TLS Brochure 2010

TLS 2010

Trustee Leader Scholar Program

Community Service and Social Action

Bard College

The Trustee Leader Scholar Program of Bard College supports undergraduate and leadership development in the context of hands-on, student-initiated community service projects.

Founded in 1860, Bard offers a four-year bachelor of arts in the liberal arts and sciences through approximately 50 academic programs in five divisions. It also offers a five-year dual degree in economics and finance (B.A./B.S.) and a five-year dualdegree program through The Bard College Conservatory of Music (B.A./B.Music).

For more information about Bard College, visit www.bard.edu.

Front cover: Children’s Expressive Arts Project, New Orleans summer camp Inside front cover: Eco-Discoverers

New Orleans Project, Andrew H. Wilson Charter School

Theme for the Year Options: Scarcity, Fear, Armoring, and Ideology versus Range, Authenticity, Reflection, and Compassion

I intend for you to look at the title of this year’s theme and say, “What is going on here, that’s 12 themes rolled into one, how could anyone make sense of this!” Well, these are messy times, and I want everyone to participate in the cleanup. I think that means consider, weigh, tug, examine, pull apart, and then act. Every concept in the title refers to both personal and collective dilemmas. I believe these dilemmas embody our crucial challenge as conscious-that-we-know-we’re-going-to-die-someday organisms. It is the integration of personal interest with collective interest that plagues human beings. Read Ernest Becker, Michel Foucault, bell hooks. The enemy isn’t out there somewhere. The solution doesn’t lie buried in someone else’s backyard. It’s here, in each of us, me included. We need to examine the social forces at work around us: read Richard Rorty, Cornel West, Rachel Carson, Elaine Scarry. Turn our gaze selfward and read Carl Rogers, Saul Bellow, and Maxine Hong Kingston. Then each of us, with our incomplete understanding of self and collective, needs to find our personal courage, confront our own embarrassment and exhaustion, and act.

I go to prison a lot these days. At Woodbourne Correctional in upstate New York, I’m training a group of inmates to facilitate emotionally charged conversations inside their theater group. Options is the name of our subtext, and for months we’ve been examining the complex motivations and consequences of the different choices that can be made at any given moment. For example, when a fellow inmate disrupts rehearsals, constantly forgets his lines, and calls attention to himself, we list on a blackboard options for dealing with the situation: cut him from the play, take him aside and quietly dress him down, ask him kindly why it’s so hard for him, make fun and tease him, physically remove him from the room, call a meeting and let him vent, call a meeting and meditate together, let him continue doing it and make the best of it, and so on; the list fills the blackboard. We talk about the consequences of acting on each of these options. We talk about the reverberations that will be felt in individuals and in the group when these options are acted out. It’s obvious, especially in the prison setting, that some options have positive, transformative possibilities, and that other choices are dangerous, even life threatening.

Coming up with good options and making life-affirming choices require skills. In TLS we’re always expanding range. We push our comfort zones so that we learn how to speak in ways—and to people—that are unfamiliar. Last summer a Jewish American student traveled with young Palestinians to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. It was the first

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time an educational group of Palestinians had ever visited Yad Vashem. We’re learning to lift and carry and dig. Seventy Bard students cut the chains and started gutting a moldy, toxic elementary school in post-Katrina New Orleans, and in January 2010 a completely refurbished Andrew H. Wilson Charter School, the vital core of the once-decimated Broadmoor neighborhood, reopened. We’re learning to write business letters and grants. Three students raised sufficient money to spend their 2009 winter break in Vietnam, delivering educational workshops about tuberculosis to elementary school children in the isolated rural province of Lao Cai. They dispelled the notion that TB is hereditary and interrupted the terrible stigmatization that people in Lao Cai fear. We’re learning to articulate. We practice public speaking and examine thoroughly the components of a convincing presentation: posture, gesture, eye contact, elimination of filler words and undermining apologetic phrases, voice quality, story and transitions, appropriate and poignant details, keeping to time constraints. In TLS we learn to do whatever is necessary to engage the task fully. We’re also learning to live with uncertainty and discomfort. Dozens of Bard students continue to spend their winter breaks in New Orleans, sleeping on cots, eating sparingly, and doing the tough work that still needs to be done.

There is plenty of brute force in the world, and some of it gets things accomplished. The problem is, displays of power often leave too many people out. In TLS students are encouraged to develop kindness, openness, and authenticity. That doesn’t mean backing down. It means including everyone’s voice.

