Majda joined musicologist Michael Beckerman and conductor Maurice Peress in leading a walking tour of Dvorˇák’s New York. This past February she presented a lecture, “The Homes of Dvorˇák in America.”

Center for Curatorial Studies

Amy Osborn and Rick Moody are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Hazel Jane Moody, who arrived on March 6, 2009.

’09

’06

Mireille Bourgeois is a programmer/curator at Saw Video in Ottawa, Canada.

Katie Hall is a curator at the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans. In addition to collections care, she is working to resolve 100year-old loans to the museum by contacting lenders’ families and advertising artifacts in the local newspapers. Katie’s work centers on the museum’s French Quarter properties, including the Cabildo, Presbytère (Mardi Gras museum), 1850 House, and Old U.S. Mint.

Fionn Meade, an independent curator and critic living in New York City, had several articles published this summer. They included a feature on Josh Brand in Artforum; a longer piece titled “Angle of Repose” on the French artist Jean-Luc Mylayne, which appeared in Parkett; and a review of Elad Lassry’s exhibition at the Whitney in Bidoun.

’05

Bartholomew Ryan is a curatorial fellow at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. He replaced Daniel Byers ’08, who moved on to the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh as assistant curator.

Natalie Espinosa is the assistant registrar of decorative arts at the Fundación Cisneros/Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. She participated in the second Modernist Magazines Project conference, titled “Modernism, Cultural Exchange, and Transnationality,” which took place at the University of Sussex in July. There, she presented a paper titled “Arquitectura/México: A Case Study of an Architecture and Design Magazine, 1938–1949.”

Jen Larson is the collections specialist at the Center for Book Arts in New York City, an organization dedicated to preserving the traditional artistic practices of book making, as well as exploring contemporary interpretations of the book as an art object. Jen is pursuing a master’s degree in library and information science at Pratt Institute, and she worked this summer as an intern with the Lincoln Center Arts Education Library.

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Wendy Vogel is enjoying a yearlong critical fellowship in the Core Residency Program at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas.

’08 Vincenzo deBellis, an independent curator in Milan, Italy, founded Peep-Hole, a curatorial project space based in that city. Peep-Hole Sheet, a quarterly of writings by artists, was launched with “Stories” by Liam Gillick in Venice, Basel, New York, and in 50 bookstores around the world.

Tyler Emerson Dorsch curated an exhibition titled nota bene at the Dorsch Gallery in Miami, Florida, where she is partner/codirector. The show was reviewed by artlurker.com, which stated that it “[set] the tone for a gallery that is busy reinventing itself,” and in the process recaptured “both the attention and respect of Miami’s arts community.” This

past winter, Tyler’s CCS classmate Milena Hoegsberg, a New York City–based independent curator, cocurated A Perfect Human at the Dorsch Gallery.

Anat Ebgi, curator and cofounder of The Company in Los Angeles, curated Human Resources, which featured a group of artists including Lisi Raskin, CCS artist in residence in 2008.

Independent curator Lauren Wolk (Benanti) curated Locus, an exhibition of contemporary video art, painting, drawing, photography, and performance, that ran from February 26 to March 22 at Gallery 51 of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

’07 Özkan Cangüven is a gallery associate at Slag Gallery, which specializes in contemporary Eastern European art. He cocurated Against All Odds, an 11-person group show that presented two new generations of artists from Romania.

Ruba Katrib, assistant curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida, curated ecStatIc truth, a two-artist exhibition that ran from March 7 to April 26 at the Dumbo Arts Center in Brooklyn. Ruba also participated in a panel discussion about curatorial practices in the new economy at the Chicago Art Fair.

Kate McNamara, curatorial assistant at P.S. 1 MoMA, cocurated Mutual: On Collaboration, a group show at Samson Projects in Boston.

Chen Tamir, independent curator/critic and director of Flux Factory, New York City, and Judy Ditner ’05, a curatorial assistant at the International Center of Photography, were panel participants in a roundtable discussion at the Scope Art Fair. The panel convened in connection with the screening of recent artists’ videos concerning war in the Middle East. Chen spent February serving a residency at the Israeli Center for Digital Art.

’06 Erica Battle (Fisher) is project curatorial assistant of modern and contemporary art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As part of her job, she helped organize Bruce Nauman’s exhibition at the Venice Biennale in June.

Montserrat Albores Gleson, an independent curator living in Mexico City, curated Misfeasance? at the Museo de Arte Raul Anguiano in Guadalajara. The exhibition ran from April 3 through June 30.

Geir Haraldseth has a temporary position as curator of contemporary art at the National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design in Norway, where he is working on two shows. Geir, who is an editor for Landings Journal, independently curated Case Study: Art and Biography at Landings, an artist-run project space for contemporary art in Vestfossen, Norway.

Zelijka Himbele curated Alternating Beats, an exhibition that juxtaposed seminal video works from the late 1960s and 1970s with more recent international productions, at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, where she is a curatorial assistant of contemporary art.

’05 Jen Mergel, an associate curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston, curated two exhibitions at ICA—Momentum 13: Eileen Quinlan and Acting Out: Social Experiments in Video. The latter show is open through October 18.

