Bennington Magazine Fall 2025

Fall 2025

BENNINGTON Magazine

Bennington’s All-Class Reunion | October 3–5, 2025 Reunion is the time to come back, give back, and celebrate the anniversary of your Bennington experience. Reunite and network with classmates, explore the vibrancy of Bennington today, and make a lasting impact on the College.

Make a meaningful gift this Reunion at bennington.edu/give.

Give Back to Where It All Began.

Bennington College Reunion 1961

BENNINGTON MAGAZINE

CONTRIBUTORS

TO SUBMIT

Ashley Brenon Jowett Editor and Director of Communications

Charlie Nadler Jeffrey Perkins MFA ’09 Rob Silverman Ascher ’19

Bennington Magazine welcomes letters, opinions, essays, interviews, thought pieces, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, captioned work samples, and personal and professional updates. Please send submissions, proposals, and story ideas to magazine@bennington.edu. All will be considered. Due to limited space, we may not be able to publish all submissions.

Kat Hughes Art Director and Designer David Morelos Zaragoza Laguera Photographer Natalie Redmond Associate Writer David Buckwald Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing

ON THE COVER Alexander Dodge ’93’s set for Samson et Dalila at the Metropolitan Opera; Photo © Ken Howard/Met Opera TELL US WHAT YOU THINK! Fill out the survey for the Fall 2025 issue of Bennington Magazine.

Bennington Magazine is printed on stock that is Forest Stewardship Council® and Preferred

by Nature™ certified, and is designated Ancient Forest Friendly™. The cover is made from 30% sustainable recycled fiber and the interior from 100% sustainable recycled fiber.

Dear Alumni and Friends,

M

ark your calendars for the All-Class Reunion coming up October 3–5, 2025. The lineup features tons of opportunities for connection, creativity, and collaboration: a special presentation of 24-Hour Plays, hands-on maker activities, workshops with students and alumni, a career networking session for alumni and students, storytelling, music-making, and a town hall focused on relaunching an alumni association. I hope to see you on campus.

Visit bennington.edu/reunion for more information.

As exciting as it is, Reunion is just one of many reasons to celebrate. Like the alumni featured in this issue, Bennington College is always evolving. Despite federal challenges and financial pressures affecting all small colleges, we have made great progress this past year, which ended June 30.

We graduated the Class of 2025, the largest in Bennington’s history, including our first low-residency MFA and BFA students in Dance. We recruited the outstanding Class of 2029, who just arrived on campus and are already beginning their Bennington journeys. And, thanks to many of you, we reached an ambitious fundraising goal of $13.6 million. Part of those funds came in as a result of our first Bennington Day, on April 16. It was a huge success; we surpassed our goal to raise $150,000 with 367 donors from 66 different class years!

This summer, we launched the Bennington College Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. True to Bennington’s spirit, students can specialize in fields that value creativity and individuality: Expressive Arts Therapy, Narrative Therapy, or Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression. In addition to creating new revenue, the program aims to address the shortage of mental health counselors in Vermont and beyond.

And on September 15, applications open for our new low-residency MFA in Screenwriting. Led

by Theodore Braun, acclaimed filmmaker and University of Southern California professor (Darfur Now, Betting on Zero, ¡Viva Maestro!), the program will welcome twelve students in its inaugural year, and students will attend residencies in Bennington and in Los Angeles. A special thank you to Alan Kornberg ’74, Tracy Katsky Boomer ’91, and Melissa Rosenberg ’86 for helping to support this program.

These initiatives—and the stories in this issue of Bennington Magazine—show that Bennington never stands still. We continue to grow with the world, and we hope you’ll keep growing with us.

I personally invite you to attend Reunion and to show your support with a contribution.

Thank you.

Laura R. Walker President | Bennington College

FALL 2025 1

FROM THE PRESIDENT

16 | Students perform on a ladder in a class led by faculty member in music Henry Brant, 1967

Features 16

Bennington College in the Sixties

28

Alumni share memories, meaning, and their thoughts on how the world has changed.

22

Bennington’s theater training and its impact.

34

Lessons That Last

Unscripted Paths “The Orbit Is Strong” Reunion at Bennington then and now.

Alumni educators carry Bennington forward.

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14 | Digital Image © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Photo by Jonathan Dorado

28 | A scene from Cirque de la Mort by Suzanna Kimball ’25

Up Front 4

First & Foremost

Benn Now 10

Catch up on recent College and alumni news.

“What Education Should Be”

At Last 40

Students use data science to counter local water contamination.

12

14

From Beakers to Baking A sweet spin on chemistry at Bennington.

42

Class Notes

Chuna Chugay ’25’s graphic novel illuminates the KoryoSaram story.

52

Faculty & Staff Notes

54

Obituaries

Songs from Life

57

In Memoriam

Unfolding History

A conversation with Odili Donald Odita MFA ’90.

FALL 2025 3

CONTENTS

First & Foremost

1.

1

Concert for a Cause

Within the local community, the Bennington County Multicultural Community Center (BCMCC) makes a direct and positive impact on refugees finding a home and starting a life in Bennington, Vermont.

However, on January 20, 2025, refugee arrivals to the United States were stopped by an executive order. Several days later, a stop-work order redacted the federally funded program that provides case management and direct support to individuals. Impacted by this order, two staff members at the BCMCC lost their jobs.

Pushing back against the turmoil caused by these executive orders, Bennington College and the Vermont Arts Exchange (VAE) were the first community groups to step up and co-host a fundraiser in support of the BCMCC.

Left: Bennington College’s Middle Eastern Ensemble directed by faculty member in music Joseph Alpar (center); Above: Alash performing at Bennington College

On March 12, 2025, Bennington College’s Carriage Barn Music Series and VAE presented Alash: Music from Tuva. Alash is a renowned ensemble from Tuva, a region in Siberia known for its rich tradition of throat singing.

Additionally, the evening’s offerings included food provided by two Afghan women who run a local catering business, music by the College’s Middle Eastern Ensemble, and art on display from members of Art Lords, an international art collective founded in Afghanistan in 2014.

Altogether, 400 community members attended the event.

The fundraising total was $11,500 for the BCMCC. “There is intense financial pressure on our work right now, and this kind of grassroots collaboration is essential for our success,” said Jack Rossiter-Munley, Director of Programs and Community Engagement at BCMCC.

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2 Bennington Launches Groundbreaking Low-Residency MFA in Screenwriting Bennington College is proud to announce the launch of its new MFA in Screenwriting, a low-residency graduate program designed to prepare students for professional success in film and television.

The program builds on the College’s esteemed three-decade-old low-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing and Bennington’s strong entertainment-industry alumni base, including Twilight screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg ’86, television and movie executive Tracy Katsky Boomer ’91, and screenwriter and director Sofia Alvarez ’07.

“This program is for those who aspire to a sustained career as a professional screenwriter,” said acclaimed filmmaker and University of Southern California professor Theodore Braun (Darfur Now, Betting on Zero, ¡Viva Maestro!), who is leading the program. “It’s aimed at students who thrive in a bold, collaborative learning environment and lays the foundation for a lifetime of work, rooted in Bennington’s tradition of originality and imagination.”

Theodore Braun

Set to welcome its inaugural class in summer 2026, the two-year program combines the flexibility of remote learning with the rigor of weekly, live, small-group workshops that mirror the dynamic of today’s writers’ rooms. Students will write original features, series pilots, and bibles and build a professional portfolio under the guidance of established working screenwriters.

With residencies held in both Bennington, Vermont, and Los Angeles, students gain access to elite mentorship, hands-on directing and pitching workshops, and an industry showcase in Hollywood upon graduation.

This new MFA represents a bold addition to Bennington’s offerings,” said Laura Walker, Bennington College’s President.

“We are thrilled that Ted Braun—whose students have won or been nominated for Academy Awards, Emmys, and the Palme d’Or—is bringing his unmatched creative vision and experience to lead the program. The Screenwriting MFA combines individual learning with real-world impact and brings renewed vitality to one of the most dynamic forms of artistic expression today.”

Applications open September 15. For more information, email mfascreenwriting@bennington.edu.

FALL 2025 5

UP FRONT

3.

Above: Commencement speaker Kyle Abraham; Right: Graduates during Commencement dinner

3 Celebrating the Class of 2025 On May 31, 2025, Bennington College welcomed its latest cohort of graduates to the alumni community during the Conferring of Degrees ceremony at the 90th Commencement.

Choreographer, dancer, and visual artist Kyle Abraham was the Commencement speaker. Abraham is the founder of his own dance company, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, which he established in 2006 in New York City. Over the years, Abraham has created numerous acclaimed works for his company, including The Radio Show (2010), Absent Matter (2015), and Pavement (2012). His An Untitled Love (2021) was a 2025 Olivier Awards nominee for Best New Production.

“You all represent the hope and possibility to shift, to mold, to regroup, to restructure, revitalize and re-up the commitment for positive change that so many of us are ready for,” Abraham told graduates in his Commencement speech.

“What is your mission? What do you stand for? And who do you want to stand beside? The path forward may not be direct or linear, but I can see the roadmap to a better, brighter, empathetic, responsible, resilient, fortifying, and hopeful future right in front of me.”

Prepared by an average of four progressive work experiences woven into their self-driven educational Plans, members of the Class of 2025 graduated ready to take on the world of work, pursue exciting postgraduate studies, and contribute to Bennington’s legacy of groundbreakers and culture shapers.

This fall, members of the Class of 2025 are headed off to graduate studies at Columbia University, New York University, the University of Michigan, Washington University St. Louis, and more.

4 Bread + Puppet Returns Greenwall Auditorium was full to bursting on April 3 as Bread + Puppet Theater took the stage for Obligation to Live.

Students and community members filled every seat, balcony, and catwalk, with some letting their feet dangle from the high ladders above. As the performers played music during the audience’s arrival, one shouted, “The best seats are on the floor.

Don’t be shy.” Many took the cue and streamed to the front.

During opening remarks, David Bond, Associate Director for the Center for the Advancement of Public Action, shared a press release from the group’s first Bennington visit in 1967: “The Bread + Puppet Theater seems to be a distinguished exception to the rule that political protest makes for inferior art,” Bond read. “In [founder Peter] Schumann’s case the protest and the art are inseparable, perhaps because both flow from the deepest springs of human concept.”

The one-hour show combined stark truths about global injustice—lack of access to food, water, electricity, and medicine—with physical humor, rich visuals, and sweet harmonies.

“Such dark days surround,” said Bond afterward, “but Bread + Puppet reminds us that gathering together in righteous outrage and defiant possibility brings a warmth that might just force the spring of revolution.”

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5 Creating Compassionate and Competent Clinicians This summer, Bennington College welcomed the inaugural cohort of its new low-residency Master of Arts (MA) in Clinical Mental Health Counseling program.

Designed for working professionals and those seeking to make a meaningful difference in the mental health field, Bennington’s program offers a unique combination of flexible learning and hands-on training and prepares graduates for licensure and careers or continued professional or doctoral study in a rapidly expanding sector.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, more than 150 million people live in federally designated mental health professional shortage areas. Employment of mental health counselors, including substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, is projected to grow 19 percent from 2023 to 2033, much faster than the average for all occupations, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Responding to this need, Bennington’s MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling program is designed for students who desire to balance their education with other personal and

professional commitments. Applicants must hold a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution, but no undergraduate experience in psychology is required.

The program spans five terms and meets in person twiceyearly with residencies on campus. It is designed to meet the educational requirements for licensure in nearly all states and internationally. Specialized tracks provide students with the opportunity to tailor their studies to their professional interests, including Expressive Arts Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression.

“The incoming cohort is shaping up to be an energetic, passionate, empathetic, and courageous group of advocates, healers, and change makers,” said Greta Enriquez, Program Director. “Our residency will be intensive and engaging, with didactic and experiential workshops and lay the foundations for a robust program. The individualized nature of the program, plus the breadth or knowledge and experience of both the faculty and students will make for a unique educational experience.”

Interested in applying to the program? For additional information or to schedule a consultation with an admissions advisor, contact macmhc@bennington.edu.

FALL 2025 7

UP FRONT

7.

Below: Faculty member in music Michael Wimberly; Right: Joe Morris, William Parker, Vance Povey, and David Bindman performing in the Deane Carriage Barn

7

6 The Intercollegiate Poetry Reading Turns Twelve The Intercollegiate Poetry Reading has been happening almost annually since 2013, but 2025 was the first year it brought poets from two other schools—Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, and Williams College in Williamstown, MA— to Bennington to read and to participate in a poetry workshop jointly facilitated by faculty from all three colleges. Four students from each of the three schools read for six minutes each.

“Here at Bennington, this is the closest thing we have to sports,” joked Michael Dumanis to the capacity crowd in the Franklin living room. Dumanis is a faculty member in literature, the director of Poetry at Bennington, and organizer for the event.

Bennington poets included Greer Engle-Roe ’27, Willow Olrich ’27, Taha Ahmar Qadeer ’25, and Grace Schlett ’26.