I ask the prisoners who are learning to be group facilitators to walk the halls—very austere and tense halls—carrying a huge sack of “psychic care packages.” I remind them of this again and again and again, because it is so antithetical to the “rules” of prison culture.

During our discussion about the prisoner who was disrupting rehearsals, one inmate lowers his eyes and whispers, “You mean I’m supposed to take the guy aside after the rehearsal, ask him what’s going on, and show him love? You’ve got to be kidding!” Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. No matter how hard it gets. No matter how mad we get. No matter how bad it looks. We have to find compassion—for others and for ourselves. Because in the end, it’s a messy world, and alienation will not resolve personal or collective conflict. I’m not kidding.

Paul Marienthal, Director

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Trustee Leader Scholar Program

What is TLS?

The Trustee Leader Scholar Program is the formal community service and social action program for undergraduate students at Bard College. TLS supports the liberal arts mission of enlightened citizenship: personal development in the context of community building.

Who is in TLS?

Every Bard student is eligible to apply to TLS, and TLS students come from every academic discipline on campus. Approximately 50 undergraduates participate in the program at any given time, and most TLS students remain actively involved in the program throughout their college careers.

What do TLS students do?

TLS students design and implement service projects based on their own compelling interests.

For example, they participate in the redevelopment of New Orleans; run General Education Diploma (GED) programs in local prisons; build biodiesel processors; run summer camps for Palestinian children in the West Bank; provide music lessons for economically challenged teenagers in local middle schools; and build houses in hurricane-ravaged Nicaragua.

TLS students write extensive proposals, budgets, and personal accounts of their activities.

They meet one-on-one with program administrators and attend workshops and retreats to explore and discuss issues in social action, public speaking, and facilitation. TLS students raise funds for their projects, and many become proficient grant writers and letter-writing campaign organizers.

What makes TLS special?

The TLS program supports students in taking substantial risks as they turn their own passionate interests into action. The fundamental criteria for a TLS project is that it challenge the student—organizationally, ethically, politically, and emotionally. TLS prepares leaders who can generate an idea, then create an organization and make a plan to manifest that idea. Many colleges provide ample community service and volunteer opportunities. Bard is one of the few that puts substantial resources and trust behind student initiative.

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What are some key values in TLS?

TLS addresses the issues of paternalism and privilege that are stirred up by the notion of “helping others.” Students are encouraged to examine the world, read widely about oppression, identify their own motivations and needs, and experiment with ways of organizing that treat other people as partners, not passive recipients. We try hard to strike a balance between inward reflection, societal awareness, and compassionate outreach. TLS considers this life training.

What is the ultimate goal of TLS?

TLS strives to put into the world capable, sensitive adults who have the ability to design, plan, fund, and implement large-scale projects that matter and that influence environments positively and humanely. Many TLS students leave Bard capable of creating their own nonprofit organizations. A number of important Bard College initiatives began as student projects in the TLS program, including the Bard Prison Initiative, Bard Urban Studies in New Orleans, and the award-winning Spanish-language magazine La Voz. How does TLS differ from similar programs?

TLS is a leadership development program, not a service-learning program. TLS students do not earn academic credit for their efforts; for their participation, TLS program members receive stipends and transcript recognition. Separating TLS work from academics allows participating students to design and implement ambitious projects that span multiple years.

TLS recognizes that organizing a major service project while completing Bard’s rigorous academic requirements is a demanding load, and is not for everyone. It is worth noting, however, that many TLS students have said, “My project was the most important thing I did in college.”

How do you apply to the TLS program?

TLS applications are considered on a rolling, year-round basis. The best way to start the process is to talk with TLS staff members, who are always open to hearing the words “I have a TLS project.” Students are encouraged to consider TLS from the moment they arrive on campus, and several first-year students are on the current roster.

How can you help if you are not a Bard student?

Making contacts, building networks, and creating webs of action are crucial to a project’s success. TLS projects flourish because of the enthusiasm of Bard students, faculty, and administrators, as well as community members outside of the academic environment who generously give their time, creative energy, and financial support.

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Current Projects

Join a TLS project Every project listed below needs volunteers. A TLS student initiated and facilitates each of these projects, but the success of the work always depends on widespread participation.

Please get involved.

Have your own idea for a project?

Meet with us to discuss how to make your project come to life—even if your idea is still in formation. We are always available.