Pelin Uran, an independent curator from Istanbul, and Chus Martínez ’01, head curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, were chosen for the Premio Furla Award 2009—an Italian award of excellence given in support of young contemporary artists, art critics, and curators. Five pairs of curators are chosen, each composed of an Italian and a foreign guest of international renown. Pelin also cocurated (with Jyeong-Yeon Kim) an exhibition titled endgame at Loop Alternative Space in Seoul, Korea. Jyeong-Yeon is pursuing her Ph.D. in visual culture studies and is the artistic director of Gallery Hundi in Seoul.

’04 Stacey Allan is the associate editor at Afterall Journal. In the magazine’s 10th anniversary issue, she commented on the contemporary relevance of Louise Lawler’s Birdcalls (1972–81), an early feminist sound work.

Aubrey Reeves is now artistic producer and project manager of the Spotlight Festival, a pilot program of the Ontario Arts Council. This year’s festival took place in five Ontario cities—Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Stratford, and Guelph—from June 5 to 7.

Ryan Rice, an independent curator living in Quebec, curated Hochelaga Revisited at Montreal Arts Interculturel. The show featured six artists who used various media to create original works exploring Montreal’s First Nations territory.

Yasmil Raymond Ventura, formerly associate curator of visual arts at the Walker Center in Minneapolis, is now curator of the Dia Art Foundation in New York. Yasmil replaced Lynne Cooke, who had overseen Dia’s curatorial programs since 1991.

’03 Ingrid Chu is codirector of Forever & Today, Inc., a new, nonprofit initiative that is a sponsored organization of the New York Foundation for the Arts. The Manhattan space hosted its first commissioned project, Pablo Helguera: The Seven Bridges of Königsberg, in the fall of 2008.

Bree Edwards is the cofounder of Be Johnny: Video Art + Design in Los Angeles. She presented a live cinema performance at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in downtown LA in conjunction with the New Media Caucus at the annual conference of the College Art Association.

Kate Green is enrolled in the Ph.D. program in modern and contemporary art history at the University of Texas, Austin.

Candice Hopkins, formerly director and curator of exhibitions at the Western Front in Vancouver, accepted a newly created position in the field of indigenous art at the National Gallery of Canada. Candace will work in a curatorial capacity on exhibitions, acquisitions for the collection, and a major international show scheduled for 2013.

Jimena Acosta Romero, an independent curator in Mexico City, cocurated Criteria at A + D Gallery at Columbia College in Chicago.

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’02

’96

Luiza Interlenghi, director of the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage in Rio de Janiero, cocurated Nudez e Território at the museum’s Galeria Cavalariças.

Regine Basha, an independent curator in New York City, is a board member of both Art Matters (a granting institution) and Aurora Picture Show in Houston, Texas. This year she curated Museum as Hub at The New Museum; A Series of Coincidences at Cabinet; the Tuningbaghdad.net launch party at e-flux space in Manhattan; the 2009 M.F.A. Thesis Exhibition for Columbia University School of the Arts; and Full Circle: Ten Years of Radius, at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

Jenni Sorkin, a critic and historian of contemporary art and a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art Department at Yale University, was invited by Ruba Katrib ’07, associate curator, to lead a seminar on the impact of feminism and primitivism in recent art at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, Florida.

’01 Dermis P. Léon, an independent curator and critic, had her first book published. Ciro Beltrán, una biografia, was compiled, selected, and edited by Dermis. The publication covers more than 20 years of artwork that was displayed during 2005 and 2006 at retrospective exhibitions at the National Fine Arts Museum of Santiago; State Art Museum of Iserlohn, Germany; and Contemporary Art Museum of Valdivia.

Carina Plath curated Alexander Wolff at Westfaelischer Kunstverein in Müenster, Germany, where she is director.

’00 Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy is the new director of the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico City.

Tumelo Mosaka, formerly a curator at the Brooklyn Museum, is now the curator of contemporary art at the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dowoti Désir left her position as director of the Shabazz Center in New York City to build the Durban Declaration Programme of Action Watch Group, an international coalition of which she was the founder.

With a focus on cultural, civil, and human rights, the DDP Watch Group concentrates on racial discrimination, social justice, and cultural sustainability based on the principles of the UN mandate generated at the World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

MaraJayne Miller is the managing director of 511 Gallery in Manhattan. The contemporary art gallery curates eight to ten solo exhibitions each year, as well as group thematic shows for the months of July and August.

Goran Tomcic, an independent curator, artist, and poet, has relocated to Berlin, Germany, where he works part-time as an adviser on contemporary art to the director of the Museum of Modern Art, Rijeka, Croatia.

He has had solo exhibitions in Leipzig and Croatia, and a Miami, Florida, show is in the planning stages. Goran’s poetry has been published in a number of magazines and anthologies in the United States.

Mercedes Vicente, curator of contemporary art at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Zealand, cocurated the 2009 Scanz Raranga Tangata with Sarah Cook ’98, an independent curator and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sunderland, UK. Sarah participated in a two-week residency at Govett-Brewster. Mercedes also cocurated the exhibition Darcy Lange Work Studies in Schools at the Ikon Gallery in England. The exhibition is the most comprehensive display to date of Lange’s “Work Studies in Schools (1976–77),” with rediscovered and digitally remastered footage from the artist’s archive and the New Zealand Film Archive available to view for the first time.

Robbin Zella, director of the Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, Connecticut, curated Illustrating Connecticut: People, Places and Things, which was named best show for 2008 by the New Haven Register. The exhibition also won the Silver Medal design award from the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations for its exhibition catalogue, and was featured on Connecticut Public Television and in Positively Connecticut.