The following day at the workshop, which was held at Williams College, every student had one poem discussed and received feedback from all of the other students and from the three faculty members.

“The workshop definitely helped me see some elements of the specific poem I brought in a new light… and [gave] me new directions to wander off in and explore,” said Olrich.

Celebrating Fifty Years of Black Music

Bennington College’s Black Music Symposium, held March 21–22, 2025, brought together more than 100 attendees to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Black Music Division. The event featured powerful performances, engaging panels, scholarship, and heartfelt reflections from alumni, faculty, and guest artists including Stephen Haynes ’80, Jackson Krall, Glynis Lomon ’75, William Parker, Vance Povey, Lisa Sokolov ’76, Dennis Warren ’84, Stanley Jason Zappa ’93, and many others. Organized by current faculty member in Music Michael Wimberly, the symposium honored the legacy of the program’s founders and showcased the division’s lasting impact on music and culture.

With vibrant improvisation and deep community connection, the weekend was a moving tribute to five decades of innovation and influence and to the future of Black music.

8 Your Bennington Bookshelf A Family Story of Faith, Relationships, and Resilience Five-time New York Times bestselling author Kathleen Norris ’69 returns in September 2025 with the memoir Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disability, Faith, and Love, published by InterVarsity Press.

Norris’s younger sister, Rebecca, was born with perinatal hypoxia, a medical condition that results from insufficient oxygen to a newborn infant and can lead to a number of serious health complications.

Writes the publisher, “This isn’t just a memoir; it’s a tender tribute to Becky’s intelligence, her struggles, and her extraordinary ability to inspire those around her.”

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The Twisting Tale of the First Woman to Run for President Born into a poor Ohio family, by the late 1800s, Victoria Woodhull had made a name for herself—and garnered several fortunes, gained and lost—as an activist and leader well ahead of her time.

The Improbable Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and the First Woman to Run for President by Eden Collinsworth ’74 is available in September 2025 from Penguin Random House.

Collinsworth’s well-researched story of Woodhull’s life traces the many twists and turns of a woman raised by a con-artist father and spiritualist mother and whose resilience and bond with her younger sister support her through the founding of a stock brokerage on Wall Street, the launch of a newspaper, and her 1872 campaign as the first female presidential candidate.

“Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Collinsworth tells the story of a woman truly ahead of her time—a radical visionary who made defying mores a habit and brought to the fore societal and political issues still being addressed,” writes the publisher.

The Future of the Environment and the Working Class Air and water pollution, toxic contamination, and volatile weather patterns, the realities of global warming affect us all; but policies addressing these crises have been politically difficult to adapt. Why does anti-environmentalism hold such a powerful grip on the United States?

The Smoke and the Spoils: Anti-Environmentalism and Class Struggle in the United States by Bennington College faculty

member John Hultgren was published in May 2025 by The MIT Press. The book charts the history of American anti-environmentalism and provides both an explanation for its lasting presence and a blueprint for overcoming it.

Writes the publisher, “Placing environmental politics within a broader context of class struggle, this book makes the case that the environmental crises of our time will only be mitigated by a resurgent working class.”

Power in the Face of Impending Loss Matthew Tuckner ’19 began writing the identically titled pieces that form the basis for his debut collection of poems The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which will be released in fall 2025 by Four Way Books, following a close friend’s cancer diagnosis.

The poems, wrote Tuckner in an author’s note for Missouri Review, “utilize the elegiac mode not only to mark the death of a person, place, or thing but to explore larger gestures of decay and entropy, moving quickly from image to image and sensation to sensation in the effort to portray the flattening forces of grief.”

Tuckner is currently a PhD candidate in English with a specialization in creative writing at the University of Utah. ●

For more Bennington news, visit bennington.edu.

FALL 2025 9

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“The data was fascinating. It was different. It was messy.

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“It’s been super educational. It feels real,” said Schnell. “A lot of the time we engage with pretty abstract thought. It was nice to work in the real world.”

Faculty member David Bond, one of two faculty members leading the project, summarized the students’ findings. “We haven’t yet found the edge [of the contamination], and downwind is a good place to keep looking.”

Faculty member Tim Schroeder analyzed contamination data over time and had the sad duty of sharing that the problem is getting worse.

“More wells are seeing rising concentrations than falling ones,” Schroeder said. “That’s probably because a significant amount of [PFOA] remains in the soil and continues to leach into the groundwater at a steady rate. Unfortunately, that process is likely to persist for a very long time.”

One attendee asked the students, “how does the College, or you individually, use data as power to influence companies that make poison? This shouldn’t happen, and it can’t happen again. What do we do with this information?”

Schnell answered, “A lot of what we have been trying to do is just provide information to the public. Knowledge is power.”

Bond elaborated, “These findings should empower the community to ask for more robust monitoring of our wells and drinking water resources going forward.”

Richard Spiese is an environmental scientist, a hazard waste site manager for the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and the College’s counterpart at the DEC. He emphasized the importance of the students’ contributions, noting that their work provides a “greater understanding of the persistence and spread of PFAS contamination using actual data.” He said that the research “strengthens evidence of responsibility” for the contamination, which increases the likelihood that the companies involved—specifically ChemFab and its successor, Saint-Gobain—will be held accountable.

“These are moments when the College has a responsibility to the community,” said Bond. “We have a set of resources, including our students and their education, to open our doors to nearby problems and actually make real contributions to the community.”

“I am grateful to have been trusted with this,” said Kalomba.

“It is important for us as students to be able to use our skills, and that’s what education should be. Education is about what you learn and putting it out and having an impact on the community.”

Everyone agrees that more research is needed. “One thing that is clear is that we are at the beginning of this problem,” said Bond. “PFAS has only been detected in our community and in other communities in the past decade or two. We are just at the beginning of trying to understand what the long-term consequences of PFAS will be.”

Three of the four students are seniors in 2025–2026 and plan to continue the research for their senior work. ● BA RN

FALL 2025 11

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Unfolding History

Top: Chuna Chugay ’25 at Trailer Blaze; Bottom: A portion of Chugay’s graphic novel

12 BENNINGTON MAGAZINE

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n the final year of their studies at Bennington College, painter, documentary filmmaker, and graphic novelist Chuna Chugay ’25 is working on a story that has never been told—especially not like this.

Through Bennington connections, they were one of twelve comic artists accepted to Trailer Blaze, a week-long, self-directed residency in Seaview, Washington, and daughter project of Seattle’s annual Short Run comics festival.

Chugay’s project—a graphic novel—draws from research they conducted as a part of Bennington’s Newman and Cox Public Action Student Fellowship. The fellowship supported their interviews with Koryo-Saram elders and survivors of the forced migration of Koryo-Saram under Stalin’s regime in 1937. The project also draws from their own life.

“I want to make this information more accessible for younger generations of Koryo-Saram, who did not have a chance to hear about this part of their history from their family members,” said Chugay.

The book unfolds in two timelines: one that tells the historical events of the deportation through the lens of a specific family and another that reflects Chugay’s own experience growing up in Russia as a person of color and a descendant of survivors.

Chugay met regularly with writer Jenny Boully, faculty member in Literature, and painter Ann Pibal, faculty member in Visual Arts, to workshop Chugay’s project. Chugay said, “It is an amazing mix and an honor to workshop this project with these faculty members.”

Boully feels similarly honored. When she received the professional introductory email along with a request for assistance with the literary aspects of the project, Boully was overwhelmed by the samples of the work.

“It wasn’t a question of whether or not I will work with them,” said Boully. “It was this tremendous feeling of, ‘Oh, my! This student wants to work with me?’ They had already accomplished so much, and just looking at the visuals as well as the very particular, unique, important story that it carries, I was just blown away.”

Pibal noted Chugay’s research and the different media they have explored during their time at Bennington, including animation, documentary filmmaking, painting, and their graphic novel. “All of the projects have intertwined visual elements,” said Pibal. “Chuna leaves Bennington with the ability to contextualize all of these projects not just within the history of the Koryo-Saram but also within art history, contemporary art, and graphic literature.”

Chugay learned about Trailer Blaze in 2023 from comic artist Julia Mata, who exhibited work at Usdan Gallery and presented a Visual Arts Lecture Series talk. “They did a studio visit with me,” Chugay explained. “Meeting someone who’s also in the graphic novel and fine arts worlds… it’s a fairly rare overlap.”

Chugay applied to the residency program and learned of their acceptance during a meeting with Boully. “Chuna was asking for advice,” remembered Boully. “‘What things should I be doing professionally?’ And I suggested, ‘Oh, how about you look into residencies?’ Just then Chuna said, ‘Wait, I just got accepted into one.’”

In April, Chugay packed up their sketchbooks and a growing collection of graphic novel pages and headed west. “It’s gorgeous, right on the coast,” Chugay said, flipping through snapshots of their stay. “You live there in vintage, refurbished trailers, and you’re given a living space and studio.”

Chugay had been delighted to meet Mata, just one artist at the intersection of fine arts and comics. Suddenly, they found themselves surrounded by a dozen comic artists of all backgrounds—from professors at top art schools to European artists.

“It was interesting to see people work who are not just learning it but who have dedicated their life to this and who are so far ahead of me in this process,” said Chugay. “Everyone was so open and excited to share their work and to see other people’s stuff.”

Days at the residency were unstructured; participants cooked their own breakfasts and lunches and gathered each evening for shared dinners that often ended late in the night with deep conversations on the porch. One of the most meaningful parts for Chugay was the studio visit sessions, where artists presented 20-minute pop-up galleries inside their trailers. The artists were encouraged to ask questions of their visitors and vice versa.

“I had questions about publishing—how to pitch, how to find an agent,” they explained. “It was the perfect time for me to go because people had great advice.”

“There is a quality to Chuna’s work that is both so mortal and tactile but also this element of mystery, fragility, and lightness,” said Boully. “How they can balance what hurts and what’s beautiful is amazing.”

Chugay exhibited the book with twenty-five complete pages alongside two large paintings and an animation/documentary project at the annual Senior Show at Usdan Gallery in May and prepared to pitch the book to agents and publishers in the weeks and months following graduation.

“There is a feeling of inevitability about Chuna’s work, their talent, work ethic, and their unwavering determination to tell this brutal and under-recognized chapter of the experience of the Korean diaspora and its multigenerational echoes,” said Pibal. “Chuna compels viewers into the story through the use of scale—both visual and narrative—and the delicate blend of the acutely personal with the broadly historical.”

“I have no doubt that Chuna will accomplish so much, as long as they continue to put pen to paper,” said Boully.

“People will know this book.” ●

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Songs from Life A CONVE RSATION W I T H ODIL I DONALD O D I TA MFA ’ 90

By Ashley Brenon Jowett

Odili Donald Odita MFA ’90 is a Nigerian-American abstract painter. His vibrant, large-scale works combine influences from his Nigerian heritage and Western modernity and explore color through both historical and sociopolitical lenses.

Odita’s art has been hailed for its powerful presence, often using complex geometries and contrasting hues to raise questions about race and society. His solo exhibition, Songs from Life, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) through April 2026, is a significant milestone in his career. Odita currently serves as a professor at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture and as a Bennington College trustee.

First of all, congratulations on the MoMA exhibition!

Thank you. I’m feeling good about it. Actually, I’m understanding it as a great accomplishment. I’ve worked at many different great institutions, but this is a pinnacle. At this time in my life, there will be more pinnacles to achieve, but this was an important one for me, and it proved a lot about what I could do with my team and with the institution.

Please describe the installation for those who haven’t seen it yet.

It encompasses the entire lobby between 53rd and 54th Streets.

Throughout the install, I made different patterns and drawings to evoke aspects of the narrative. The story is essentially one of an immigrant traveler, coming to the museum or coming into the country and going through the process of integration and acclimation. There’s a certain kind of transition in this space, a terrain of difficulty, where the traveler has to come to terms with certain things and come to the other side of that.

People come to the museum for one common purpose, which is to engage art or to engage beauty, to engage an idea of enlightenment and truth. So art becomes this catalyst to draw people into the space, to engage in ideas, to share their differences on this idea of art, and to come away with multiple conclusions. Coming into a museum with a friend and looking at artwork and having a discussion, you may have different opinions or different understandings, but you can come together to a space of acceptance. It’s a reflection on the dialectic of the world and how the museum is a utopian idea of how people can potentially communicate in the world.

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Odili Donald Odita (left) and installation shots (right) of the exhibition “Odili Donald Odita: Songs from Life,” April 8, 2025–April 2026. Digital Images © 2025 The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photos by Jonathan Dorado.

And at this time, where we have these difficulties, particularly because of individuals with power who want to take the worst parts of ourselves and use those to establish structures, I think the museum is a counter to that because it speaks toward the idea of freedom in expression, which is what some of these few people don’t want at all.

Tell us about your time at Bennington as a student.