Paul Marienthal, Director Susanna Armbruster, Assistant Director Room 213, Campus Center 845-758-7056 service@bard.edu Astor Home for Children Bard Volunteers

The Astor Home for Children in Rhinebeck, New York, is a residential school for emotionally challenged children. Since 1997, hundreds of Bard student volunteers have become a part of the lives of these children by sharing their love of creative writing, arts and crafts, photography, sports, gardening, theater, and musical performance.

Student Leader: Isabelle Coler Astor Home for Children Theater Group

The Astor Home Theater Group provides a unique opportunity for the children at the Astor Home to participate in a theater ensemble. Bard student mentors lead games that use imagination, improvisation, physical comedy, and word play. The program allows the children to be part of a fun, safe environment in which they can learn, create theater, and form bonds with enthusiastic Bard volunteers. The children at Astor are all overcoming obstacles in their lives, and this program helps them feel appreciated, listened to, and acknowledged.

Student Leader: Morgan Green Bard Biodiesel Cooperative

With the generous support of Bard’s Building and Grounds Department and local tradesmen, the Biodiesel Co-op has built a fully operational biodiesel processor. Members of the Co-op make fuel from restaurant waste grease for use in vehicles, home furnaces, and farm equipment. This locally based effort pushes the limits of the petroleum paradigm and functions to critically engage us with the complex relationship between economics and environmentalism. Are we truly seeking a cleaner burning fuel or simply a cheap fuel? The processor also initiates newcomers into the world of modern technologies, demonstrating

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that people can make their own cleaner energy source and thereby contribute, in a small way, to lessening environmental disaster. The Co-op is open to new members.

Student Leader: Ben Eskind Bard Buddies

Bard Buddies links Bard students and adults with developmental disabilities. The program serves adults living in two different communities: Triform and the Arc Apartments.

Triform is a residential community located in Hudson, New York, that fully integrates able-bodied and challenged individuals; Arc Apartments is an assisted-living home in Saugerties, New York. Bard Buddies brings volunteers to each community to facilitate art projects and other activities with the residents.

Student Leader: Rachel Zwell Bard College Community Garden

Since 1997 the Bard College Community Garden has been a haven for agricultural enthusiasts from Bard and beyond. During the growing season, people from the College and surrounding communities meet in the garden for weekly potluck suppers and work parties, helping to maintain the garden’s abundant fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The garden is a favorite year-round gathering spot for students: a place for conversation, campfires, and drumming. Last year we planted 400 additional feet of blueberries and built a domed entranceway. Next year we will rebuild the benches surrounding the fire pit. There is always work to do, and you are encouraged to participate in every aspect of the garden.

Contact: Paul Marienthal Bard-Hudson Tutoring Program

The Bard-Hudson Tutoring Program is a weekly program organized by Bard College student volunteers in collaboration with project directors at Time & Space Limited (TSL) and the Hudson Area Association Library. One-on-one tutorials are offered to elementary, middle, and high school students who are aiming for higher education. Bard-Hudson Tutoring is a long-term, relationship-building program geared toward helping students expand their personal academic interests and achieve higher academic goals.

Student Leader: Buyong Kim Bard Leprosy Relief Project

The Bard Leprosy Relief Project supports an eco-friendly leprosy village in Kathmandu, Nepal, and brings awareness about the disease to places where leprosy is largely forgotten.

The newly constructed ecovillage is the fourth Shanti Sewa Griha leprosy community in Nepal and is located in the southern corner of Kathmandu, where victims of leprosy otherwise have no support. The project raises funds to support the development of a clinic and 8

library in the new village by selling handicrafts made by lepers in the already established villages. Members of Bard Leprosy Relief Project are passionate about the cause (four of us are from Nepal) and believe it is especially important to educate students at Bard and other local schools about our project and the implications of leprosy in Kathmandu. Although leprosy is absent from our lives here, it continues to devastate four countries in the world, including Nepal.

Student Leader: Daniela Anderson Bard Math Circle

The Bard Math Circle is a math outreach program for local elementary, middle, and high school students. Its aim is to provide entertaining and stimulating experiences that encourage critical and creative thinking. For the Bard students who lead the sessions, the Math Circle is an opportunity to experience math outside the world of academia and to face the difficult question of why the math world is so insular. Through cooperative exploration and hands-on activities, participants aspire to cross the barrier that so often exists between math teacher and math student. The Bard Math Circle thus actively challenges the separation between math as a discipline and math as it exists in society at large.