’99

’09

Alejandro Díaz had a solo show of satirical artworks, collectively titled Blame It on Mexico, at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, from February 21 to June 7. Díaz’s languagerelated works use humor to draw attention to the imbedded cultural stereotypes with which he is familiar from his bicultural Mexican/Texan upbringing, as well as from his more recent experiences in the contemporary art world. Selections included work from his acclaimed campy political cardboard sign series.

Colleen Bucci teaches 7th-grade life science at Haviland Middle School in Hyde Park, New York. She was selected to serve on the school’s Academic Improvement Team.

’98 Jessica Hough, formerly the director of Mills College Art Museum, is now the director of exhibitions, publications, and programs at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

Zhang Zhaohui, performance artist and director of Joey Chang Art in Beijing, participated in an intermedia project titled You & Me, which was presented both at the Chang gallery and in Manhattan’s Times Square.

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Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program

Audrey Anne A. Enriquez teaches IB English at the Dwight School in New York City. She is the only 11th-grade English teacher on the 89th Street and Central Park West campus. The junior class has 81 students from the United States, England, Germany, Sweden, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan, India, Tibet, Hong Kong, and Australia. Audrey is looking forward to being an Institute of Civic Leadership chaperone and flying with the students to another part of the world to help build houses and teach basic math and English to underprivileged children. She writes that being the first Filipino on staff at the school is her “greatest feat to date.” She also teaches Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes to 3rd- and 4th-graders and is a lector at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Rachel Ann Scorca teaches 9th- and 10th-grade English at Kingston City High School in Kingston, New York. She also helps with the school newspaper and is an adviser for the Chic Chat club, an open forum that allows girls to vent about and discuss the challenges they face in high school.

Action Research mentor to five teams of teachers across the school district. The abstract of her 2007 Action Research project, “Moving Thoughts and Dancing Words: Charting Changes in Student Understanding and Articulation of Dance Compositions,” appears in Doug Reeve’s 2008 book Reframing Teacher Leadership to Improve Your School.

’08

Amy White is teaching 5th grade at George Washington Elementary School in Kingston, New York. She has also started her own company called Travelwidth, which addresses sizeism, found at www.travelwidth.com.

Molly Gia Foresta teaches 11th-grade U.S. history at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies in Carroll Gardens. She also teaches a performance poetry elective for 7th–11th graders called “Slam!” with her good friend and coworker Stacie Chea. Molly lives in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, with her partner Kyle Carraro. She writes that life is “hectic and hairy but good.”

Zelig Kurland teaches English and filmmaking at Valley Central High School in Montgomery, New York.

Annie Lerew teaches 9th-grade math at Banana Kelly Collaborative High School in the South Bronx, where she has started a coed soccer club. In her spare time she plays in an ultimate Frisbee league.

Bridget Ryan is engaged to be married in August 2010. She teaches 9thand 10th-grade English at Park View High School in Sterling, Virginia.

Aaron Schumacher is teaching English and break dancing in South Korea through 2009.

Juliet Varnedoe is in her third year of teaching 9th-grade English at Williamsburg Preparatory High School, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. She also teaches a graphic design class to seniors, with the yearbook as the final publication for the class project. Williamsburg Prep, a part of the New Vision Program of New York, is a public school with approximately 420 students.

Alexander Wolff writes that he is enjoying his third year of teaching 10th-grade English at The Grove School in Madison, Connecticut, where he is a member of the Curriculum Development Committee.

’07 Linda Mishkin is in her fourth year of teaching 12th-grade English and a mixed-grade-level drama elective at Banana Kelly Collaborative High School in the South Bronx. She writes, “It is always moving and a challenge. Occasionally, it really feels like teaching; it is always about loving and relating, and most of the time it is a journey through a Dali painting . . . and I love it.”

Emily Packet lives in Queens and works at LaGuardia Community College as a writer/assistant editor. At LaGuardia she helps students write their personal statements for scholarships and for admission to colleges and universities. Alumni/ae from the MAT Program may contact her at epacket@lagcc.cuny.edu.

’06 Jeanine Tegano is in her fifth year of teaching at Bonanza High School in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she is the chair of the Humanities Department. She has started a new elective dance program for more than 200 students in grades 9–12, and is a Critical Friends Group (CFG) coach on her campus, running a collaboration of 12 teachers from different disciplines. She works with the Southern Nevada Writing Project to train new coaches in the protocols of CFG facilitation and serves as an

In Memoriam ’10 Anna Virginia Finkelstein was caught in a riptide while swimming with a friend off the shore of Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, on July 9, 2009, and is presumed dead. She was born on April 9, 1987, in Los Angeles, California; most recently, she lived in New York City with her family. At Bard she was a literature major. Her survivors include her mother, Barbara Schnitzler; her father, William Finkelstein; her sister, Katherine Finkelstein ’07; and her brother, John “Harry” Finkelstein ’12. A memorial service was held on July 17 in Central Park, New York City. Among the speakers at the service, Geoffrey Sanborn, associate professor of literature, remembered Anna as “a brilliant, kind, lovely, and vividly alive person who helped me become a better reader of literature every time we talked.” A remembrance from Marina van Zuylen, professor of French and comparative literature, was read at the service by David Shein, dean of studies: “Anna’s legacy, among many, will be the depth she brought to every subject, the strength of vision that made us all reconsider our prejudices, thanks to her quiet interventions and her ability to ask the right questions, the serious questions that many are too jaded or too scared to bring up. . . .” Van Zuylen also provided an excerpt from an essay that Anna had written: There is something so beautiful about the condition [of ] leisure, in which [humans] must be at one with themselves while at one with the world, transcending their humanity in order to fully grasp it. . . . I often thought of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura and the aim of an Epicurean life: ataraxia in Greek, translated as “undisturbedness,” or aequo animo in Latin, “with an even mind and soul” [. . . ] How best to live is to be able to look on everything with a tranquil mind . . .

