TRUSTEE LEADER SCHOLAR PROGRAM AT 25

Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative, photo courtesy TLS

Bard’s Trustee Leader Scholar Program (TLS) is the College’s formal civic leadership development program for undergraduates. For a quarter of a century, TLS has supported the liberal arts mission of enlightened citizenship. Dean for Social Action Paul Marienthal created and directs the program, in which students initiate, design, and implement social action projects based on their own compelling interests.

Approximately 50 undergraduates are TLS leaders at any given time, and many more Bard students are volunteers. In a quarter of a century of being involved with these important initiatives, several of which have gone on to have a life independent from the College, Marienthal has learned a few things. Here are 10 of those lessons.

Bard New Orleans Exchange, photo courtesy TLS

1 SERVICE ISN’T THE SAME AS LEADERSHIP

“Service is different,” says Marienthal. “TLS is not a service program, it’s a civic engagement program. Engagement creates connection and partnership. TLS is a program for people who are zealots. It’s for people who are bursting with energy, who feel compelled to act—they walk into my office on fire proclaiming, ‘I have an idea!’”

Nicaragua Education Initiative, photo courtesy TLS

2 Say Yes Unless There Is A Compelling Reason To Say No

The initial response when a student walks into the TLS office is always yes: Yes, tell us about your project. Yes, tell us about yourself. “Every heartfelt idea deserves the best I can give it,” says Marienthal, who has that motto in stained glass in his office. “Another way to say this is ‘Yes and . . . ,’ which means I strive to include everyone who wants to join, especially when I see a real desire to make a difference.” Of course this does not mean never saying no. TLS does not support personal walkabouts. It is for people who contribute to community.

TLS reunion barbeque at Commencement 2022, photo by AnnAnn Puttithanasorn ’23

3 Show Up

Bard takes its students seriously, which creates both expectation and opportunity. “The way projects really happen in the world is you get in a car, you get on a plane, you walk over, you go and see it,” says Marienthal.

“You can do email from now until the end of time, it doesn’t make connections. The way you make connection is you go there, which was crucial to the start of the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI). Max Kenner ’01 and I drove down to Fishkill Correctional Facility and we went to see the superintendent. That’s the way things start: show up.” Kenner is now executive director of BPI and serves as Bard’s vice president for institutional initiatives and adviser to the president on public policy and college affairs.

4 Pay Attention

It’s also key that you show up with no agenda. To accomplish anything that involves other people (and one might argue that those are the only accomplishments that matter), communication is key. “The most important skill that students can learn is how to pay attention to other people,” says Marienthal. “We spend a fair amount of time with students doing very skill-based work on active listening, the basis for all helping professions. We also explore specific language skills for having challenging, emotional conversations. Human relations matter when it comes to civic engagement.” When Stephen Tremaine ’07 showed up in New Orleans after Katrina, it was not to execute a preconceived project, it was to help. To do that required figuring out what the needs were and whether there was a way for him to mobilize the resources at his disposal (fellow Bardians and TLS chief among them). “Stephen has a deep respect for the points of view of others,” says Marienthal. “He has an innate ability to find and connect with a wide variety of people. Like many successful TLS leaders, he is able to learn about other people’s kinds of pain and respond empathetically, kindly, and not patronizingly.” Tremaine is now vice president for Bard Early Colleges.

5 Reward People For Their Work

In the early days of TLS, some students questioned the payment of stipends to TLS project leaders. The presumption was that community service should be voluntary. But the time and effort required to execute a TLS project makes simultaneously holding down a job nearly impossible. “The amount of organizing, the amount of work, and the level of accountability is way more than a moment here or there,” says Marienthal. “And the truth is, none of us are utterly selfless about the world. I sometimes tell my students, ‘You are either hungry or about to be hungry. Selfinterest is involved.’ The key is that creating a fair and just world should be in everyone’s best interest.” 6

6 DON’T MICROMANAGE; GIVE OWNERSHIP; GIVE PERMISSION

Once a student has formed an idea, spent the time and effort to debug their project, and made a compelling case for it to be out in the world, one of Marienthal’s primary responsibilities is to support quietly. “The TLS program is about students forming, making, designing, funding, organizing, and delivering programs on their own,” he says. “The biggest differences are made by people who have real ownership of their work. I could do these programs, but it’s my job not to. I think my number one skill is not to meddle. I’m good at asking ‘What’s going on? Where are you stuck?’ At drawing students out. To be a good leader requires deep personal reflection on things like what makes you afraid, and what gives you a thrill. I’m not an organizer, I’m a counselor.”

The Bard Space Program, photo courtesy TLS

7 Make Sure Your Spaceship Is Anchored Firmly To The Ground

A corollary to #6, this lesson comes out of the legendary Bard Space Program, a one-shot project that in one sense never got off the ground, but was also one giant step for Bardkind. The elaborate performance piece, in which a 1986 Volkswagen Scirocco was upcycled by Jamie O’Shea ’03 and his colleagues into The Orbiter, attracted huge crowds to the “launch.” O’Shea would go on to cofound BjornQorn, everyone’s favorite sun-popped popcorn, with Bjorn Quenemoen ’03. Both are featured prominently in The Bard Space Program, the mockumentary that was directed, shot, and edited by Jean Pesce ’03. “Jamie was really interested in the power of storytelling, of mythmaking,” says Marienthal. “The Space Program was in the service of community. He invited everybody on campus, harnessed the enthusiasm of the Bard community, and by staying in character always—he never made it a parody—it became a catalyzing event. He created a new myth.”

8 Be Informed

Emotions often provide the initial inspiration, but the development of a project requires information and critical thinking. “Every project we do that matters involves some situation where there’s pressure and dire historical circumstance, whether it’s in New Orleans or Palestine or with kids in Hudson,” says Marienthal. “There’s always a lot of context and study needed. Critical thinking is about having and evaluating information, it’s not about opinions. Critical thinking is not critique. Critical thinking is utilizing information in a holistic way. Success requires a balance between thinking about the world theoretically and historically.”

Cuerdas para Cali, photo courtesy TLS

9 NEVER ASK ANYONE TO DO SOMETHING YOU’RE NOT WILLING TO DO

One of the longest-running projects, and one close to Marienthal’s heart, is the Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative, which had great success engaging young people in the West Bank between 2010 and 2020. Students, including Mujahed Sarsur ’12, organized and taught summer camps, built the first public library for children in Palestine, financed and built a playground, and hosted the first formal trip by Palestinians to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. “We were whitewashing the school in Mas-ha in August,” Marienthal recalls. “It’s really hot there in the summer. But I’m a Californian, a desert person, a tennis player. I’m durable. We took a lunch break and after lunch I went back to work and finished painting the wall. I found out later that the people who lived there thought I was crazy. But they’re still talking about it!” 10

TREAT PEOPLE WELL: BE A HUMAN BEING

A little kindness can go a long way, especially with people at a disadvantage, people who feel vulnerable, and even people whose sense of authority is threatened by the sudden presence of a stranger in their midst. This should go without saying, of course, but even 25 years of Trustee Leader Scholars changing the world hasn’t made civility a given.