Student Leader: Jacqueline Stone Bard Microbusiness Support Initiative

The Bard Microbusiness Support Initiative takes its inspiration from the revolutionary microfinance movement in the developing world. Bard is located in the robust Hudson Valley, where there is plenty of room for business and enterprise. However, in light of the recent recession, many potential entrepreneurs find themselves with little or no access to credit. The Bard Microbusiness Support Initiative helps members of the surrounding communities transcend financial barriers by providing support for starting small businesses.

Students help with everything from filling out challenging bureaucratic forms to production setup. In the future, the Initiative hopes to provide microloans to individuals who would like to start very modest businesses.

Student Leader: Abhinanda Bhattacharyya Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative

Bard’s Palestinian Youth Initiative facilitates intensive summer experiences for disadvantaged Palestinian youth. Self-expression through reading, writing, and discussion is explored.

English lessons, political dialogue in Arabic, and team-building games are incorporated into the camp’s curriculum. Community service, such as renovating a mosque or restoring a cemetery, is also an important part of camp. In 2009, 15 young men spent almost a month living together, cooking, thinking, writing, and speaking honestly. Multicultural trips are crucial to the program, and last summer’s participants took several groundbreaking field 9

trips: for example, they were the first Palestinian educational group to visit the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. This powerful experience inspired one of the students to lead a second trip after camp. Plans are under way for two camps in 2010, including an opportunity for young girls in the region.

Student Leaders: Rosana Zarza Canova, Aaron Dean, and Mujahid Sarsur Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) Postgraduation Project Support

Normally when people graduate from college, they enter a world of infinite possibilities.

But what happens when incarcerated persons graduate from college with an indefinite sentence and nowhere to go? This is the dilemma facing graduates of the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), a program that offers undergraduate degrees in a number of New York State prisons.

The BPI Postgraduation Project Support program helps BPI alums facilitate their own service-oriented projects within the prison. TLS students do crucial legwork that can only

Hoping to avoid spreading controversy in the village, we waited until the day before the trip to tell our Palestinian youth campers that we were going to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. The discussion was heated. “Why the heck are we going to the Holocaust Museum?” one student asked. “It was the only way we could get our permits to Jerusalem,” I answered, “and it will be a great learning experience, too.” Another camper, who is studying at King’s Academy in Jordan, one of the best high schools in the Middle East, expressed concern at first, but then said he was curious “to see how we would react to the scenes there.” The discussion ended with indifference.

At the museum, we had an information session with an amazing tour guide who spoke Arabic. He asked the students what they knew about the Holocaust. The students were not sure about death numbers but said what they knew for sure was that Israel is manipulating the issue for the continuation of the occupation. Sympathy was lost. We started the tour. After seeing videos, pictures, and real pairs of shoes from the victims, the disinterest of the students turned into curiosity, and questions started to come: So why did Hitler do this? How many people were killed . . . seriously?

An Israeli woman came to us, crying and talking in Hebrew to our tour guide. She was stunned that our Arabic group was trying to understand the suffering of her Jewish race. At the end of the tour, we had another discussion session. Some transformation seemed to be happening. One student named Ahmad said he “would love to see my friends coming to this museum.” That summarized the general feeling of the whole group.

—Mujahid Sarsur, Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative

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be done outside, such as fund-raising and research, so that incarcerated BPI graduates can carry out their own TLS projects. This program allows inmates who have graduated to continue their association with the College as well as their engagement in academic, creative, and social action endeavors.

Student Leaders: Carolyn Lazard and Anne Vachon Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) Volunteers

BPI is a collective of Bard College faculty, students, and staff that establishes connections between educational institutions and correctional facilities in New York State. Student volunteers are assigned tutoring positions at the various facilities. They assist teachers and work one-on-one with inmates on GED test preparation and/or tutoring in other subjects.

The Beacon Correctional Facility, a minimum-security women’s prison, holds a creative writing workshop that is led by several Bard students and covers poetry, memoir, and fiction. Class time is spent critically examining and discussing selected texts as well as on writing assignments and free writes. Through this work, Bard students help guide the inmates toward improving and developing their writing skills. An anthology of the participants’ final written work is published at the end of the year. BPI Volunteers also sponsors speakers, workshops, and conferences at Bard on topics relevant to prison life and the prison industry in New York.

Student Leader: Sofia Bonami Children’s Expressive Arts Project (CEAP)

CEAP brings the practice of expressive arts to disadvantaged children. Expressive arts is a discipline that focuses on both community art making and the process of finding a personal, creative, and empowering voice of expression through visual arts, movement, theater, music, poetry, and play. The arts and the process of art making have the capacity to help people respond to and shape the world through playful exploration. CEAP members may find themselves building forts or painting murals with children; they may also find themselves sitting with young people as they struggle with questions and emotional moments that arise.