’85 Jane Bresnick, a beloved San Francisco kindergarten teacher, died of leukemia on March 22, 2009. She had bravely battled and beat breast cancer just a few years before, and made a short film about how she took the scariest experience of her life and turned it around, transforming herself from a cancer patient into what she called “a warrior.” Her digital story can be viewed at www.bavc.org. She loved baking, hiking (after she finished her breast-cancer treatment, she climbed Half Dome in Yosemite and traveled in Patagonia), and was planning a white-water rafting trip in Colorado when she died. She kept in close contact with many Bard friends, among them Pamela Wallace ’87, Phoebe Sudrow ’86, Greta Earnest ’85, Barr Hogen ’85, and Kerry Keegan ’85. Her survivors include her parents, Judith and Sidney Bresnick; a brother, Michael; a sister, Marjorie; a niece and a nephew; and many cousins and friends.

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’49

Kirk Larsen Bjornsgaard, 58, died on April 29, 2009, at home in Norman, Oklahoma. After graduating from Bard, he returned to Oklahoma where he lived “the writer’s life” as a media-relations manager, editor, and journalist in print and radio. He was also known as the quintessential rock drummer to many of the best musicians in the area. His novel Confessions of a Former Rock Queen was published shortly before his death. He was predeceased by his parents, Isabel and Frank Kirk Bjornsgaard ’40. His survivors include his wife, Noma Krasney; a son, Jordan; a daughter, Kelsey; a brother, David; a niece; and several cousins.

Jeremiah Blitzer died on June 23, 2009. A native New Yorker, he worked for more than 20 years at the family lighting fixture and design business, Lightolier, Inc., where he was also named to the board of directors. He was the coauthor with Werner Renberg of Making Money with Mutual Funds (John Wiley and Sons, 1988). His survivors include his brother, William, and two nephews and a niece.

’62 Robert Jeronimo died on July 3, 2008. An artist in steel and marble, he studied sculpture at Bard with Harvey Fite.

’53 Yale Nemerson, M.D., a preeminent hematologist and a recipient of the John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science, died on February 12, 2009. Sometimes known as “Dr. Clot,” he was responsible for a revolutionary change in understanding of the blood-clotting mechanism. Born in the Bronx, he attended Bronx High School of Science, Bard, and New York University Medical School. His pioneering work on blood coagulation was carried out at Yale University, where he was a professor of internal medicine from 1965 to 1976. Later in his career he was a professor of medicine at SUNY Stony Brook and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. A recognized leader in the field, he served as president and board member of the International Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis. He published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and served in national and international organizations devoted to studying blood coagulation and prothrombotic syndromes. He loved the arts (especially opera), travel, politics, the Yankees and Giants, and tennis.

His is survived by his children, Matthew, Andrea, and David, and five grandchildren.

’52 Marus Conrad Jr., 80, died at home in Bermuda Dunes, California, on April 27, 2008. He was predeceased by his wife, Geraldine, and is survived by his daughter, Mari, and son, Scott; a grandson; and his loving companion, Laurel Tingle.

’50 Thomas Channing Woodbury, a lawyer and a gifted photographer, died at home in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on July 28, 2008. He graduated from Kenyon College in 1950 with a B.A. in English literature after attending Bard, where he was editor-in-chief of the Bardian, then the student newspaper. He graduated with L.L.B. and J.D. degrees from New York University Law School in 1955 and began his career as an attorney, opening a firm with offices in Chappaqua and White Plains, New York, where he conducted a general practice until 1982. After his retirement, he moved back to New England, first to New Hampshire and eventually to Cape Cod. Photography was a lifelong avocation, which he pursued until the very last days of his life. He exhibited his works in solo shows and group exhibitions in numerous venues in New York, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Hanni Woodbury ’52; his sons, Anthony and Patrick; his brother, Mark; and four grandchildren.

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Armon John Kaplan died on April 10, 2009. After studying socioeconomics at Bard, he attended business school at Northwestern University and then settled in Chicago. He had a long career in administration in the optical field, and also served on the board of trustees of the Highland Park Library and the advisory board at Highland Park Hospital. In a recent alumni/ae survey, he noted that if he had it to do over again, he would definitely attend Bard—a place that allowed him to “learn to think, to question, to investigate, and to be independent.” He is survived by his wife, Elaine (Hollander) Kaplan ’48, with whom he shared more than 60 years of marriage; their sons Peter, Tom, and Robert; and seven grandchildren.

’48 Norbert C. Koenig, a retired vice president of Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City, died on November 29, 2007, in Boca Raton, Florida. A World War II veteran, he was deployed to Western Europe and served under General Patton in the military campaign into Czechoslovakia.