When I was at Bennington, it was a lot of fun. It was a great creative space for me to work. I think about the integration of the arts. I took music classes, not as a musician but for an appreciation of music. I took Black music courses with Bill Dixon, and he brought dancers into the classrooms for us to draw from. So there’s this application of different art forms, in a way that art has been engaged in historically, not in the way that we understand it in academia, where we silo these things.

But the fact is that, historically and in many cultures, these art forms were brought together.

You’re also a member of the Bennington College Board of Trustees. Where does the motivation to serve in this way come from?

I know that Bennington went through difficult times toward the end of my time and when my wife [Emanuelle Kihm ’93] was there. We met at Bennington at that time. I know the school was trying to make positive changes for itself, and they did prove to be good changes, but I think they could have been executed better. I want to represent that memory in my position.

As a board member, I want to create a welcoming space for students to come back and visit because it was a beautiful time in their lives. They grew there, and they can look to the school to give them guidance as an alum, maybe contact other alumni, maybe give a sense of connection out there in the world. I don’t think of it only as a place where people spend two years or four. I’d like it to be a place where people want to go back and want to give back. If we can create something like that, that’s going to be vital for Bennington. ●

Songs from Life is up at MoMA through the spring of 2026.

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By Ashley Brenon Jowett

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Sex in the Sixties

e n n i n g t o n alumni of the sixties remember the smell of the countryside in the fall; being “blown away” by seeing modern, non-representational art for the first time; meeting for class in house living rooms; and enjoying regular concerts of chamber music over dinner in the Dining Hall.

They remember being inspired to learn Mozart’s Requiem after hearing faculty member in literature Howard Nemerov whistle it as he walked across campus and playing music faculty member Louis Calabro’s “Ceremonial March” in their bare feet at their own graduation. They remember overhearing salacious conversations while waiting for their houses’ shared telephones and waiting in line to call home when President Kennedy was assassinated.

They heard Robert Frost read his poems and the cacophony of typewriters coming from each room when papers were due, especially just before Long Weekend. During

a drought, they remember the dance students “in a big circle performing mystic rites on the lawn to make the rain happen.”

How wearing blue jeans was rebellious everywhere but here; even faculty members wore jeans. (“It was an encouraging place for rebel types,” said Joan Tower ’61.) Students knew how to fix a broken audio tape with a razor blade and Scotch tape. And they remember marveling at the big view at the end of Commons Lawn.

Many keep mementos from their time at Bennington.

Kate Rantilla ’67 reads over the speech that President Fels gave to her and her classmates as they entered Bennington for their first year. Judy Bond ’61 still has a music stand she made with Robert “Woody” Woodworth, a faculty member in biology. “He and his wife would give concerts—he on banjo or guitar, she on piano. She was a very proper New Englander, but when she played, it was jazzy, full of life,” said Bond. “They were examples of how academics can also be artists.”

The most memorable of all aspects of Bennington College in the sixties were the faculty and their power. In addition to Calabro, Nemerov, and Woodworth, the names of faculty members g lin t ato p m o s t stories about Bennington at

On the average Friday or Saturday night, students on the second floors of the New England clapboard houses around Commons Lawn on the then all-women’s campus would hear the male students from Williams yell “Anyone want a date?” “It was a little like a meat market,” recalled Elinor Bacon ’63.

Victoria Houston ’67 lived in Stokes. “That’s how I met my friend Ellen (Safir). Ellen was dating this guy from Williams, but he didn’t have a car, and so the two of them hooked me up with his friend, who did have a car. He turned out to be my first husband and the father of my three children.”

Men were allowed in the houses at most hours and even in the rooms until 10:00 pm. One student remembers going into the bathroom only to hear a rich baritone voice singing in the shower.

While the Williams students were “too jockey” for some, other students were as eager as the boys. For some years, Lois Wilkins ’67 remembered there being graffiti painted on the campus side of one of the stone columns marking the entrance.

It said, “only 19 miles to go.”

Right: Aberlin in the musical The Boyfriend at Bennington 18 BENNINGTON MAGAZINE

“We used Williams boys for our p ro duc tio n s , and they used Bennington girls for theirs.”

Betty Aberlin ’63

MY THICAL FACULT Y Stanley Edgar Hyman, husband of famed writer Shirley Jackson, taught the hugely popular Myth and Ritual in Literature, known affectionately by the late sixties as Myth, Rit, Lit. (The class was the most commonly mentioned detail among the sixteen interviews for this story.) “Everyone wanted that class,” remembered Janet Warner Montgomery ’65. “It met in Barn 1 and must’ve been the biggest class on campus. It enabled a thinking pattern I never had before—comparative thinking.

Myth, ritual, Freud, the Bible, Lead Belly songs—it was a pileup. Incredible.” She read the whole Bible for that course while riding the commuter train in New York. “That class broke down a few shibboleths from my Christian upbringing,” she said, laughing.

Writer Roxana Robinson ’68 remembers Hyman as “a wonderful physical presence.” “He was small and kind of slightly portly, and he had that beard, and he smoked all the time, and often he would start to light a cigarette on the wrong end, and the whole class would be rapt and breathless, waiting to see if he would figure it out before he actually lit the filter end or not.

He was so absorbed in his subject, completely engaged by the stories he was telling us about the ancient world.”

Nina Straus ’64 struggled in Hyman’s class at first, overwhelmed by the interdisciplinary intensity. But Hyman responded favorably when she wrote a comparative analysis of Maccabees I and Maccabees II. “He said to me, ‘You did it. You’ve got it.’ And I thought, ‘Yeah. I can do this.’ It gave me enormous confidence.” Straus went on to an impressive career as a feminist literary scholar, critic, and professor at Purchase College, part of the State University of New York system. Indeed, faculty comments, in person and in writing, had the power to turn lives.

POWERFUL COMMENTS Robinson ’68 took a creative writing workshop with Bernard Malamud, one of the best-known American authors of the twentieth century. “He was precise, measured, also sort of small and neat, and he gave us this powerful sense of order as a creative writer,” Robinson recalled. “He said, ‘Do not wait for the muse to come to you. You write every day. You have a particular time, and you write during that time. It was a powerful introduction to the creative life.” Robinson followed

Malamud’s advice and is the author of seven novels, three collections of short stories, and the biography of Georgia O’Keeffe.

The comments were not always perceived positively.

Betty Aberlin ’63, who appeared for 30 years on a popular children’s television program in addition to working as an actor on other shows and movies, remembers turning in a sonnet to Hyman and receiving his feedback: “Cousin Betty, you will never be a poet.” “It was a blow to the heart,” she said. She stopped writing poetry altogether only to learn years later that he meant it as a compliment. It was based on the comment (“Cousin Jonathan, you will never be a poet.”) that poet John Dryden had given his cousin Jonathan Swift. Aberlin’s book, The White Page Poems, written in response to and appearing in the same volume as George MacDonald’s 1880 Diary of an Old Soul, was published in 2008.

Nor were the comments strictly academic. Houston remembers a childhood filled with instances of being noted as less attractive than her younger sister. She grew up thinking that she was truly ugly. One bright beautiful morning, she was walking across the green toward Jennings Hall for class when she saw Malamud approaching. “He stopped and he looked at me, and he said, ‘You are beautiful. You are just stunning.’ And he patted me on the shoulder, and he kept going.” Houston paused, “Even as I tell you about it today, I tear up a little... all of a sudden all the ugliness from childhood fell away.” She emphasized, despite Bennington at that time turning a blind eye to many faculty-student relationships that would now be considered scandalous, the moment was “entirely appropriate and deeply human. There was absolutely nothing untoward in it.”

THE ROLE OF WOMEN Students often entered Bennington with the wider culture’s preconceived notions about what women could do. “I grew up thinking girls were dumb because that’s what the age was,” said Louise Reichlin ’63. Similarly, Fran Bull ’60 recalled having “encountered the attitude that women did not make serious art.”

Many other women’s colleges at the time were focused on educating wives or “well-rounded” young women. “I never heard that at Bennington,” said Gail Evans ’63. “It wasn’t about being well-rounded. Even studying the arts wasn’t about being well-rounded—it was about expressing a different part of yourself and your emotions.”

Once acclimated, “we women at Bennington at that time did not feel constrained by our gender,” Bull recalled. “We were surrounded by a lot of brilliant women who did different things,” said Evans and soon learned that “women were as smart, independent, and talented as men—and we should go get what we wanted, not what somebody told us we were allowed to have.” She continued, “The message was: figure

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This page: “Rainfall,” created by faculty member in sculpture Anthony Caro while at Bennington, 1964

that time: William Bales (Dance), Ben Belitt (Literature), Henry Brant (Music), Lou Carini (Social Sciences), Ruth Currier (Dance/Drama), Julian DeGray (Music/Visual Art), Francis Golffing (Literature & Languages), Paul Gray (Drama), Bernard Malamud (Literature), Jack Moore (Dance), and Martha and Josef Wittman (both Dance/Drama), to name a few. Some were demanding and opinionated. Many were famous in their fields or in general.

out what you love and what you are brilliant at— and go for it.” Lois Wilkins ’67 added, “Perhaps the greatest lesson I learned was that I could do anything I aspired to and was willing to work hard for.”

Brenda Corman Alpar ’62, mother of current Bennington Ethnomusicology faculty member Joseph Alpar, became a nationally recognized Middle Eastern dancer and dance teacher. She owned a studio and a night club in Manhattan and later became the music, art, and drama teacher at the Perelman Jewish Day School in the Philadelphia suburbs, where she composed hundreds of songs, musicals, and operettas for children. “I always give full credit to Bennington for introducing me to the philosophy that if something intrigues you and you want to pursue it, that’s all you need. Go ahead. If the motivation is there, nothing can stop you.”

Graduates often found the limiting attitudes outside Bennington when they left. For a while, Alpar was the only woman in the master’s degree program in Music Composition at Juilliard and encountered some pushback from her male classmates. “How can a woman compose music,” she heard classmates say, “when their brains are not the right shape, and they don’t have any capacity for abstract thought?” Despite the hostility toward the idea of a woman in this field, she thrived as a composer. And slowly the world changed. Graduates went on to have powerful careers in government, scientific research, the media, music, and as writers, even as many raised families.

SOCIAL CHANGE: THEN & NOW Alumni from the sixties see some similarities between their time as students and the current moment. The ongoing struggles with racial inequality and political corruption were felt then and now. “The 1960s were a time of great passion. Civil rights. Fair Play for Cuba. Today, there are echoes. Nixon’s enemies list, the imperial presidency—you can draw a line from that to now,” said Evans. “We had a sit-in at the Howard Johnson’s in Bennington. The poor guy running it was like, ‘Anybody who wants to eat here can.’ We had turmoil and action but not a lot of fear,” said Evans.

Kate Rantilla ’67 remembers community organizing with Students for a Democratic Society in Newark, NJ, and participating in the first major Vietnam protest in April 1965. Back then, Rantilla noted that events coverage happened more slowly; there was more time to reflect. “Now, instant communication changes the nature and pace of activism,” she said.

Alumni express dismay over erosion of democratic norms and civic trust. “There are moth holes in the fabric of society,” said Rantilla. “Students in the sixties may have criticized the government and police, but they still believed in the system’s core structures.”

“Back then, even when we protested, it still felt like America had ideals. Now, it feels like everything is on the table,” said Bacon.

Wilkins added, “I don’t think anybody [back then] thought we were going to actually lose the country that was run by its constitution with checks and balances, but we have, and it happened so fast.”

A LOVE OF CHANGE Bennington fostered a love of change in its sixties alumni.

“There was a strong emphasis on thinking critically, writing, and changing one’s mind without stigma,” said Wilkins. “You can change your mind whenever you want. You don’t grow up being taught that. If it makes sense to change your mind about something, do it.” Rantilla said the biggest thing she carried forward was the idea that “it’s okay—and even good— to change course.” Many changed concentrations as students, including Joan Tower ’61, who switched from Physics to composition. And they changed careers midstream: journalism to education to pottery, Chinese relations to urban planning, music composition to Middle Eastern dance.

Welcoming change allowed for uncommon resilience among many alumni. “If something didn’t work, you open

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a door and try a different pathway,” said Louise Reichlin ’63. That lesson has seen her through a 50-year (and going strong) career as a dancer and choreographer, a professor of movement training, and founder and director of the non-profit dance company Los Angeles Choreographers & Dancers.

The willingness to change also led alumni to ever-expanding learning opportunities. Now in their eighties, they are master gardeners, Audubon volunteers, and students of ukulele.

Aberlin debuted as a playwright with Annie & Zoe in 2025. Myrna Blyth ’60, editor of the nation’s most widely circulated magazines, including Ladies Home Journal and Family Circle, pursued a master’s d e g re e in Liberal Arts at Johns Hopkins during the COVID-19 pandemic while working full time as the senior vice president and editorial director at AARP Media.

She graduated in May 2025 and retired in June.

“I’m taking courses at the University of Chicago at the moment,” she said.