Expressive arts allows children to consider their personal challenges in safe, imaginative ways.

CEAP works locally at the Astor Home for Children in Rhinebeck, New York, a residential school for emotionally at-risk children; the Center for Spectrum Services in Kingston, New York, a school for children with autism; and Red Hook Residential Center in Upper Red Hook, New York, a low-security juvenile detention center for boys aged 11 to 18. In the summers of 2008 and 2009, CEAP collaborated with Bard’s New Orleans Project to host a summer camp for children in the Broadmoor neighborhood of New Orleans that focused on arts, sports, and literacy activities. Members of CEAP have also taken trips to work with children and young people in Burma (Myanmar), Ghana, South Africa, Thailand, Colombia, India, and Sri Lanka.

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Delivering quality workshops requires training. CEAP students meet regularly with certified expressive arts practitioners. A number of CEAP students are pursuing careers in this important field.

Student Leaders: Abigail Lazarowski and Emily Wolff

“We had a tree named Lucky, an oak that lives on the playground of the Andrew H. Wilson Charter School in New Orleans. Every day, for five weeks, my campers journeyed out into the heat to visit Lucky. There was no need for a swing set or sidewalk chalk because there was always Lucky to climb, feed, and tell stories to. He became one of us. At the end of the summer, the children decided it was imperative to throw Lucky a birthday party. We decorated him in pink and yellow streamers, prepared a lavish feast of mud cakes, and joined in a huge chorus of ‘Happy Birthday.’

Providing children with the space to create a world for their ideas is the most essential aspect of our work as leaders and volunteers. My work with these children in New Orleans has helped to expand my capacity to imagine and create outside of existing educational structures.”

—Emily Wolff, Children’s Expressive Arts Project, 2009 New Orleans summer camp

Germantown Tutoring Program

The Germantown Tutoring Program is an after-school homework help program that pairs Bard undergraduates with middle and high school students in the Germantown Central School. The tutors provide assistance in all subjects and work alongside the students to help them acquire a better understanding of academic material. There has been an alarming drop-out rate at the middle school in this nearby community, and Bard students are helping to reverse that trend.

Student Leader: Alyssa DeConto Grace Smith House Project

The Grace Smith House Project helps break the cycle of domestic violence that can devastate families, particularly women and children. Bard students volunteer at the Grace Smith House (GSH), a nonprofit domestic violence shelter in Poughkeepsie, New York. Working directly with GSH, students provide support by answering the hotline, conducting intake and exit interviews with residents, and helping to fulfill the practical needs of the residents.

Additionally, volunteers supply administrative aid, provide child care, and assist the shelter 12

staff with special projects such as fund-raisers and clothing drives. The Grace Smith House Project also deals with issues of sexual and relationship violence on the Bard campus.

Student Leader: Zoe Hickox Hudson Basketball Clinic

The Hudson Basketball Clinic brings together members of the Bard College men’s and women’s basketball teams and children at the Hudson After School Program. The volunteers help with homework, provide tutoring, and run a weekly basketball clinic. The clinic is both fun and instructional in nature, with basic concepts that are meant to carry over into the classroom. Many of the attributes a successful athlete needs—discipline and hard work—are also necessary for success in most areas of life. The hope is that by stressing these qualities in both athletic and educational settings, the Hudson students begin to control their everyday lives and consider higher education. By showing the kids options and bringing them to Bard as often as possible, the program broadens the horizon for young people who are often left out of educational opportunity.

Student Leader: Yonah Greenstein

I am working as a fifth grade special education teacher in Phoenix, through Teach for America.

For the past year and a half I’ve been working with students who have emotional disabilities.

The leadership skills that I acquired under the innovative tutelage of my peers and mentors in TLS have helped me to tackle the responsibilities of my job effectively. Although I am younger than many of the parents and teachers that I work with, I have led curriculum adaptation efforts, guided parents in making critical decisions about their children’s mental health and educational services, and advocated for students to a very difficult and often misguided school administration.

TLS prepared me to be sensitive in evaluating the needs of those that I serve and to be passionate and persistent in trusting that with community collaboration and effective use of resources, I can make positive change in the world around me. The practice of reflection and relentless revision and growth that is promoted in TLS has also stayed with me as I work each day to become a better teacher for my students and a more critical participant in the promotion of effective education for our country’s most at-risk youth.