After the war, he graduated from Bard and joined the Bank of Manhattan. He married Elizabeth White, and they settled in Garden City, New Jersey. During his career with Chase Manhattan, he pursued his economics and banking interest at Rutgers University and New York University. He is survived by his wife; his brother, Louis; two sons, Fred and David; and a grandson.

’46 Louis Fusscas, a retired teacher, died on February 22, 2009. He was predeceased by his wife, Mary, and two brothers, George and James Fusscas ’31, who was instrumental in influencing Louis to attend Bard.

He is survived by his children, Andrew and Anne; his sister, Cecelia; and his brother, Chris.

Lloyd Marcus, M.D., died on February 3, 2008. After studying psychology at Bard, he earned graduate degrees from Harvard University and Teachers College, Columbia University. He specialized in the psychiatric treatment of children and teenagers. He was the husband of Alice, and father of David and John, who survive him. His survivors also include his brother, James; four grandchildren; and a niece and a nephew. His brother, Robert, predeceased him.

’42 Wayne L. Horvitz, 88, who served as the chief labor mediator in the Carter administration, died on June 17, 2009, at his home in Washington, D.C. Throughout a high-profile career in the public eye, he remained a generous and steadfast friend of Bard College.

Horvitz saw action with the U.S. Army in North Africa and Italy during World War II. He earned an M.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953, and then followed in the footsteps of his father (Aaron Horvitz was the first president of the American Arbitrators Association), becoming a labor-management arbitrator based in

Phoenix. He later served as vice president for industrial relations at the Matson Navigation Company; as an independent arbitrator and mediator in Washington, D.C.; and as chairman of a labor-management committee for the supermarket industry.

In April 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Horvitz director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Over the next four years, he did stellar work in that capacity, helping to avert a nationwide strike by the Communications Workers of America and to negotiate a contract that ended a 63-day strike by Appalachian and Midwestern coal miners. In 1978 he convinced Postmaster General William F. Bolger to take the government’s final offer for a three-year contract with the nation’s postal workers directly to the bargaining table. An hour after Bolger complied, the dispute was settled. Horvitz also mediated a contract between the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the trucking industry; helped end a three-month strike by grain handlers; and resolved a rancorous dispute between the Metropolitan Opera and the American Guild of Musical Artists.

Upon leaving his government post in 1981, Horvitz worked as an adviser on bankruptcy, pension, and labor problems for railroad companies and airlines. His book What’s the Beef ? Sixty Years of Hard-won Lessons for Today’s Leaders in Management and Government, coauthored with Tansy Howard Blumer (Hamilton Books, 2009), is partly a memoir, partly a primer on the art of negotiating, and partly an impassioned case for collective bargaining.

Horvitz was active in Bard alumni/ae affairs. He was a member of the John Bard Society for many years, and contributed generously to many programs and projects on campus, in particular to the creation of the Bertelsmann Campus Center. He hosted Bard events at his home and served as a mentor to many Bardians. The College awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1979.

His survivors include three sons, Bill, Wayne, and Lee; a granddaughter, Nica Horvitz ’08, and two other grandchildren; and his companion, Judy Peabody. His wife of 57 years, the former Ann Battie, died in 2002, and a son, Philip, died in 2005.

’41 Robert Haberman Jr. died on January 9, 2008, in Portland, Oregon.

’38 Wallis Cady Smith, 94, of Belmont, Massachusetts, died at home on March 25, 2009. He was in the theater industry prior to serving in the army’s special services theatrical division in World War II. Following his military service he resided in the Bennington, Vermont, area for 37 years, where he was employed by Polygraphic Corp. as a lithographer.

During that period he was an active parishioner of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and participated in college and community chorus and drama.

He enjoyed genealogy, hiking the trails of Vermont and New Hampshire, and classical music. He is survived by three daughters: Anne McLean, Peggy Buttinger, and Barbara Smith.

’37 Theodore “Ted” H. Smyth, 93, died on June 24, 2008. Born in New London, Connecticut, he was raised by his grandparents. At Bard, he majored in chemistry. He served as a naval aviator during World War II, flying more than 100 missions off aircraft carriers in the Pacific and earning the rank of lieutenant commander. After the war, he flew in the

Berlin Airlift, carrying food and supplies into occupied East Berlin. He and his wife, Betty, moved to Santa Barbara, California, in 1952, beginning a marriage that lasted 59 years. He was a successful and active businessman whose list of accomplishments is long and varied. He developed real estate in Hawaii and helped found InfoGenesis, a Goleta software company, which employs more than 200 people. He served on the Bard College Board of Trustees from 1967 to 1872 and in 1974–75, as assistant treasurer and member of the Executive Committee. He also served as president and board member of the Santa Barbara Symphony, Goleta Boys Club, Las Positas Park Foundation, Children’s Home Society, and Santa Barbara Tennis Patrons, among other organizations.

Faculty Jennifer Jean Day, an assistant professor of Russian at the College since 2003, died on March 31, 2009. She received her bachelor of arts degree at the University of South Carolina and her doctorate in Russian literature at Indiana University, Bloomington. She played a pivotal role in shaping Bard’s satellite program at Smolny College at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia. “I and my colleagues had the honor and pleasure to work with Jennifer Day, whom we came to know not only as a valued partner, but also as a like-minded person and a true friend, sharing our ideals and values and generously bringing her wit, warmth, and energy to our joint endeavor,” said Valery Monakhov, director of Smolny, Russia’s first liberal arts college. At Bard, Day was much loved by her students and colleagues, several of whom described her as a “luminous” professor.