Bacon recently qualified for a national hot yoga competition. “I came in third out of three, but I made it to nationals. I asked if they had an 80-plus category— they just laughed.” ●

“I feel, in some essential way, I have never left Bennington.”

Fran Bull ’60

Clockwise, from top left: Students protest outside Woolworth’s in downtown Bennington, 1960; Students gather recreationally, 1964; Class held in colonial student house living room with faculty member Christopher Koch, 1967

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Alumni Educators Carry Bennington Forward

By Jeffrey Perkins MFA ’09

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or Ben-Amotz ’76 jokes that he returned to teach at Bennington for the free lunch. This fall is his second term teaching at Bennington after retiring from a successful career as a chemistry professor at Purdue University. Every few years he had a dream (literally) that he was walking the Bennington campus, and after he retired, he suggested to his wife while they were driving around Vermont that maybe he could make that dream come true if he offered to teach a class for free. He spoke to chemistry faculty member John Bullock who supported the idea and then worked with then-Dean of Faculty Sarah Harris to make it happen.

Coming back to campus has allowed him to focus on his love of teaching and let go of some of the other responsibilities a larger research institution demands. He says it’s wonderful to be back. People who meet him sometimes comment that he was a student during the Golden Age of Bennington, but he disagrees.

“Things that we’ve seen here are just mind blowingly great. Some of the students’ senior concerts are just unbelievable. Fantastic. I don’t think I ever saw anything as good ever, even back here in the days when I was a student, or anywhere.

It’s an amazing place. There’s some fraction of students that just do crazy stuff that’s so great. I don’t know what fraction that is, but it’s big enough that this place is amazing.”

It makes sense that Bennington would inspire future academics. The founding of the College was supported by educators from some of the best higher education institutions in the country. They believed there was a place for a college in Southwestern Vermont that followed a progressive approach to education and placed interdisciplinarity, critical inquiry, and student motivation at the center of its education. That bold vision has inspired many alumni not only to follow their intellectual passions but also to pursue lives in academia at Bennington and other institutions. They return to the classroom as the kind of mentors they once had.

“MENTOR FOR LIFE”

Dor Ben-Amotz ’76 outside Dickinson

Ben-Amotz found his mentor in the legendary Milford Graves, the multidisciplinary artist and faculty member whose influence shaped the trajectory of his life.

“Milford Graves was my mentor for life. He was just an amazing guy that inspired me in so many ways about what you can do as a human being. I was doing all this math and science and art and sculpture and some music with him. But he took me to other places, showed me other things about how to look at the world.”

For Cyle Metzger ’08, Assistant Professor of Art History at Bradley University, it was long-time faculty member and social psychologist Ron Cohen who helped inspire him to

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follow his ideas into graduate school and then teaching.

Cohen taught at Bennington from 1971 to 1993 and then again 1994 to 2016.

“I was an art student who thought I wasn’t smart enough for the humanities,” Metzger recalls. “Ron turned that on its head. He encouraged me to explore ideas I had dismissed as small or unimportant. He’d pause and say, ‘Wait—what did you mean by that?’ That taught me how to dig deeper.”

Metzger received his PhD in Art History with a minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Stanford University in 2021 and is currently co-executive editor of Panorama, the journal of the Association of Historians of American Art in addition to teaching at Bradley. Bennington’s interdisciplinary approach and the Plan encouraged him to incorporate similar ideas in developing his own curricula.

LEARN BY DOING Kent Hikida ’85, a principal at OTJ Architects and longtime professor at Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture, has carried Bennington’s philosophy of experiential learning into every classroom he’s entered since.

“My approach to teaching is to meet the students where they are and to treat each student as an individual. I’ve learned so much from my students and their different learning abilities and perspectives. This approach to teaching comes directly from my experience with my Bennington professors:

that understanding—putting myself in their shoes and understanding where they’re coming from—helps me to connect the students to the curriculum and motivate their learning.

The one consistent comment I get back from my students every semester is that ‘Professor Hikida brings real life experiences into the classroom. He makes it real.’”

Fellow classmate Kevin Alter ’85, the Sid W. Richardson Centennial Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin and partner at Alterstudio Architecture, credits Bennington with an educational experience that brought him in tight conversations with faculty and it served as an important contrast to the graduate education he received at Harvard Graduate School of Design.

“I thought all architecture teachers were fundamentally brilliant, unbelievably generous, kind, and supportive. And then I went to Harvard for graduate school and found a different kind of educational model. Harvard was an amazing experience, and I did well there. I worked with the chair, and I received a distinction on my thesis and all of that. But I teach in large part because I thought that Bennington was a better model for learning.”

Alter credits “learning by doing” as fundamental to his approach in the classroom. “I modeled myself in many ways after my teachers there, who were committed teachers and really cared. They were practitioners pursuing their own interests and their own work—and that’s been a model that’s worked really well for me.”

Kent Hikida ’85 with a portion of his senior work while attending Bennington

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FOLLOWING THE QUESTIONS A Bennington education starts with a question—a big one.

From there, students build a personalized academic plan in collaboration with faculty, charting a course driven by curiosity rather than predictable disciplinary pathways. Ben-Amotz thinks it is this student passion that’s the essential ingredient for a Bennington education, and it’s often what leads a student from Bennington into graduate school.

“There’s different types of students who do well at Bennington. One type is one who really wants to go deep into one thing, music of a particular kind, or art, like piano composition or painting, or math or whatever. But the other type is the one who just loves so many things and is interested in so much stuff that they can’t imagine focusing on just one thing.

The students who don’t do well at Bennington are the ones who don’t really have an inspiration to do something.”

Alec Marsh ’78 is a professor of English at Muhlenberg College, where he has taught for many years with two other distinguished Bennington alumni and professors Tom Cartelli ’73 and Jim (James D.) Bloom ’72. He’s spent his scholarly life exploring the work—and contradictions—of poet Ezra Pound, whose ideas were introduced to him in Stephen Sandy’s course on Yeats, Pound, and Eliot.

“That class changed everything for me,” Marsh says. “We read Hugh Kenner’s The Pound Era, and I realized criticism could be creative and imaginative. I wrote my senior thesis on Pound’s movement to fascism—something few people were talking about in 1978—and I’ve been writing about him ever since.”

Highland Park Residence, designed by Kevin Alter ’85 and his partners at Alterstudio; Photo by Casey Dunn

NURTURING INITIATIVE Kerry Ryer-Parke ’90 returned to Bennington to teach voice in 2013 after more than two decades at nearby Williams College.

She is one of a few alumni faculty members, in addition to BenAmotz. They include J Blackwell ’95, Anaïs Duplan ’14, Farhad Mirza ’12, Susan Sgorbati ’72, MFA ’86, and several others who received their master’s degrees at Bennington or teach as visiting faculty members. For her, teaching must come from passion— and from personal conviction.

“I have to believe in what I’m teaching,” she says. “I have to live it.”

That conviction grew directly from her experience as a Bennington student. “I put on an opera in addition to my senior concert—just because it seemed like a cool thing to do. I had to recruit singers and an orchestra of cellists, design costumes, build a set, and motivate people to rehearse. That turned out to be the best thing ever; learning the steps to take an idea from ‘I want to do this’ through a final performance.”

Now, she supports that same kind of bold vision in her students. “When students describe their advanced work, I try not to say no. Instead, I ask, ‘What would that take? Who would you need? What would it look like?’”

Kerry Ryer-Parke ’90 outside Commons while attending Bennington

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My career path wasn’t clear to me at any point after college. I had goals that seemed to change by the week, and I dodged endless curveballs. I got knocked around a lot, but each stumble showed me that things come from left field all the time.

They still do. What I want to suggest to you is to keep in mind that the thing you think is a detour might actually be the road to something you will really love. It’s ok if you don’t know what’s next and or what your future will be. If you said you did with complete certainty, I wouldn’t believe you! Embrace uncertainty and be prepared to be surprised by your own life.

Kevin Alter ’85

Ron Cohen (left) with Cyle Metzger ’08

Jeff Curto MFA ’83 studied with Neil Rappaport, a documentary photographer who taught at Bennington for 27 years.

Then, as now, interest in photography was very high, and Rappaport suggested that Curto start a photography club on campus to handle the overflow of students. Neil found space and funding, and Curto designed and built a small darkroom and classroom space in VAPA, wrote a curriculum, reviewed and selected a textbook, and began teaching students who could not take one of the photo courses for credit. Curto attributes his 40-year career as a professor and department chair in photography to that experience and his Bennington experience as a whole.

In 2014, after 30 years teaching, Curto retired from fulltime teaching and now teaches photography one term per year for the University of Georgia’s Studies Abroad program in Cortona, Tuscany, where he lives half the year. Curto was inspired by his experience at Bennington to give back through the Jeff Curto MFA ’83 Fund for Faculty and Curricular Support in Photography announced in 2024.

Ryer-Parke’s heard colleagues say that they try to create a classroom experience they wish they’d had in college. “The focus at Bennington is learning unbound. Faculty members, whether they were educated at Bennington or found Bennington later, are turned on by learning, and they want to help their students find that same passion.” ●

–Excerpt from Bradley University Lavender Graduation Keynote by Cyle Metzger ’08, May 16, 2025

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FEATURES

28 BENNINGTON MAGAZINE Unibeauty and Her Wicked Daughters by playwright and visiting faculty member in drama Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig.

Directed by faculty member in drama Jean Randich. Performed at Bennington College in VAPA Lester Martin Theater.

BENNINGTON’S THEATER TRAINING AND ITS IMPACT

By Rob Silverman Ascher ’19

The performance wing of VAPA is home to the cavernous spaces of Margot Tenney, Lester Martin, Martha Hill, and Greenwall. But it also houses a theater training program that wears its ubiquity on its sleeve. Ranked #3 by The Princeton Review for “Best College Theater,” Bennington’s Drama discipline eschews typical theater education formulas that confine students to just one concentration.

Boasting such alumni as award-winning actors Peter Dinklage ’91, Carol Channing ’42, Twilight Saga screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg ’86, Succession costume designer Michelle Matland ’84, and many more, Bennington’s Drama discipline encourages students to explore broadly.

This sense of experimentation brings bold and diverse work to department stages and launches careers in the worlds of theater, film, television, and literature. The Bennington College education, intensely collaborative and responsive to the world beyond campus, is also a unique incubator for theater artists, one where they can forge original paths and dive deep into the elements of theater that excite them most. This model of inquiry leads Bennington alumni into exciting careers, and it all starts with students advocating for themselves.

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FEATURES

PECULIAR PEOPLE Kirk Jackson, a longtime acting and directing faculty member at Bennington who retired in spring 2025, says the “original ingredients” students bring to the Drama discipline foster a mutually dynamic experience for both faculty members and students. For Jackson, Bennington “is a magnet for peculiar people, [so while] we stress rigor around the basics,” there is no set template for a Bennington Drama student. Citing playwriting faculty member Sherry Kramer, who also retired in the spring, Jackson says the faculty lead with an approach of “here are tools, learn the tools, do what you want with them, [and] maybe break a couple of tools to come up with your own voice.” The key, for Jackson, is that the students have an “invitation to fail or stumble in an interesting way.”

Kaiya Kirk ’20, who now works as the Executive Director at Bennington Theater, affirms, “in opposition to a standard theater program, there is no ‘dramatic focus.’ [Now,] I have a breadth of tools in my toolbox that I wouldn’t have” had she gone to another institution. Bennington’s unique approach means that students can fill that toolbox from multiple angles.

In the traditional sense (at least as traditional as Bennington can be), the experimentation begins with classwork. Abigail Geoghegan ’09, who now works as first assistant costume designer on the Hulu series Only Murders in the Building, cites her work with the late faculty member Danny Michaelson as formative in this sense. “Costume Projects with Danny Michaelson changed my life,” said Geoghegan. The way he structured projects made it easy for Geoghegan to develop a workflow that she carries to her film and television work.

Michaelson’s Light, Movement, and Clothes course, which enrolled both Dance and Design students, was “a cool experience” for Geoghegan, as the course required that students “put [them]selves in another’s shoes” and created a new awareness for designers collaborating with performers.

The devised work of Tenara Calem ’15, a Philadelphiabased self-identified “theatermaker,” proves that Bennington’s encouragement of interdisciplinary study influences an artistic career in unique ways. Associate Director of CAPA and faculty member David Bond’s “transformative” class How to Study a Disaster left a lasting impression on Calem and led her to create a devised performance of the same name. Calem’s piece, conceived in partnership with New Orleans native Jo Kramer in response to Hurricane Katrina, asked “how do communities and governments tell the stories of, make sense of, and memorialize ecological disasters, both natural and man-made?”

Bond’s course’s approach to the subject material sent her down the path of researching how we might put the questions that we ask about disasters and conflicts “into theatrical space.” Bennington’s coursework transcends traditional artistic education when put in conversation with courses outside the arts.

