TRUSTEE LEADER SCHOLAR PROGRAM AT 25
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. 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!’” 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.
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.