Day was the author (with Anna Lisa Crone) of My Petersburg/Myself: Mental Architecture and Imaginative Space in Modern Russian Letters.

The book argues, among other things, that the complex and passionate identification of St. Petersburg writers with their city may be unique in world literature. She also published many articles, reviews, and translations from the Russian and Polish, and at the time of her death was writing a book on the place of irony in contemporary Russian literature.

Her survivors include her husband, Robert E. Schott; a son, Tristram Day Schott; her mother, Brenda Goldstein; her father, Richard Day; and three sisters. A service commemorating her took place on April 5 in Bard’s Chapel of the Holy Innocents, and the Bard Conservatory Orchestra dedicated the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin to her at its concert that evening.

Nicholas Maw, 73, a British composer in many genres who taught for 11 years in the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, died on May 19, 2009. Best known for a lush Violin Concerto he composed for Joshua Bell and an opera based on William Styron’s novel Sophie’s Choice, he taught in Bard’s M.F.A. program from 1990 to 2001. His 96-minute, single-movement Odyssey is thought to be the longest piece of continuous symphonic music ever written. Born John Nicholas Maw in Grantham, England, he took piano and clarinet lessons as a child and began composing when he was 15. In Paris he was awarded the Lili Boulanger Prize by a panel of judges that included Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland. His survivors include two children, Natasha Maw and Adrian Maw; two sisters; and his partner, the ceramic artist Marija Hay.

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FACULTYNOTES JoAnne Akalaitis, Wallace Benjamin Flint and L. May Hawver Flint Professor of Drama, directed The Bacchae by Euripides for the Public Theater in Central Park this past summer. The production then traveled to the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. James Bagwell, professor of music, prepared the Dessoff Symphonic Choir for June performances of Britten’s War Requiem and Mahler’s 8th Symphony (“Symphony of a Thousand”). In August he prepared the Concert Chorale of New York for performances in the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center.

Sanjib Baruah, professor of political studies, is the editor of Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Roger Berkowitz, assistant professor of political studies and human rights, published two articles, “Thinking in Dark Times” and “Solitude and the Activity of Thinking,” in Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics, coedited with Jeffrey Katz, dean of information services, and Thomas Keenan, associate professor of comparative literature (Fordham University Press, 2009).

Celia Bland, visiting assistant professor of the humanities, published an essay in Writing on the Edge and reviews in the Boston Review and Valparaiso Poetry Review. She received an individual artist’s fellowship from the Dutchess County Arts Council.

Ethan D. Bloch, professor of mathematics, published “A simple proof of a generalized no retraction theorem” in The American Mathematical Monthly (April 2009).

Leon Botstein, president of the college and Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities, conducted the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in Mendelssohn’s Elijah for the opening of Bachfest Leipzig 2009 in June.

He appeared on the Charlie Rose Show with Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University, to discuss the collaboration of their two institutions. Botstein spoke to Native American educators at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and made a case for eliminating the last two years of high school at the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling in Baltimore.

For the 20th Bard Music Festival, he led the American Symphony Orchestra in concerts featuring the music of Wagner and his contemporaries and contributed the essay “German Jews and Wagner” to the scholarly companion volume.

Mark Danner, James Clark Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs, Politics, and the Humanities, published “Voices from the Black Sites” and “The Red Cross Torture Report: What It Means” in The New York Review of Books (April 2009). In conjunction with those essays, he published online “The Black Sites,” a secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Nation Books publishes his new book, Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence War, in October.

Mercedes Dujunco, associate professor of music, was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad fellowship for her project “Ritual Labor, Migrancy, and Chaozhou Performers of Chinese Death Rituals and Music in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.”

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Omar G. Encarnación, professor of political studies, published an essay, “Spain Remade, Again,” in Current History (March 2009).

Peter Filkins, visiting professor of literature, read from his translations of Ingeborg Bachmann’s poems at openings for the traveling exhibition Ingeborg Bachmann: Writing Against War held at the University of Notre Dame and Smith College in February and March.

Kenji Fujita, visiting associate professor of studio arts, presented Systematic Gaiety: 2000–2008, a solo exhibition of sculpture and works on paper, at Samson Projects in Boston. It was reviewed in Art in America (May 2009).

Susan H. Gillespie, vice president for global initiatives and director of the Institute for International Liberal Education, cowrote a chapter, “Creating Deep Partnerships with Institutions Abroad: Bard College as Global Citizen,” published in The Handbook of Practice and Research in Study Abroad: Higher Education and the Quest for Global Citizenship (Routledge, 2009). Her coauthors were Jonathan A. Becker, associate dean of the college, Bryan Billings, program manager at Smolny College, and leading administrators at Smolny College and the University of the Witwatersrand.

Richard Gordon, research professor and professor emeritus of psychology, presented “Mania: The Pathology and Medicalization of Euphoria,” a paper on the cultural aspects of bipolar disorder, at the Bard-Skidmore conference “The Pursuit of Happiness” in April.

Lynn Hawley, visiting assistant professor of theater, performed Off Broadway as Judith O’Donnell in Brian Friel’s play Aristocrats at the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York City.

Samuel K. Hsiao, assistant professor of mathematics, published a research paper, “A Semi-group Approach to Wreath-Product Extensions of Solomon’s Descent Algebras,” in the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics.