—Leah Schrader, former codirector of the Children’s Expressive Arts Project

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Hudson Project

Students for Students seeks to foster a greater sense of community at Hudson High School by creating a space for students to openly explore common beliefs, qualities, and goals, and to examine and embrace their differences. Bard College students help provide resources and ideas, but all discussions and activities are led by Hudson students as they strive to better understand identity and the issues that swirl around fundamental differences among people.

Student Leader: Kat Anderson Hudson Gay-Straight Discussion Group is a high school–aged group that provides a nonjudgmental conversational forum for young people exploring queer issues. Bard students act as mentors, advocates, and open ears for Hudson youth.

Student Leader: Molly Conway International Tuberculosis Relief Project

The International Tuberculosis Relief Project raises public awareness of the global fight against tuberculosis (TB). In the United States, TB is considered a disease of the past; yet TB statistics internationally are shockingly high. One third of the world’s population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis; 10 percent of those infected are active cases.

Eight million people become ill with TB each year, including 1.5 million in sub-Saharan Africa. Tuberculosis claims 4,500 lives per day, two million lives per year. These deaths could be avoided with education and the proper funding. The full course of a regular TB treatment can be completed for $15 per person per year in some parts of the world.

Students raise funds toward the cost of medication and equipment for TB patients who cannot afford these necessities. The program is currently providing medicine for people in Vietnam who are suffering from tuberculosis. In January 2009, three Bard students traveled to Lao Cai, a rural province in Vietnam, to deliver educational workshops and provide TB tests and medicines for high school students. The trip was partially funded by the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. The project is also working with a tuberculosis relief group in Peru.

Student Leader: Tessa Dowling La Voz

La Voz is a Spanish-language magazine, distributed monthly throughout New York’s Dutchess, Ulster, and Orange Counties, which elevates the discourse and news coverage available to the Spanish-speaking population of the Hudson Valley. This project involves continual dialogue with the communities served by the magazine. La Voz is a critical source of information on immigration law, available health services, legal rights and resources, educational opportunities, and local events relevant to the more than 12,000 Hispanic/ Latino area residents. Bard students work directly with editor Mariel Fiori ’05 on all aspects 14

of the magazine’s production, from graphic design to editing to reporting. Fiori began the magazine as a TLS project while an undergraduate at Bard; after graduation, she was hired by the college to publish La Voz on a permanent basis. In 2009, the magazine received an Ippie Award for best overall design from the Independent Press Association of New York.

Administrative Contact: Mariel Fiori Moroccan Youth Culture Initiative

The Moroccan Youth Culture Initiative links Bard College and the youth of urban Rabat, Morocco. As an international organization, the Initiative empowers youth and community development from a different angle; for example, instead of imposing external modes of thinking about development and empowerment on a community, volunteers work to enable and facilitate activities and lifestyles that Moroccan youths and communities themselves view as empowering, important, and relevant. This includes music performance and production, and the development of parkour (a form of extreme urban acrobatics) as performance. In the poor and sprawling neighborhoods and shantytowns of Rabat, the unemployment rate is over 55 percent and few economic opportunities exist for youths. While some turn to the drug mafia, steal, or join militant religious groups, many young men and women in these neighborhoods are working to envision, create, and pursue alternative means of engaging with the world—and being heard—through the realm of youth culture.

Student Leader: Michael Kellner New Old Gym Project

The Old Gym is Bard’s only multipurpose, student-run arts space. While Bard fully supports the arts, it can be hard for students of the performing and visual arts (majors or nonmajors) to find space for experimenting and taking risks. The Old Gym, which has the technical capabilities of a small black-box theater, is open to any student who wants to explore performance or alternative installation projects. The space is run by a committee of students from every artistic discipline—theater, dance, studio arts, photography, and music.

Student Leader: Eva Steinmetz New Orleans Project

The New Orleans Project engages Bard students as broadly as possible with the city of New Orleans as it stands today: battered yet vibrant, neglected yet determined. More than 500 Bard students have traveled to the city to repair storm-damaged homes, stabilize schools on the brink of collapse, teach expressive arts workshops in after-school programs, and carry out research and planning projects with communities eager to take rebuilding into their own hands. The project has adopted the Broadmoor neighborhood, a diverse community that has developed a strong grassroots revitalization organization. Bard students assist Broadmoor with census taking, needs assessments, and intake interviewing, 15

among other highly skilled tasks. Project members also balance their hands-on engagement in New Orleans with work at Bard, creating resources such as panel discussions, New Orleans–based classes, film screenings, and lectures.