Left to right, top to bottom: Kirk Jackson; Elizabeth Williamson ’99, photo by Lauren-Petracca; Melissa Rosenberg ’86; Kaiya Kirk ’20; Abigail Geoghegan ’09

30 BENNINGTON MAGAZINE

“IT CAN’T BE OVERSTATED HOW MUCH BENNINGTON CONTINUES TO INFLUENCE THE WAY I MOVE THROUGH THE WORLD.”

I was more passionate about the Drama side.” This feedback from her Plan committee allowed her to restructure her Plan to focus on “character in general and the exploration of character,” which she reports has served her work as a designer.

The Plan Process brings students and faculty together on the direction of a student’s coursework, one of many forms of collaboration that most traditional programs don’t offer to their early-career artists.

THE PRODUCTIONS

Tenara Calem ’15

THE THEATER PLAN Calem’s Plan, “The Storytelling of Political Narrative,” made for a unique fusion of her work in Society, Culture, and Thought with Sherry Kramer’s playwriting courses. She recalls that the Plan Process gave her permission to pursue the various streams of her coursework “independently and see what cross-pollination there was,” leading to an overarching question of “how we make sense of the political worlds around us.” Kirk, meanwhile, wrote her Plan in Black studies and “theater in general” as a means of exploring representation in all its forms in the theater world. Geoghegan had set out to write her Plan in Drama and Literature, but she recalls that “when I first presented it, my Plan committee [saw] that

Another avenue of development central to the Bennington Drama experience are the productions presented every term. Faculty-directed productions, on which students work for class credit, are presented alongside less formal student-led productions, which take place in myriad spaces on Bennington’s campus.

Alexander Dodge ’93, who has gone on to work as a set designer on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera, among other places, cites Bennington students’ use of unconventional spaces as an early inspiration. While “VAPA was such an inspirational space, the likes of which I haven’t seen since,” as was “the beautiful Vermont countryside,” a production he worked on of Alan Bowne’s Beirut in the basement of Bingham House is one he remembers fondly. For Dodge, the fact “that it was so student-driven and student-run” set the work of Bennington students “apart from everything else… that was the whole idea of it. You had to be self-motivated.”

Calem recalls acting in an adaptation of Great Expectations directed by Jackson, as part of “one massive ensemble, moving puppets, set pieces, creating the visual world” as particularly exciting for a young Drama student. “At the time, I remember feeling so lucky… to do something that wasn’t living-room theatre,” where students were an integral part of the creative process at all levels.

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FEATURES

THE FACULTY PRACTITIONER Geoghegan affirms how rewarding it was to collaborate with Bennington faculty. which now includes faculty members Maya Cantu (dramaturgy), Michael Giannitti (production management and lighting design), Tilly Grimes (costume design), Dina Janis (acting), Jean Randich (directing), and Sue Rees (set and projection design) and technical instructors Richard MacPike (costume design) and Seancolin Hankins (set design).

Bennington’s teacher-practitioner model requires that faculty members maintain a career in the field in which they specialize. Faculty members’ constant reengagement in the professional world ensures that students work closely with professionals attuned to the real-world applications of work in the theatre, not just grinding at coursework. Working as an undergrad alongside faculty members with extensive professional credits meant she was able “to learn how things function in a professional way.” For a student sorting out where they may end up in the theatrical landscape, Bennington’s teacher-practitioner model means that students can learn from faculty as they work together, not just in the classroom.

For Kirk, the value of Bennington’s teacher-practitioner model is that faculty members “know what the culture of producing is.” As they collaborate, advice for how to make a life in the arts is woven into the process. In Dodge’s view, Bennington’s “all hands on deck, all the time” ethos means that a Bennington Drama student graduates “know[ing] about a lot of things” they can apply to making theater outside of the College.

Elizabeth Williamson ’99, Artistic Director of Geva Theatre in Rochester, New York, forged a path at Bennington that put this ethos into action. Referring to a conversation she had with her advisor, former faculty member Janis Young, Williamson recalls, “I remember, at one point, Janis saying to me, ‘Oh, you’re more a projects person than a roles person.’” Bennington’s project-oriented focus created opportunities for her to pursue academia and led to her work as a dramaturg at prominent regional theaters. “Having to figure out what you need to learn and how to put it all together… was phenomenal training for a career in the theater.” In Williamson’s experience, “you have to make it all up for yourself ” in the professional world.

SELF-DIRECTION Bennington’s self-directed learning approach, where students receive narrative evaluations alongside (or even in place of) grades, also prepares its graduates for the precarious elements of a life in the theater. Maya Macdonald ’07, a New York-based playwright and educator whose play Brunch was produced

Gabby Beans, Dee Hamid, Sarah Baskin in Maya Macdonald’s Three and a Half Anne Franks at Jack in NYC

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Mike Omamo ’24 performing in Sweat, directed by Shawtane Bowen at Bennington, April 2024

insist, “‘no meaning, I don’t want meaning, I just want you to describe it.’

I think about that a lot,” she says, particularly when working to serve the needs of her institution.

FINDING A PLACE

by The Playwrights Realm in 2019, says Bennington’s approach influences her to this day. “Having a space where you’re not reaching for grades,” Macdonald says, means “you know how hard you’re working [and] when to push yourself more. That self-guided view has motivated me in working as an artist.”

According to Macdonald, playwrights continually evaluate their own work, particularly in early developmental stages, before readings or productions. Self-evaluation, Macdonald says, “is so important in staying focused…. The work [is] what you can control. I’m creating things that people may not know they want to see,” and the self-advocacy skills she developed at Bennington serve her work to this day.

Kirk’s time at Bennington College has taught her “how to have a list of one million things due, how to prioritize, not to linger or obsess.” Kirk’s “ability to weigh tasks and be self-sufficient” is crucial in running a small arts institution like Bennington Theater. Even something as boilerplate as applying for grants has brought to mind her Bennington education. She recalls a class, Writing to Describe, that she took with faculty member Dana Reitz as particularly valuable for her administrative work. “She would have you go look at something and write 200 words on it.” Reitz would

Shawtane Bowen, a writer, actor, and improviser who joined the Bennington Drama faculty in fall 2022, has an eye toward keeping Bennington Drama sustainable for the next wave of students.

“How do we make this more holistic and sustainable?” is the big question among faculty at the moment. The theater landscape still hasn’t quite recovered from COVID-related shutdowns in 2020, and the needs of theater artists in training have changed. In Bowen’s eyes, “the discipline is headed towards a more… collaborative, DIY, punk-rock aesthetic in terms of making do with less.” Bowen says that students and faculty alike are asking themselves, “How do we still create something that tells a story and has some type of meaning for the audience?” Citing his colleague Jenny Rohn’s recent Grotowski-inspired production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and his own focus on improv, Bowen believes that Bennington’s mode of theater training is evolving in response to the ever-changing arts landscape. Ultimately, Bowen says, “we’re trying to give everybody an opportunity to… find their place within Drama. That’s one of the beauties of the program.”

Drama at Bennington College is unique because it can’t be pinned down. Every student who steps onto a stage, into a booth, or into a classroom in the theater wing in VAPA brings their own interests, desires, and talents to their work. Geoghegan says working with “a faculty member who is also a professional theater maker is not something that many 19-year-olds get to do. Being treated as an adult and not just a student in those moments” gave her the tools she needed to build a life in the arts. By providing its students with ample collaborative opportunities, Drama at Bennington creates multifaceted artists who graduate ready to create art in their own unique way.

As their paths diverge from Bennington, the value of collaboration and flexibility make themselves clear. Calem says that the “gritty, unapologetic, maximalist attitude in the Bennington ethos” has been a guiding force for her career. “It can’t be overstated how much Bennington continues to influence the way I move through the world.” ●

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FEATURES

1957

1947

1961

“THE

Philip Brown and Polly Swan Brown ’37 with Lyle Craine (husband of Asho Ingersoll Craine ’36)

ORBIT Doriane Woolley McCullough ’37, Kathleen Reilly ’36, Rebecca Stickney ’43, Mr. Clifford Burgess (husband of Mary Steele Burgess ’38), and Beatrice Heath O’Connell Roethke Lushington ’47

Reunion at Bennington 34 BENNINGTON MAGAZINE

1968

IS

Barbara Coffin Norris ’38 entertains at Reunion ’61’s Saturday night party

By CHARLIE NADLER

STRONG” Then & Now

Helen Webster Feeley ’37 and Deborah Rubin Bluestein ’65

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FEATURES

A.D. Van Nostrand, Cynthia Cooke Nyary ’50, and Grace Russel Sharples ’48

President Edward J. Bloustein (1965–1971) addresses alumni

1971

1974

As this fall’s Reunion nears, we took a stroll through our archives to study Bennington Reunions past and chat with three “Reunion frequent flier” alumni about their deep connections to Bennington, what keeps them coming back, and their advice for first-timers.

Balloons became symbols of giving at Reunion Dinner ceremonies

see the College hold celebratory space time and again for its 25th (1957), 50th (1982), and 75th (2007) Anniversaries.

Regardless of the milestone, consistent themes emerge for graduates making these pilgrimages back to Bennington.

AN AMAZING COMMUNITY FEEL DIRECT AND CONTINUOUS CONNECTION FROM OUR EARLY DAYS The first mention of a Bennington Reunion is Alumnae Weekend, April 17–19, 1942, designed to (1) form a graduate and former student organization and (2) inform them of plans for the farm program, summer school, and general reorganization. The agenda included charming activities like a Concert of Student Music and Tea. Since then, Reunion has fostered community connection and external progress. The 1974 Reunion, amidst the fuel crisis, centered on “Re-examination of Educational Values.”

Reunion Chair Wilhelmina Eaton ’49 vowed it would take place, “Even if it becomes necessary to provide charter bus service or to rent bicycles for alumni use.”

Early reunions were featured in esteemed College publications including Bennington College Alumnae Quarterly, College Alumnae Magazine, and the Bennington College Quadrille, and as we look forward to our 2032 centennial, it’s heartening to

For Amanda Spooner Eppers ’92, based in the Boston area, Bennington College isn’t just an alma mater but a second home she returns to with a sense of profound belonging. As Director of Alumni Affairs and Special Events at Brimmer and May School, Eppers understands connection. She’s attended five Bennington Reunions. “It has such an amazing community feel,” she explains. “I just always had an affinity to the campus and the houses. It’s always such a welcome home when you come back to Reunions.”

Rone Shavers ’93, a Salt Lake City-based editor, scholar, and writer, describes Bennington as a consistent convening point. “The orbit is strong,” Shavers affirms, calling classmates “different satellites” still in touch. He’s attended four Reunions, finding each distinct, offering a fresh perspective on campus evolution and enduring connections. This potent mix of curiosity and camaraderie draws him back. “Formulaic is not the Bennington way,” he asserts. Shavers is interested in the College’s development; he notes changes like new housing and the cafe’s transformation from a “little garage.”

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Mary Lynn Hanley ’59, Robert Horrocks ’59, June Allan Carter ’59 (obscured), Becca Stickney ’59, Joan Allen Horrocks ’59, and Jane Vanderploeg Deckoff ’59 plant a Newport plum tree behind the Barn

Three members of the class of 1960 relax during reunion festivities

1985

1989 1990

But more significant are the close College friendships. “Those composing keyboard percussion parts for me to perform, so are your tightest ones,” he says.

I had to develop my playing facility quickly. This ignited my Sarah Tenney ’71, Founder of Marimba Magic Musicianship lifelong passion playing and teaching marimba from 1971 to and based in Wayland, MA, has attended numerous Bennington the present,” Tenney enthusiastically states.

Reunions and also visits the campus at other times too; she has been invited by faculty member in music Michael Wimberly for marimba events. “It’s so easy to be separated from the magic of the incredible energy at Bennington,” she says. Coming back Shavers believes Bennington is “the shepherd of creativity.” to campus, however, allows her to “feel that vibrancy from stu- “It doesn’t need to be like anybody else,” he shares. “It can just dents and other alums.” While she’s drawn back by the Music be itself. You have all these black sheep in a pasture all their discipline in particular, she noted a recent reunion visit where own. That’s part of the magic. You can’t outsource creativity, she learned more about how Bennington is expanding into the and that’s really what it is that makes Bennington thrive. That community and doing research that is of interest to the town. “It brings people back and brings people together.” He playfully totally blew my mind,” she says. concedes it “makes us crazy sometimes and annoyed,” but Tenney embodies Bennington’s transformative power, a ultimately, “That’s the secret sauce.” journey beginning with a surprising pivot. “I came saying I This palpable connection to students and their potential, was going to be a doctor,” she laughs, “but I didn’t like dis- coupled with Bennington’s “open slate of possibilities,” makes secting the cat.” Her path shifted from social science to her each experience special for Tenney. The 2022 Reunion vibrantly true passion: the incredible Music discipline, including Henry articulated this. “A group of us really connected and had meals Brant, Louis Calabro, Vivian Fine, Jack Glick, and Gunnar together,” she recalls, including friends, acquaintances, and new, Schonbeck. Her introduction to percussion was accidental. younger collaborators. The ’70s Breakfast was a standout, Brant simply asked what she played. “Come on down to where about thirty alumni shared life stories. “It was amazing the percussion room,” he urged. At 20, she found xylophone and because every single person had everybody’s total attention,” marimba. “Do a chromatic scale for next week,” he instructed. Tenney marvels. “It was fascinating and inspiring to listen to Two weeks later, she played glockenspiel in the balcony at a all the fantastic things everybody was doing out in the world. faculty concert. “Immediately, Bennington students started Every single person was passionate about what they did. It

THE SECRET SAUCE OF CREATIVITY

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FEATURES

2005

2013

Betty Aberlin ’63 and Isaac Dwyer ’17 view work at the 5x7 exhibition in the Deane Carriage Barn

Carol Rubenstein ’55 (left) and Toby Carr Rafelson ’55 (center) embrace classmates while Irene “Latifah” Ryan Taormina ’55 and Jane Uhler McDonough ’55 look on

Nicole Claro-Quinn ’89 sandwiched between fellow classmates

was amazing and the height of my weekend.” Another highlight was an impromptu musical gathering outside. “We chanted, we moved, it was an incredible impromptu gathering, and included the [now former] dance faculty Barbara Roan,” she says. “It was a very heart-centered, beautiful coming together of all these different people and aspects of the Bennington experience.”