Peter Hutton, professor of film, presented a 10-film retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in March. Three of his Hudson River films were screened at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York, also in March.

Patricia Karetzky, Oskar Munsterberg Lecturer in Art History, curated the exhibition Xun Dao: Seeking the Way, Spiritual Themes in Contemporary China, which opened in May at the Frederieke Taylor Gallery in New York City. Among her publications and talks this year were “Conroy/Sanderson: Two Heads Are Better than One” in Yishu (Vol. 8, No. 2) and “Christian Themes in Chinese Contemporary Art,” presented at the sixth International Convention of Asia Scholars in Daejeon, Korea, in August.

Felicia Keesing, associate professor of biology, served on the National Science Foundation panel to recommend funding priorities for research proposals in the ecology of infectious diseases, and on the steering committee for “Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A View for the 21st Century,” a conference cosponsored by the National Science Foundation and American Association for the Advancement of Science and held in Washington, D.C., in July.

David Kettler, research professor in social studies, presented a paper, “Liquidation of Exile,” at a conference, “Coming Home? Conflict and

Return Migration in Twentieth-Century Europe,” held at the University of Southampton in April.

Peter Laki, visiting associate professor of music, spent the month of June in Basel, Switzerland, working at the Paul Sacher Archives on a catalogue and work list for composer Sándor Veress, to be published this year.

and in November by Daniel Sturgeon at Tokyo News on Barack Obama’s choice for treasury secretary; by Paul Davis at American Banker regarding Bank of America, perspective on TARP survey findings, and difficulty in the banking sector and its implications for the economy; by Laurent Belsie at the Christian Science Monitor about international coordination on world recovery; by Rose Aguilar at Your Call on the future of the SEC; and by Peter Coy at Business Week regarding the relationship of contingent workers to aggregate demand and profits.

Kristin Lane, assistant professor of psychology, coauthored the chapter “Assessing Implicit Cognitions with a Paper-Format Implicit Association Test” in The Psychology of Modern Prejudice (Nova Science Publishers).

Matt Phillips, Asher B. Edelman Professor Emeritus of Art, presented an exhibition of 45 prints at Drexel University in Philadelphia in February. In April, All That Jazz, a suite of Phillips’s colored monoprints, opened at the Black Cat Gallery in Berkeley, California.

Nancy S. Leonard, professor of English, presented a paper, “Strong Ties at a Distance: Emily Dickinson and the Letter,” at the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association annual meeting in Saratoga Springs, New York, in April.

Francine Prose, Distinguished Writer in Residence, published Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife (HarperCollins, September). The final chapter is based on a class that Prose taught at Bard in the fall of 2007.

Benjamin La Farge, professor of English, published an essay, “Comic Romance,” in Philosophy and Literature (April 2009).

Barbara Luka, assistant professor of psychology, and coresearcher Michael Maquilan ’05 presented their work on the Tritone Paradox, an auditory perceptual illusion, at the Society for Music Perception and Cognition conference, held in Indianapolis in August.

Mark Lytle, professor of history, wrote a new chapter, “Sitting In,” exploring the question of whether or not the Greensboro sit-ins of 1960 were as spontaneous as most historians have assumed, for the sixth edition of his book, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection (McGraw-Hill, 2010).

Norman Manea, Francis Flournoy Professor in European Studies and Culture and writer in residence, received the Gheorghe Crãciun Lifetime Achievement Award from Observator Cultural in Bucharest in March. Manea was also awarded the annual prize for letters from the La Fondation du Judaisme Francais (The Foundation of French Judaism).

Steven V. Mazie, faculty, Bard High School Early College, published “Equality, Race and Gifted Education: An Egalitarian Critique of Admission to New York City’s Specialized High Schools” in Theory and Research in Education (March 2009).

Robert W. McGrail, assistant professor of computer science and mathematics, and coauthor Bella Manoim ’11 received honorable mention last October in the Best Poster and Demonstration Contest at the 7th International Semantic Web Conference in Karlsruhe, Germany, for their paper “An Ontology for Finite Algebras.”

Stephen Mucher, faculty, Master of Arts in Teaching Program, presented “The Sixties Counterculture and the California High School” at the annual conference of the California Council for History Education held in Costa Mesa in September.

Lothar Osterburg, visiting associate professor of studio arts, received a 2009 New York Foundation for the Arts grant in Printmaking/Drawing/Artists Books and had a show at the Lesley Heller Gallery in New York in September.

Among numerous talks about the economy, Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, executive vice president of the college and president of the Levy Economics Institute, was interviewed in October by Michael S. Rosenwald at the Washington Post regarding alternative stimulus ideas,

James Romm, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics, received a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend toward research on the events in Bactria (modern Afghanistan) in the era of the successors of Alexander the Great.

Michael Sadowski, faculty, Master of Arts in Teaching Program, was a guest on “Voices in Education,” the blog of Harvard Education Publishing.

Luc Sante, visiting professor of writing and photography, published Folk Photography: The American Real-Photo Postcard 1905–1930 (Yeti Books, 2009).

Natalia N. Solorzano and Jeremy N. Thomas ’00, faculty, Bard High School Early College II, received a Science and Math Improvement Grant from the Toshiba America Foundation for their project “Urban Effects on Lightning Activity in Queens, New York.”

Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) Group, the pioneering live electronic group founded in 1966 in Rome by Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski, and Richard Teitelbaum, professor of music, released MEV 40, a four-CD set of recordings from 40 years of performances (New World Records).