Student Leaders: Maureen Crittenden and Lindsay St. Onge

“My current job, which involves health education and diabetes projects at a community health center in California, is completely different from the TLS projects I worked on—environmental education in New York and neighborhood rebuilding in New Orleans—but I am constantly using skills learned in TLS. I think of this most often when communicating with one of my supervisors.

She is extremely busy and often stressed, and some people are intimidated by her. TLS taught me to wait for the right moment to talk with her, speak clearly and briefly about what I need, say thank you, and put our discussion into action as quickly as possible.”

—Ariana Jostad-Laswell, New Orleans Project and Conversations on Education

Nicaragua Exchange

Bard students began an exchange with the town of Chacraseca, Nicaragua, in 2002.

Chacraseca had been hit by several natural disasters, including flooding from Hurricane Mitch and the eruption of the Cerro Negro volcano. The pastoral committee of Chacraseca reached out for international aid, and Bard students responded by visiting the community and helping to build houses. Six groups of student volunteers have visited Chacraseca and have built 18 houses. The director of the pastoral committee has also visited Bard and was hosted throughout New England by members of the Nicaragua Exchange.

Bard student volunteers have also worked in collaboration with community leaders in Chacraseca to improve the distribution of potable water. They are also beginning to address shortages of medicine and to provide scholarships for students attending elementary school, high school, and the university.

Student Leaders: Elysia Petras and Chelsea Whealdon Red Hook English as a Second Language (ESL) Center

The Red Hook ESL Center brings English-speaking and immigrant community members together through free drop-in English classes. Organized and staffed by Bard students and local community volunteers, the center serves a diverse and emerging population in the

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Hudson Valley. Classes meet twice a week throughout the year. Students who work at the ESL center participate in ongoing training in ESL theory and practice.

Student Leader: Ana Blagojevic R.I.S.E. (Respect, Integrity, Service, Education)

R.I.S.E. is a safe and inclusive support group that focuses on issues of identity, diversity, and the role of students of color at the College and in the wider community. R.I.S.E. fosters leadership, community, and intercollegiate networking.

Student Leader: Carlos Apostle Students for People’s Relief (SPR)

Students for People’s Relief raises awareness of poverty, which affects more than half of the world’s population. SPR believes that the solutions to poverty and the hardships it causes should come at the grassroots level, and that every single individual should be involved in doing something to fight the problem. SPR wants to spread the message that doing very small things can have a huge global impact. For example, donating a single dollar can buy mosquito netting that will save an African child from deadly malaria.

Student Leader: Ashfaque Kabir Surrealist Training Circus

The Surrealist Training Circus is a workforce for creative disruption of the public spaces in a private institution. Members believe that academic and rational training falls short in preparing students for the absurdities of today’s world; in response they pursue public theater, circus arts, and even the collection of refuse as modes of training for our futures.

Through the presentation of the chaotic, emotional, sometimes frightening, sarcastic, and bizarre, the Circus suggests that the irrational is to be honored. The Surrealist Training Circus welcomes the participation of any and all students, and sees spectators as ensemble members. The group’s year culminates each spring in a grand spectacle that, ironically, has become a school tradition.

Student Leader: Dylan Hanback The Upbeats: Bard Music Mentoring Program

The Upbeats is dedicated to bringing the joy of music making to children from local communities. Bard music mentors have a passion for music and, more important, for sharing the gift of playing music with others. Lessons are provided to children for whom private instruction would otherwise cause their families financial strain. Children are given individual lessons and the opportunity to play in small ensembles and participate in theory/ history workshops.

Student Leader: Kylie Collins 17

Vermont Harmony Project

Music is a constructive, nonconfrontational way of bridging cultural divides and creating harmony in communities. The Vermont Harmony Project is working to build crosscultural understanding through music by sharing, preserving, and celebrating the singing traditions of immigrants new to Vermont. Project volunteers interview immigrants about the role music plays in their lives, and organize singing workshops and performances in schools and other community venues to promote cultural awareness. They are also creating an audio archive of both the vocal traditions and experiences of first-generation immigrants that will serve as a resource for generations to come. In 2010, the Harmony Project hopes to do similar work in the area surrounding Bard College.

Student Leader: Jeremy Carter-Gordon Young Rhinebeck Youth Programs

Life, Learning, and Language: The Life, Learning, and Language Program at Rhinebeck’s Chancellor Livingston Elementary School is designed to meet the needs of children who are new to the United States and/or come from homes in which English is not the first language. Through one-on-one interactions with children from Mexico, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, and France, mentors build relationships and provide language and homework support.