For Eppers, one of her standout creative recollections occurred at an art installation in the Deane Carriage Barn where alumni could create postcards—poems, drawings, multimedia pieces—all available for sale. “It was a wonderful mix of people’s interpretation of the prompt,” she recalls. “I and a bunch of other classmates did them, and we bought each other’s. It was a great idea and fun to get alums involved in that way.” Another time she wandered through VAPA, admiring student artwork, when she was so captivated by a student’s triptych that she bought it.

“I still have it, hung up in my guest room,” she beams.

SPECIAL DELIVERIES, NOSTALGIC CREAKS, AND LEGENDARY MEMORIES Shavers has two essential Bennington rituals: a pilgrimage to “the End of the World” and a walk-through of Canfield,

where he was house chair. He’s also excited to visit The Blue Benn, now owned by alum John Getchell ’86. Shavers is also quick to pay special tribute to beloved Bennington legends we have lost: the late faculty member Bill Scully, “a kid from Chico, CA, who really settled down in the area and transformed the town,” as well as Fran Galvin, a long-serving and beloved Campus Safety officer.

Eppers always savors a trip through the Barn. “The creaking of the steps and the hallways,” she muses, recalling the noise of registering for classes, and passing by specific lit and psych classrooms. “That feeling and the smell is a wonderful memory.” Her reunion isn’t complete without a customary mailroom visit. “I love looking to see what’s in people’s mailboxes!” she chuckles, remembering a jar of pickles in one.

Tenney always visits faculty member Allen Shawn’s Friday classes. “I love hearing him play the student compositions on piano,” she shares, and even recommended one of the student compositions for her school’s Contemporary Music Festival. These chance connections add a unique element to reunion. Tenney also recalls a delightfully unexpected conversation with actor John Boyd ’03. Initially sharing their musical lives, including Boyd’s earlier high school

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2019

2022

2025

THIS YEAR’S ALL-CLASS REUNION: OCTOBER 3-5, 2025 This year’s All-Class Reunion will feature a weekend of connection, creativity, and collaboration. The reunion will kick off with a special presentation of 24-Hour Plays to benefit the Spencer Cox ’90 Scholarship and the Nicky Martin Memorial Scholarship funds.

Sarah Tenney and Michael Wimberly will collaborate on “Minding Rhythms For All,” a creative meditative experience where musicians will be invited to play and others can come to listen, dance, share a poem, or quietly meditate.

Alumni gather for a presentation in the newly completed classroom in the lower level of the Barn

Additional programming includes: marimba playing and his recent songwriting and guitar playing, later in the conversation she discovered his impressive body of work on the TV show FBI. She enjoys watching his incredible performances on FBI, delighted to know that he studied acting at Bennington!

CHILLAXING For first-time attendees, Eppers suggests going to as much as possible. “It’s really important to see where the College has grown,” she explains. “Immerse yourself in what students are doing now, while remembering your own time.”

Tenney advises newbies to breathe in Bennington’s beauty.

“Enjoy the campus, alone or with someone who enhances that experience,” she recommends. She encourages an outgoing spirit. “Connect with other people, perhaps for a meal.” She also finds it crucial to understand and engage in current challenges.

“It’s a chance just to catch up, connect, and reconnect,” says Shavers. “Remember what brought you there, and speak with people you haven’t seen in decades.” His guidance is simple: “Chillax!

Enjoy yourself. Don’t make it bigger than it is.” Then, he brings it full circle and exclaims, “I need to book my ticket for October!” ●

maker activities and • Hands-on workshops with students and alumni fair” and networking session • “Career for alumni and students • Storytelling event • Oral history walk • And much more!

There will be hangout areas for alumni to gather with others from their decade and a town hall conversation about relaunching an alumni association to keep folks connected in between campus reunions.

Registration info and a more detailed schedule is available at bennington.edu/reunion.

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FEATURES

From Beakers to Baking A SWE E T SPIN O N CHE MISTRY AT BE NNI N GTON

By Ashley Brenon Jowett

40 BENNINGTON MAGAZINE

BANANA MOCHA CAKE

A typical chemistry lab smells like a blend of solvents and chemicals—acetone, esters, or carboxylic acids. But at the end of the spring term, the weekly Science Workshop, a forum for recent student and faculty research presentations, took an entirely different approach to Chemistry.

Joyce Church, the housekeeper in the Dickinson Science Building, is famous for sharing her delicious homemade baked goods with the Dickinson community. Together with her treats, Church’s genuine warmth and care for students make the building feel more like home to many students, especially those who are far from home.

“The past four years at Bennington have been hectic, eventful, and full of change—but through it all, Joyce has been a steady presence for me,” said Azlin Altamirano ’25, a Biology student from Tucson, Arizona, who took most of her classes in Dickinson. “While her delicious baked goods are certainly a highlight, what stands out most about Joyce is who she is: resilient, funny, fierce, and full of heart. I always looked forward to our conversations and discovering what she was up to next.”

Church teamed up with faculty member in Chemistry Fortune Ononiwu to reveal the chemical mysteries behind her delectable Banana Mocha Cake, a student favorite. With plenty of good humor peppered in, Church demonstrated how she mixes the recipe and pours it into a pan before slipping it into a small oven brought to the lab for the occasion.

While the cake baked—and spilled its delicious aroma into the capacity crowd—Ononiwu used diagrams of the chemical structures of each ingredient to reveal the interactions happening in the oven. Attendees learned about the effect of sugar on crumb structure and browning, the chemical differences between saturated and unsaturated fats, and the reason the batter bubbled when Church added the vinegar.

“It’s hard to think of anyone at Dickinson who hasn’t been touched by Joyce’s warmth and generosity. She supports students not just with her time and attention, but also with her delicious baked goods, creative trivia, and traditions like the Easter egg hunt, all of which contribute to the unique culture of Dickinson,” said Ononiwu. “This workshop perfectly exemplified what I think of as the Bennington way of education.

Everyone is integral to the learning culture we curate here.”

“I’ll always remember her as someone who made Dickinson feel like home and a cherished part of my life in Vermont,” said Altamirano.

While the chemical reactions behind Church’s Banana Mocha Cake were revealed during the Science Workshop, how it reaches its off-the-charts level of yumminess remains a mystery. ●

Prep Time: 20 minutes Baking Time: 30–35 minutes Serves 15 This recipe is vegan, if you use vegan chocolate chips.

3

Bananas, very ripe

1½ cups

Light brown sugar

1½ cups

Strong brewed coffee, cooled

1 cup

Oil

1 tsp.

Vanilla extract

1 tsp.

Ground cinnamon

1 tsp.

Salt

2 tsp.

Baking soda

2¾ cups All-purpose flour 2 tbs.

Apple cider vinegar

1 cup

Mini chocolate chips

1.

Preheat the oven to 350° F

2. Mash bananas and mix in brown sugar until blended.

3. Add coffee, oil, vanilla, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.

4. Fold in the flour.

5. Add the vinegar, mix to combine, and pour into an ungreased 9" x 13" pan.

6. Top with mini chocolate chips.

7.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. A toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean.

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AT LAST QUICK READS

Class Notes from California

Class notes is one of the most-loved sections of Bennington Magazine. This issue, we kick off the section with notes from California. Look for other geographic areas in future issues or recommend yours by emailing classnotes@bennington.edu.

Louise Reichlin ’63 performs with Louise Reichlin & Dancers

1960–1969 Liz Mamorsky ’60 created new work for her Lizland Open Studio in SoMa this fall in San Francisco, CA. Louise Reichlin ’63 of Louise Reichlin & Dancers/Los Angeles Choreographers & Dancers returned to Culver City with a free program at the Culver City Senior Center in March 2025. ▶ Kristina Baer ’69 published Indian Summer, a collection of short stories, in 2025.

1970–1979 Susan Wolbarst ’71 had her first book of poetry published by Finishing Line Press. It’s Over is a collection of her narrative poetry written over the past two decades.

Michael Pollan ’76 was featured in the Oprah Podcast episode “Can Psychedelics Heal Mental Trauma?”

He also published “High Priests: What Psychedelic Research Means for Organized Religion” in The New Yorker in May.

1980–1989 Jesse Katz ’85’s latest book, The Rent Collectors: Exploitation, Murder, and Redemption in Immigrant LA, received the Los Angeles Times book prize in the current interest category.

Louisiana Channel interviewed Bret Easton Ellis ’86 about his advice for aspiring writers.

Jonathan Lethem ’86 received a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction.

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Julia Prud’homme ’87 relocated from the Pacific Northwest back to Los Angeles. Her film Evergreens was shown at the Seattle International Film Festival.

1990–1999 Jason Lagapa ’91, PhD, published Unimportant Clerks: the New York School Poets and the Culture of Bureaucracy (SUNY Press) in August 2025.

Rachelle Michaud ’99; Photo by Aurélie Tissandier, Eternity Photography

presented at the Norman Bird Sanctuary in Rhode Island.

Trustee Bryn Mooser ’01 and a handful of alumni from across the decades hosted seventy-five alumni at the iconic Mack Sennett Studios on Sunday, May 4. President Laura Walker gave updates on the state of the College, and Shay Totten ’91 shared Reunion plans. ▼ Rick Sander ’92 won a Children’s & Family Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects for PERCY JACKSON and the Olympians and completed work as the VFX Supervisor on Tayler Sheridan’s 1923, Season 2.

Adolescent Content cofounder Ramaa Mosley ’95 P ’24 launched FutureTellers, a free educational program for middle and high school students interested in creative career opportunities.

Good Side of Bad, directed by Alethea Root ’02, is available to stream.

Cosmo Whyte ’05’s solo exhibition, The Mother’s Tongue, Pressed to the Grinding Stone, at the Arts Club of Chicago, was reviewed on Hyperallergic.com.

Nicole Czapinski ’06, CURA Contemporary Communications Director, spoke about opening the new gallery in Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Screenwriter Dylan Meyer ’08 married actress Kristen Stewart.

2010–2019 Hannah Rose ’16 provided storyboards, concepts and creative consulting for the short film Darcine’s Day (2024), directed by Aaron Goffman.

2020–2024 Mollie Hawkins MFA ’23 published a flash nonfiction piece, “Apples,” in Hawai`i Pacific Review.

Diana Ruzova MFA ’23 was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her Brevity essay “The Sauna.”

Marina Fleming ’24 was featured in Vents Magazine. ●

Adnan Iftekhar ’97 coauthored AI Culture Shift.

In Brainz Magazine and the Brainz podcast, therapist Rachelle Michaud ’99 offered her advice on how to heal relationship wounds and avoid the common mistakes couples make. ▲

2000–2009 Asad Ayaz ’00, President of Marketing for Walt Disney Company, was a 2024 Global Marketer of the Year Finalist.

Journalist, illustrator, founder of Wildside Nature Tours, and U.S. ambassador for lens manufacturer ZEISS Catherine Hamilton MFA ’01

Alumni gather at Mack Sennett Studios in LA

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Class Notes 1950–1959 Olivia “Bibi” Pattison Garfield ’51 shared this photo of her and her Leigh House roommate Anne “Chat” Chatfield Slocum ’51 taken around 2018 at Jekyll Island, GA. They are now 96 and still going strong! ▼

Fran Bull ’60 held an open studios celebration at the Hub Co-Works in Rutland, VT, in May. Her new work, In the Tar Pit, was on display.

Wilma Kantrowich Chandler ’60 coauthored the anthology When a Woman Tells the Truth: The Writings and Art of Women Over 80.

Jane Lipman ’60 wrote, “I remember with love and fondness Paul Feeley and Howard Nemerov who were both my faculty members at Bennington. My life was forever changed because of them.”