MEV performed in concerts at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in England; University of Rome, Italy; and the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, and Serralves Foundation in Porto, Portugal.

Eric Trudel, associate professor of French, gave a talk, “Des poèmes et des monstres. La cinépoésie de Pierre Alferi,” at the 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium, held at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in March.

Marina van Zuylen, professor of French and comparative literature, published “Mariage de passion or Mariage de raison? Balzac, Michelet and Legrand’s Science du gouvernement intérieur” in Journal of the Society of Dix-Neuvièmistes (October 2008).

Suzanne Vromen, professor emeritus of sociology, presented her recently published book, Hidden Children of the Holocaust: Belgian Nuns and Their Daring Rescue of Young Jews from the Nazis, at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.

Tom Wolf, professor of art history, wrote “The Tip of the Iceberg: Early Asian American Artists in New York” for the anthology Asian American Art: A History, 1850–1970 (Stanford University Press, 2008).

49

Board of Trustees of Bard College David E. Schwab II ’52, Chair Emeritus Charles P. Stevenson Jr., Chair Emily H. Fisher, Vice Chair Elizabeth Ely ’65, Secretary Roland J. Augustine, Treasurer Fiona Angelini + Leon Botstein, President of the College David C. Clapp Marcelle Clements ’69, Alumni/ae Trustee The Rt. Rev. Herbert A. Donovan Jr., Honorary Trustee Asher B. Edelman ’61 Robert S. Epstein ’63 Barbara S. Grossman ’73, Alumni/ae Trustee Sally Hambrecht Ernest F. Henderson III, Life Trustee Marieluise Hessel John C. Honey ’39, Life Trustee Charles S. Johnson III ’70 Mark N. Kaplan George A. Kellner Cynthia Hirsch Levy ’65 Murray Liebowitz Marc S. Lipschultz Peter H. Maguire ’88 James H. Ottaway Jr. Martin Peretz Bruce C. Ratner Stanley A. Reichel ’65 Stewart Resnick Roger N. Scotland ’93, Alumni/ae Trustee Martin T. Sosnoff Susan Weber Patricia Ross Weis ’52

Image Credits Cover: ©Stephanie Berger Inside front cover–2: Don Hamerman 3: (top to bottom) Susan H. Gillespie; Don Hamerman; Karl Rabe; ©Stephanie Berger 4–5: Susan H. Gillespie 6: China Jorrin ’86 8–12: Don Hamerman 13–15: Karl Rabe 17: Jada Rowland 18: The Return, Bayo Iribhogbe, The Bridgeman Art Library 22: ©Stephanie Berger 23: (top row, left and middle) Cory Weaver; (right) ©Stephanie Berger (middle row) ©Stephanie Berger (bottom row, left) Cory Weaver; (right) Karl Rabe 24: (left) Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00; (right) ©Stephanie Berger 25: Karl Rabe 26: Courtesy of The Bard College Conservatory of Music 28: China Jorrin ’86 29–33: Karl Rabe 34–39: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00 Back inside cover: ©Bettmann/CORBIS

+ ex officio

Office of Development and Alumni/ae Affairs Debra Pemstein, Vice President for Development and Alumni/ae Affairs, 845-758-7405, pemstein@bard.edu; Jane Brien ’89, Director of Alumni/ae Affairs, 845-758-7406, brien@bard.edu; Tricia Fleming, Assistant Director of Alumni/ae Affairs, 845-758-7089, fleming@bard.edu; Anne Canzonetti ’84, Assistant Director of Alumni/ae Affairs, 845-758-7187, canzonet@bard.edu

Published by the Bard Publications Office Mary Smith, Director; Ginger Shore, Consultant; Debby Mayer, Editorial Director; Mikhail Horowitz, Ellen Liebowitz, Cynthia Werthamer, Editors; Diane Rosasco, Production Manager; Kevin Trabucco, Designer ©2009 Bard College. All rights reserved.

Printed at Quality Printing Company, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, using soy-based inks on recycled paper.

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Calling All Bardians . . .

The Bard Phonathon begins shortly, and you may receive a call from a student on behalf of the Annual Fund.

Gifts to the Annual Fund may be considered the most generous way of donating to Bard. No matter which aspects of Bard are important to you—scholarship aid, student organizations, our outstanding faculty, Bard student civic engagement, arts and art education, athletics, the library, or “green” initiatives on campus—the Bard College Annual Fund supports them all.

The Annual Fund includes gifts from alumni/ae to the Alumni/ae Fund and from current and former parents to the Parents Fund. The fund is a way for everyone to participate, and together, these gifts have an extraordinary impact. The funds are used in the same fiscal year they are raised, starting on July 1 and ending on June 30.

The Annual Fund does not pay for new buildings, new programs, or satellite programs. It assists the undergraduates who are on campus today. This year the fund helped provide financial aid awards to 65 percent of Bard students. Tuition revenue covers only two-thirds of the cost of a Bard education.

The remainder is funded through private gifts and grants, endowment income, and the Annual Fund.

Alumni/ae tell me that they love Bard, but they don’t think their gift makes a difference.

I remind them that if half of our living alumni/ae gave as little as $10 a month, added together these gifts would be equivalent to the income from a $10 million endowment, or they would provide full scholarships for 10 students that year.

—Walter Swett ’96, President, Board of Governors, Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association

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