Newsmakers

Peter Criswell ’89, the chair of the county legislature for Ulster County, was interviewed by the Hudson Valley One for a piece on the arts scene in Kingston. Interviewing artists from radio coordinators to clowns, the article discusses how the county’s art scene has room to grow. Challenges like rising costs and gentrification contribute to artist displacement, a problem Criswell and others want to solve.

Criswell majored in anthropology and theater at Bard and spent a decade doing live theater. He says that experience made him appreciate how artists have to work on a budget. “I see a lot of what we’re trying to do as being connectors,” he said. “We’d like to try and encourage more arts commissions around the county.”

A new book by Bard alumnus Howard Megdal ’07, about professional basketball player Caitlin Clark, has been reviewed in the Washington Post. In June, Megdal—a longtime follower of women’s basketball and the WNBA—published his book, Becoming Caitlin Clark: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar, which spans 100 years and traces the arc between the revered women who played the wildly popular game of six-on-six basketball in the 1920s and Clark in the 2020s, examining her fame and style of play in the context of her predecessors, while telling the story of the basketball-loving community that rallied behind her in college and beyond. “Megdal sees a transformative figure who arrived after the work of generations of women was starting to bear fruit,” writes Ben Strauss for the Post. “Megdal has been reporting on the WNBA for more than a decade, and his book reflects that.”

Sonita Alizadeh ’23, Bard College alumna and human rights activist, has released a memoir chronicling how she avoided child marriage twice, escaped Afghanistan to pursue her dreams, and evolved into a woman who is changing the world. Born under Taliban rule, Alizadeh faced the threat of child marriage at the ages of 10 and 16, before finding her voice through music. She has since performed on global stages and collaborated with artists and organisations that share her mission, and has addressed world leaders and worked with NGOs such as the UN, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International to push for change. In Sonita: My Fight Against Tyranny and My Escape to Freedom, she shares incredible highlights of her life, like winning the songwriting contest that gave her the opportunity of a lifetime, as well as harrowing chapters, like when the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, and how some of her family escaped while others were left behind.

Bard alumnus Vladimir Nahitchevansky ’15 was featured in the Albany Times-Union which covered his small press, 1080 Press, based in Kingston. Working closely with individual artists, Nahitchevansky has printed works by Richard Hell, Fred Moten, and Bernadette Mayer as well as several Bard alumni/ae. His printings focus on adding human touches, which he describes as “an object rife with error and chance and happy coincidences and mistakes. When you open them, you feel like there was a deep sense of thinking behind each component.”

Nahitchevansky established 1080 Press in 2022 after many years of making printed matter on his own. When he graduated from Bard’s Written Arts program, he worked at small presses throughout New York. He eventually started the print house from his apartment and began mailing out physical, printed newsletters to patrons. ​​He sees this process as what small presses are truly about: “You use the space that you have, you start out printing your friends, then you expand out of that space.”

Bard alumnus Alhassan Susso MAT ’12, was profiled in a piece for the New York Times covering how he is self-funding a teaching prize in Gambia after grant funding from the State Department for it was cut. Born and raised in the Gambia, Susso moved to the United States when he was 16 years old and has become an educator who has won numerous prizes, including a national teacher-of-the-year prize in 2020, for his work. His most recent recognition as one of six winners of the Flag Awards, which recognize teachers in New York City “who inspire learning through creativity, passion and commitment,” came with a $25,000 award. This was coincidentally the same amount that was eliminated from the public diplomacy grant through the US Embassy in Banjul, the Gambian capital, for which he had spent months preparing an application before the website with the grant program disappeared. Susso, who has already spent thousands of dollars of his own retirement to underwrite similar projects supporting teachers in Gambia, told the Times that using his prize money to keep the project going was “a no-brainer.”

Bard Vice President for Strategy and Policy and Chief of Staff Malia Du Mont ’95 was recently appointed by Governor Hochul to the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). Appointed to three-year terms, council members make up the governing body of NYSCA, and, among other responsibilities, vote on or support initiatives which further the state’s policy to stimulate and encourage the study and presentation of the arts for the benefit of NYS’s communities, citizens and visitors.

“New Yorkers deserve to be served by our state’s best and brightest,” Governor Hochul said. “These dedicated public servants are leaders in their fields and have made countless contributions to their local communities. I am confident they will now use their many talents to benefit residents across the state.”