Ruth Doan MacDougall ’61 published Off Shore, a sequel in the Snowy Series.

Peggy Adler ’63 published “Bearly Polar: Jack Benny’s Powdered Pal, Carmichael,” in White Tops.

Anonymous Was A Woman, founded

by Susan Unterberg ’63, awarded $50,000 grants, including to Bennington College faculty member Jen Liu. Bennington alumni were at American Dance Guild’s Dance Book Fair in March 2025. From left: Rima Faber ’65, former faculty member and alum Wendy Perron ’69, Kathryn Posin ’65 and, seated, Elizabeth Zimmer ’66.

In addition, the podcast Dance Talk with Joanne Carey welcomed Wendy Perron ’69 to talk about Judson Dance Theater. ▼

Susan (Liebman) Butler ’53 is at work on a third book about Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

1960–1969 Myrna Greenstein Blyth ’60 graduated at age 86 from the master of liberal arts program at Johns Hopkins University.

From left: Rima Faber ’65, former faculty member and alum Wendy Perron ’69, Kathryn Posin ’65 and, seated, Elizabeth Zimmer ’66.

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Far left, Elaine Braun-Keller ’73 and Clayton Keller ’73 with their family

Barbara Glasser ’65 is forming a filmmaking cooperative to produce the coming-of-age romantic comedy Son of Houdini.

Janis Birkeland ’66 was featured in Total Prestige magazine for her work on net-positive design.

Victoria Houston ’67 published another in the series of Lew Ferris Mysteries called At the Edge of the Woods in April 2024.

1970–1979 Chris Stahl ’71 released her sci-fi novel EcoRuins: The Arc of Empathy on Amazon. An audio version is available as a podcast series on Spotify.

Kathryn (Kathy) Talalay ’71 published a YA book, Skylark: Flight to Freedom, in January 2025.

Judy DiMaio ’72, former trustee, recently spoke at the Venice Biennale.

Erik Nielsen ’72 celebrated his 75th birthday with a number of performances of his composition, including works for string quartet, jazz-oriented pieces, and a work by the Juno Orchestra in Brattleboro, VT. Clayton Keller ’73 and Elaine Braun-Keller ’73 celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in true Bennington fashion, including a trip down memory lane visiting the College.

Sally Mann ’73 received the lifetime achievement award as part of the 2025 Center for Photography at Woodstock Vision Awards.

Shellen Lubin ’74 directed Carol Lee Campbell’s new play with music Chicks In Heaven at Open Jar Studios in New York City.

Elana Herzog ’76 exhibited at Koffler Arts in Toronto, Canada.

The exhibition surveys Herzog’s 35-year career and features a new site-responsive installation.

Ellen Wiener ’76 collaborated on a limited-edition print honoring former faculty member Ben Belitt.

Kate Bresee ’77, managing director of Dance in the Schools, reported that the organization completed its twenty-eighth year in all Cambridge, MA-area elementary schools.

The department of theatre at College of the Holy Cross sponsored a dance concert by the renowned Caitlin Corbett ’79 Dance Company.

The Charlotte News profiled Dana Hanley ’79 and her career in town planning. She served on the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission.

1980–1989 Vanishing Flora: Fiber Art by Amanda Degener ’81 in North Minneapolis, MN, included art made with her own handcrafted paper and an installation featuring endangered plants.

Susan Grossman ’81 was included in Art on Paper, a group show at Spanierman Modern in New York, from February to April 2025.

Doug Barney ’83 published Fat Guy in Prison (ukiyoto).

Ellen Kanner ’83 released a new cookbook: Miami Vegan: Plant-Based Recipes from the Tropics to Your Table in May 2025.

Matt Chinian ’84 hosted The Streets of Rome!, a show of new paintings completed while in Rome and Naples over Christmas 2024. It opened in January 2025 in Cambridge, NY. ORO Publishers’ Masterpiece Series published Highland Park: Alterstudio, about a residence Kevin Alter ’85

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Michael Chinworth ’08 (center) directs a dance film based on his original score while Liz Zito ’06 (right) films.

and his partners at Alterstudio Architecture designed in Highland Park. In addition, Alterstudio also won two awards for best custom home of more than 3,000 square feet from ARCHITECT’s 2024 Residential Architect Design Awards and two 2025 Residential Design Architecture Awards, including Project of the Year, from Residential Design magazine.

Preservation, Inc., was featured in The Denver Post. It is hosting painter Matt Chinian ’84 in September 2025 for an artist’s residency.

Architect Robert Barnstone ’85, former professor at Washington State University, recently published a book, Making Houston Modern, on his uncle Howard Barnstone’s work, including the Rothko Chapel, with University of Texas Press.

Lucie McKee MFA ’86 published her first book of poetry, Anything and Its Shadow, with Green Writers Press.

She is 92 years old.

Scott Lynch ’85 wrote a restaurant review about I Like Food in Ridgewood, NY, for Hell Gate.

Jeff Crane ’85 shared that the nonprofit organization North London Mill

David McDonald ’86’s new play Chagall In New York ran in May 2025 at the Theater for the New City in New York. McDonald wrote the play and directed the production.

Chess.com Master Holland Mills ’86 qualified for the 49th World Correspondence Chess Championship Semifinals.

Bennington College Trustee Ciaran Cooper ’87 MFA ’04 has joined HeartcoR Solutions, a leading ECG core lab, as CEO.

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Linda Uram ’87 (Kelsang Chenma), a Buddhist nun for more than 20 years, recently became the resident teacher at Kadampa Meditation Center in Phoenix, AZ. Michael Sylvan Robinson ’89 was featured in TXtileZine in April 2025.

1990–1999 Chris Barron ’90 released a new album, Face Full of Cake, with his band the Spin Doctors in April 2025.

Claire Florence ’90, jewelry designer, presented work at a trunk show and made a personal appearance at Marissa Collections in Palm Beach, FL, in April 2025.

Brooks Ashmanskas ’91 played a Broadway director in Smash at the

Imperial Theatre. He was nominated for the 2025 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for the role.

Zachary Goodwin ’94 was named Assistant Vice President of Student Financial Aid at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. Michelle K. Wilson ’94 published a 50-word story with fiftywordstories.com.

Chocolate Factory Theater, cofounded by Brian Rogers ’95 and Sheila Lewandowski ’97, received a $1 million grant to fund the complete redevelopment of its permanent facility in Long Island City.

Curated by Manju Shandler ’95, the exhibition America the Beautiful featured a collection of diverse artists who created thoughtful works that celebrate what it is to be an American today.

Doug Ryan ’96 played Juror #3 in the Bennington Theater’s production of 12 Angry Jurors. David S. DubovFlinn ’84 directed.

Jaime Clarke MFA ’97 staged a 4-day residency at KGB Bar in New York City in April to celebrate his literary projects.

Carleen Zimbalatti ’98 exhibited as a part of Materiality: Memory in Cloth at Canal Gallery in Cambridge, MA from January to May 2025.

2000–2009 Core Dance hosted an Artists Talk with Jeff Arnal MFA ’00, an American percussionist and the Executive Director of Black Mountain

College Museum + Arts Center in Asheville, NC, in December 2024.

Tom Schabarum MFA ’02’s essay, “That’s the Thing with Anger,” was published by MicroLit. Muse Artisan Boutique in Glenmoore, PA, hosted an art opening and reception for Sarah Courtney Tudor ’02’s solo exhibition Primavera.

Shazieh Gorji ’04, owner of Agave Pantry in Tucson, AZ, was highlighted in Tucson Foodie.

Molly Jong-Fast ’04’s book How to Lose Your Mother was listed in “The 25 Most Anticipated Books of 2025” by Oprah Daily.

Rivera Sun ’04 was added to the Americans Who Tell The Truth Portrait Series for her work in writing social justice fiction and training and educating thousands of people in nonviolent action.

Collette (Hill) Ouseley-Moynan ’05, author of Foundational Yoga Flow, published by Human Kinetics, taught at the Telluride Yoga Festival this summer.

Historic Ithaca, a nonprofit historic preservation organization, has appointed Ithaca native Zachary Lifton ’06 as its new executive director.

Michael Chinworth ’08 is working on a dance film based on his original score.

In collaboration with Ava (Heller) Kramer ’07 (movement direction), Liz Zito ’06 (cinematography), Simone Duff ’06 (costume), and Eric Conroe ’08 (set build), they have begun filming.

Annie Schwartz ’08 has accepted a contract at Theater Freiburg in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.

Ross Simonini ’08 released a new album, Themes Vol. 1, which compiles music he has been working on for many years.

Jack El-Hai MFA ’09 published the nonfiction book Face in the Mirror: A Surgeon, a Patient, and the Remarkable Story of the First Face Transplant at Mayo Clinic (Mayo Clinic Press) in May 2025.

Abby Paige MFA ’09 published a new book of plays, Piecework/Travail à la pièce in April from the University of Maine Press.

Alex Sauser-Monnig ’09 was interviewed by Indy Week about Alex, her sophomore album under the name Daughter of Swords on the Psychic Hotline label.

2010–2019 Marilyn Martin Zion MFA ’10 published an essay about grief, gardening, and the loss of forests, “My Father’s Iris,” in Lit Magazine.

Steven Rosenberg MFA ’11, publisher and editor of The Jewish Journal, recounted his visit to Israel as a ceasefire took shape.

Jenny Rae Bailey ’12 is working as a UX Researcher/Designer for Harvard Library.

Jason Moon ’13 and New Hampshire Public Radio produced the new podcast The Final Days of Sgt. Tibbs.

Barrett Warner MFA ’13 published the short story “Trimming” in Otis Nebula.

Denton Loving MFA ’14 is the winner of the first-ever Tennessee Book Award in poetry for his collection, Tamp (Mercer University Press).

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Kate McCann ’14 relocated to St. John’s, Canada, to begin a master’s program in ethnomusicology at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Ryan Albert ’15 was interviewed alongside his Babehoven bandmate for The Times Union.

Dānia Clarke ’15 is a Human Connection Designer and the founder of Building Relationships In Diverse Group Environments, an initiative that fosters meaningful connection through games, workshops, and videography.

Katie Foster ’15 and Pete Fey ’13 celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary. Foster is the Curatorial Coordinator in the Exhibitions Department at Denver Botanic Gardens. Fey is a Library Services Coordinator for Denver Public Schools.

Kelly Marages MFA ’15, April Darcy MFA ’16, and Ann Marie Brzozowski MFA ’16 were the recipients of the Pam Houston Writing x Writers Residency at Big Bend. In addition, Darcy won first place in the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards for fiction for her short story “Elephants on Parade.”

Kelly Sather MFA ’15 published an essay, “Finding My Literary Style (with a Little Help From My Mother),” on Literary Hub. Lauren Brazeal Garza MFA ’16 read at Patchouli Joe’s Books & Indulgences in Denton, TX, in February 2025. She teaches literature and creative writing at The University of Texas at Dallas.

Christian Gilman Whitney MFA ’16 published his novel I Have Never Felt Alive in January 2025 via Atmosphere Press.

Zoe Ilić ’21’s first solo art show, Murmuration, at Gallery MC in New York City

Andrew Barnes MFA ’17 was named president of Pennsylvania College of Art & Design.

“Ava Unfurled,” a short story by Sue Rainsford MFA ’17, was featured on BBC’s Short Works.

In a Vanity Fair exclusive by Vincenzo (Nicholas) Barney ’18, Cormac McCarthy’s secret muse, Augusta Britt, broke her silence about her role as one of the most significant inspirations in literary history.

Tony Lu ’18, a concert pianist, performed during a candlelight concert at Trinity United Methodist Church in Port Townsend, WA, in February 2025.

Lisa Johnson Mitchell MFA ’18’s creative nonfiction book, Hair Brush

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with Fame: My Painfully Awkward Life Amid the Big Wigs, is slated for publication in May 2026 with Finishing Line Press.

Rena J. Mosteirin MFA ’18 published the poem “Last Night California” in New England Review.

Maya Ribault MFA ’18’s poem “Society of Fireflies” was selected for the anthology A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker: 1925–2025 (Knopf ).

David Lerner Schwartz MFA ’18 was selected as a finalist for Nimrod International Journal’s Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction for his short story, “We Can Voyage There.”

Foster Powell ’19 performed with his band Verboten at Bennington College in April 2025.

Stacey Resnikoff MFA ’21 published “Let That Be Your Pill,” a story of a family’s growing political division, in The Museum of Americana: A Literary Review.

Andreea Coscai ’22

Richard Brait MFA ’22’s poem “The Root Cellars of Elliston” placed second in the 2024 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest.

Andreea Coscai ’22 helps podcasters grow their audiences through Tink Media and supports storytellers in reaching new listeners at Earbuds Podcast Collective. ▶ Ariél M. Martinez MFA ’22 interviewed professional dominatrix Brittany Newell about her second novel, Soft Core, for Electric Literature.