Student Leader: Thea Piltzecker Young Artists of Rhinebeck: In a series of weekly workshops, Rhinebeck middle school students explore environmental issues through drawing and sculpture in order to develop their awareness of natural beauty, pollution problems, and inventive recycling. Bard art students encourage participants to take a closer look at the environment in which they live, and then to create art from their discoveries. Students create observational drawings, collages, and sculptures with natural objects as well as things that would normally be thrown away or recycled. The workshop culminates in an art show in which the artists share their art with the community and raise funds and awareness for environmental issues.

Student Leader: Allison Brainard

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Selected Project Archive

Academic Advancement Program Activists’ Worldwide AIDS/HIV and Reproductive Education (AWARE): Russia Bard Health Initiative (BHI) Bard High School Early College Play/Mentoring Program Bard Permaculture Initiative Bard Space Program Bard–Sri Lanka Project Bhopal Memory Project Chiapas Solidarity Project Children’s Gardening Program Children’s Rights Are Human Rights, Amnesty International Conference Coalition for Peru Relief Conversations on Education Diamondz Hudson Young Women’s Group Eco-Discoverers (Eco-D) Flying Fiddlers Mentoring Program Free Press Ghana Project Great River Sweep Habitat for Humanity at Bard Human Rights Film Series Intercollegiate Energy Audit Iraq Watch Kosher/Halal Kitchen and Multipurpose Prayer Space Linden Avenue Middle School Drama Project The Media Analysis Project (MAP) Mexico Solidarity Network Delegation Migrant Labor Project “One Year Later” (academic conference on the anti–Iraq War outpouring in 2003) Palestine Awareness Project Project for the Awareness of Resource Consumption (PARC) Red Hook Residential Reciprocal Education Project Register to Vote (in 2000 a Bard student successfully sued the state of New York for the right to vote in Dutchess County) Rhinebeck Connections Homework Help Program Senior Citizen Writing Project SSTOP (Students Stopping Trafficking of Persons) STD of the Week Campus Education Project Student Labor Dialogue Thailand Project Trans Action Initiative Understanding Arabs and Muslims Visible and Invisible Disabilities Awareness Project For the entire project archive, visit the TLS website: http://inside.bard.edu/tls.

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We Need Your Support!

Volunteer

Volunteers are the backbone of TLS projects: whether you are a Bard student or a community member, we need your help. Join the Astor Home project in Rhinebeck, build homes in Nicaragua, teach outdoor education to middle schoolers from Red Hook, offer arts workshops in New Orleans . . .

Contribute Funds

Leadership includes fund-raising. Many TLS projects require thousands of dollars. The TLS office can only provide seed money, so many projects rely on the generous financial support of people who want to make a difference in the world. With your support, TLS students have built schools in Africa and houses in Nicaragua; run tutoring programs in Hudson, New York; taught violin to economically challenged children in Kingston, New York; and recorded the indigenous music of the Sudan. These are projects that link people of all ages and needs with valuable assistance. Your willingness to support our work is crucial.

Making a charitable contribution to Bard College, the Trustee Leader Scholar Program, or a specific TLS project is easy. Many of our projects also benefit from donations of goods and professional services, such as books and bikes for raffles, printing services, and wellmaintained cars.

Making a Gift by Check

Checks can be made payable to Bard College. Please note TLS and a project name on your check if you would like your donation to go toward a particular project. Checks and other correspondence should be sent to: Trustee Leader Scholar Program Bard College PO Box 5000 Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000 Making a Gift by Credit Card

Bard College accepts VISA, MasterCard, and AMEX. To make a contribution over the telephone, please contact the Office of Development and Alumni/ae Affairs at 845-758-7315 or 1-800-BARDCOL.

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TLS gratefully acknowledges the support of many individuals and foundations whose generosity makes our work possible. For further information, please call Paul Marienthal, director of the Trustee Leader Scholar Program and Associate Dean of Student Affairs, at 845-758-7056 or e-mail service@bard.edu.

Above: Children’s Expressive Arts Project, New Orleans summer camp Back cover: Bard–Sri Lanka Project

Published by the Bard Publications Office.

New Orleans Project and Andrew H. Wilson Charter School photographs by Pat Semansky. All other photographs

by TLS students.

Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000 845-758-7056, service@bard.edu, http://inside.bard.edu/tls