Krysia Wazny McClain MFA ’22 published three poems in Bicoastal Review.

2020–2025 Brown conferred honorary degrees at Commencement 2025, including to Suleika Jaouad MFA ’20 and her husband, musician Jon Batiste. She also published The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life.

Kaiya Kirk ’20 was appointed the role of Executive Director at Bennington Theater.

Ahmad Yassir ’20 was named the director of the North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show, a member of the Vermont Humanities grant-giving committee, and to the board of the Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce.

Zoe Ilić ’21 had her first solo art show, Murmuration, at Gallery MC in New York City. ▲

Meg Serino MFA ’22’s novel Annapurna was published in May 2025

by Regalo Press.

Edmée Lepercq MFA ’23 published “The Comforts of Geological Time,” an essay on grief, Bermuda, and tombstones for The Yale Review.

Louise Bokkenheuser MFA ’23 published an article, “Who Gets to Determine Greenland’s Future?” in The New Yorker.

Guillermo Rebollo-Gil MFA ’23 published four sonnets in On the Seawall.

Rachel Greenley MFA ’23 published the essay “Packed Cubicles, Empty Corner Office: Remote Work Is Increasingly a Right of the Rich” in The New York Times.

Kaycie Hall MFA ’23 sold her essay collection Disenchanted to Autofocus

Books. It is slated for publication in fall 2026. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for the essay “Home” in No Tokens Journal.

Jane Stringham MFA ’23 published three translated poems, “Resolutions,” “Don’t Look Now,” and “Witches’ Flight” in the Arkansas International.

Chaya Bhuvaneswar MFA ’24 has been awarded a 2025 Mass Cultural Council grant for Literature for a story collection in progress.

Isobel Lola Brown ’24 is general manager of Cafe Gitane in the Nolita neighborhood of New York City and wrote a book about the cafe’s 30-year history.

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Lulu Wiley ’24’s solo exhibition at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester, VT

Thomas Evans ’24 got a job as a lab technician at a Biophysics lab at MIT. The work he is doing is a partial continuation of research on fruit flies they did during a Field Work Term.

Issam Zineh MFA ’24’s poem “Meditation at the End of December” was selected as The Yale Review’s Poem of the Week. ●

Em Gutierrez ’24 has become part of the case management team at TransSOCIAL, which serves the trans communities in Georgia and Florida. ◀ Nina Peláez MFA ’24 was featured in Brooklyn Poets as their Poet of the Week.

Duncan Whitmire MFA ’24 has published a craft essay, “Persuasion, Camouflage, and Inoculation: Introducing Magical Elements in Fiction,” in CRAFT.

Em Gutierrez ’24

Lulu Wiley ’24 had a solo exhibition at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester, VT. ▲

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Please submit your professional and personal updates to classnotes@bennington.edu.

Faculty & Staff Notes

CHAMP, set by Mark Caserta; Photo by Jim Coleman

J Blackwell ’95 received a 2025 Individual Support Grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation. They were among 20 individuals selected from a group of 865 applications from 58 countries.

David Bond published “Disfigured Commons: Profit and Pollution in the American Empire of Oil” in Social Analysis, a leading journal that highlights global voices around major issues in anthropology.

Mark Caserta set a new work, CHAMP, on Seattle’s contemporary dance company, Whim W’him, in May 2025. ▲

Tilly Grimes has designed four shows: costume design for Shucked UK in London’s Regent’s Park; scenic design for We Live in Cairo at New York Theatre Workshop; costume design, with Gary Gullman, for Grandiloquent at Lucille Lortel in New York City; and costume design for Moliere’s Imaginary Invalid, a slapstick reinterpretation by Redbull in NYC. Next page ▶ Dina Janis directed two projects, new works by David Deblinger and Tomokoh Deblinger, as part of the twenty-fifth annual LAByrinth Theater Barn Series in New York City in February 2025. Janis was appointed the

Co-Artistic Director of the LAByrinth Theater Company in NYC alongside Neil Tyrone Pritchard. Next page ▶ Niall Jones, a faculty member in the BFA Dance Lab, has been named as a Princeton University Arts Fellow for 2025–2027 by the Lewis Center for the Arts and began two years of teaching and community collaboration at the University in September 2025.

Jen Liu’s video “The Land at the Bottom of the Sea” (2023) was included in The Met’s exhibition Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie. The exhibition radically

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Costume design by Tilly Grimes for Shucked UK in London’s Regent’s Park

reimagined the story of European porcelain with works spanning from sixteenth-century Europe to contemporary installations by Asian and Asian American women artists.

Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie coauthored the chapter “Birds” within the Springer Nature book Phenology: An Integrative Environmental Science.

She also attended a meeting of educators, conservation practitioners, and natural history collection curators in the Vermont Collections Network for the Small Collections Research in Biology Education (SCRiBE) workshop in Middlebury in May. Miroslava Prazak was profiled by the Bennington Banner about her 30-year career teaching anthropology at Bennington College. She retired at the end of the spring 2025 term.

Neil Tyrone Pritchard and Dina Janis

Mariam Rahmani was interviewed

by BOMB Magazine, Poets & Writers, LA Times Image, Electric Lit, Lit Hub, Killing the Buddha, Belletrist Briefs, Debutiful.net, Audible, Full-stop.net

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and Vermont Public’s Vermont Edition for her book Liquid: A Love Story, which was published in March.

Kerry Ryer-Parke ’90 completed a 4-year 1,600-hour training from the Balance Arts Center in New York City to be a fully certified teacher of the Alexander Technique. Ryer-Parke was also the Faculty Speaker for Commencement 2025.

The chamber opera H & G—created by composer Allen Shawn, co-librettist and director Jean Randich, set designer Sue Rees, and poet Anna Maria Hong— premiered at Bennington in April 2022.

The work was presented by the Eastman Opera Theater of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester in January and February 2025 and by William Paterson University in April 2025. The score of H & G has been published by American Composers Alliance. ▶ Michael Wimberly was included in the PBS documentary We Want the Funk, a history of funk music and Black liberation of the 1970s, released

in April. Additionally, in January 2025, Wimberly performed in honor of Martin Luther King Day. The performance was presented by the Greater Bennington Peace and Justice Center and was held at the Bennington Theater.

Mark Wunderlich has a new book of poems called MATEY, forthcoming from Graywolf Press. He read as a part of the Katonah Poetry Series at Katonah Village Library in May 2025.

Retired Faculty, Visiting Faculty, and Staff The debut episode of the podcast Of Flightless Doves features a conversation between Ethan Koss-Smith ’21 and Michael Bisio. The episode aired on the release date of Bisio’s Morning Bells Whistle Bright (ESP-Disk).

Berkshire Immigrant Center and Latinas413 to develop arts programming for immigrant mothers in the Berkshires.

Emma Kast published an article, “Disrupting the Production Boundary: From Deservingness to Right,” in the journal New Political Economy. The article critiques how we link economic production value to political accounts of deservingness to wealth.

Lance Richardson, faculty member with the Bennington Writing Seminars, has a new book out October 14, 2025, with Pantheon Books, True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen.

Emeritus faculty member Elizabeth Sherman gave the public Robert H. Woodworth Lecture and a Science Workshop in April 2025 on her research into local and global stressors affecting coral reefs in the Caribbean. ●

Associate Dean of Career Development and Field Work Term John Link contributed to the “Ask the Expert” section of Wallethub’s article about best and worst places to start a career in 2025.

Corinne Rhodes won third place in Wilmington Works’ Make It on Main Street business funding competition.

The prize enabled her to reopen Cherry Press Printmaking at ArtHouse in the town of Wilmington, VT. The chamber opera H & G, cocreated by Allen Shawn, Jean Randich, Sue Rees, and Anna Maria Hong

Kathy Bullock was featured on Vermont Edition’s episode “Black History Month: Black Arts and Culture in Vermont” in February 2025.

Vermont Governor Phil Scott appointed former state senator Brian Campion to fill a seat on the State Board of Education.

Rabbi Michael M. Cohen published “Parashat Miketz: Joseph, the master of ‘provention’”; “Parashat Yitro: Hearing the silence, seeing the sound”; “Trump USAID shutdown could spark global humanitarian crisis”; and other columns in the Jerusalem Post.

Artists at Work (AAW) highlighted Luiza Folegatti’s project, Mothering in Migration, which partners with

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Obituaries

Berte Hirschfield ’60 Activist, philanthropist, mother, and legendary force of nature Berte Hirschfield ’60 passed away on January 27 at her home in Wilson, Wyoming, at the age of 85. A proud Bennington graduate, Berte embodied the College’s spirit of fearless inquiry and purposeful action throughout her life.

After earning her degree in English, Berte forged a dynamic path spanning editing, counseling, nonprofit leadership, and community advocacy. Her work touched countless lives—from restoring historic barns and expanding affordable housing in Jackson Hole to cofounding Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free. Her lifelong commitment to social justice, education, and the arts reflected the very best of the Bennington ethos.

Berte’s legacy also lives on through the many organizations she supported, including Bennington College. Her ability to connect people and make things happen was unmatched.

Berte is survived by her children, grandchildren, and a large extended family.

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Linda Carlene Raper ’76 Harold Hirshorn ’89 Harold Hirshorn ’89, an artist known for his haunting photographs and historical reenactments, died on February 4 while attending an exhibition featuring his work. He was 60. He studied art history and architecture at Bennington, where his lifelong commitment to analog craft and forgotten histories took root.

Working with nineteenth-century techniques like salt printing and homemade pigments, Hirshorn created deeply atmospheric works that blurred the line between past and present. His staged Victorian funerals, fog-drenched landscapes, and intimate portraits conveyed a quiet intensity.

He was a constant presence in New York’s cultural world, often seen at openings, museums, or wandering Central Park.

Friends described him as formal yet playful, encyclopedic in his knowledge, and unshakably devoted to his art. He resisted the commercial art world and focused instead on integrity and inner dialogue. He is survived by his sister Harriet and brothers Barry and Dalton.

Linda Carlene Raper ’76 passed away on January 26 of complications from MS. Diagnosed soon after graduating from Bennington, Raper lived with MS for more than 40 years, but her joy in living propelled her to create, play, and love. A fabric artist, she dyed cloth with a mastery of traditional techniques and her own inventions and jettisoned conventional quilt patterns for her own designs.

Raper’s work was exhibited in the country’s premier show, Quilt National, in 1991 and is featured in the journal Quiltfolk’s Vermont edition (2019). Her commissioned public art hangs at the University of Vermont, Vermont Jazz Center, and other sites. From the early 1980s into the 2000s, Raper took her work to major juried craft shows across the country, and she was a founding member of the Putney Craft Tour.

Besides fabric art, Raper was an accomplished singer in several styles—Renaissance/early music, Balkan folk, Sacred Harp, and an endless repertoire of rounds—and she was a devotee of contradance and English dance. She delighted in children and for many years volunteered at the local public school.

Above all, she was a dear friend to the many people in her life.

She leaves behind her husband Julian Gerstin ’75, stepsons Jesse and Sam, four grandchildren, her brother Jonathan and his family, a large extended family, and two cats. ●

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Give Back to Where It All Began.

As you reflect on the friends made, the lessons learned, the careers launched, remember: it all started here, at Bennington College. It’s where we discovered our voices, challenged the status quo, and built lasting connections.

Bennington’s All-Class Reunion October 3–5, 2025

Today, Bennington’s commitment to open dialogue and academic freedom is more vital now than it has ever been.

Make a meaningful gift to honor your Reunion year at bennington.edu/give

This Reunion, you can help ensure that future generations of students can experience Bennington College—a place of bold ideas, creative exploration, and transformative learning.

Below: Alumni meet at the End of the World for a yoga session during Reunion 2022

Bennington College Reunion 2022

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In Memoriam Phyllis Meili Chernin ’51

Linda S. Liles ’74

Annie Decker MFA ’11

Louise Truesdale Loening ’52

Laura Dunn ’51

Judith E. Makrianes ’52

Edith Keen Farley ’57

Kenneth Mayers, former faculty member

Judy A. Fonseca-Johnson ’92

Pauline Maguire ’53

Gloria Goldfarb Gil ’52, P ’77

Amy Nanni ’82

Berte Hirschfield ’60

Linda Carlene Raper ’76

Harold Hirshorn ’89

Jane Schosberg ’61

Diana Chace Hoyt ’64

Sterling Z. Singletary ’18

Barbara R. Kapp ’61

Mary Elizabeth “Betty” Eaby Taggart ’56

Paula R. Levine ’56

Susan L. White ’67

Katharine Little King ’63

Laura-Lee Whittier Woods ’48

Michael Lamon PB ’10

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Bennington College One College Drive Bennington, VT 05201-6003

Join us for the All-Class Reunion!

October 3–5, 2025 Highlights include 24-Hour Plays, creative meditations, workshops, networking, storytelling, and more. Reconnect with classmates, explore hands-on activities, and help shape the future of alumni connections.

Register now at bennington.edu/reunion

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