Newsmakers

Deirdre Faughey '00 interviews Bard Prison Initiative director Max Kenner '01, who founded BPI while still an undergraduate at Bard.

in the Bardian

Only 10 playwrights—out of nearly 600—have been accepted into the Public Theater’s prestigious 2013 Emerging Writers Group (EWG), a selective program created to nurture the work of new playwrights. Manuel Borras Oliveras ’08 is one of them. “Being accepted into the program was one of the most satisfying experiences, in terms of being acknowledged for my writing,” says Oliveras, who takes nothing for granted, having come to playwriting via an unconventional route: while incarcerated, as a student in the Bard Prison Initiative.

With EWG, Oliveras has attended writing retreats; participated in “speed-dating sessions” with agents, directors, and actors; and met established playwrights such as Suzan-Lori Parks (Venus; Topdog/Underdog) and David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly). “It’s the environment you want to be in,” says Oliveras. “It’s school for me. I tackle it like I tackled Bard College, soaking up as much knowledge and education as I can.”

Oliveras grew up in the Bronx. Conditions in his neighborhood were harsh. He made it to 11th grade before he dropped out of school. At 17, Oliveras ended up in prison. “My life drastically turned at that point. I did not really know anything about my future, other than the fact that I was going to do a lot of time,” he says.

Awaiting sentencing in the city’s detention center, Oliveras’s head raced. He realized that his only option was to make the most of his time—17 years. Once in prison, he immediately enrolled in a GED class and threw himself into the schoolwork. “I felt like I could redeem myself a little bit, instead of only bringing tears to my mother’s and family’s eyes,” he says. “When I obtained my GED, it felt monumental. I knew then that I wanted to pursue education as far as possible.”

Oliveras began applying to college-in-prison programs. Unfortunately, the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act repealed federal Pell Grant funding for incarcerated students. Within months, New York State’s thriving network of postsecondary correctional higher education programs collapsed. So Oliveras began a journey of voracious independent study through books in prison libraries. “I was reading philosophy, history; I read a lot about my culture. I read Puerto Rican writers: Miguel Piñero and Julia de Burgos. My mind started expanding. I read about Pedro Albizu Campos, Che Guevara, the Black Panthers, and other influential people who had been through struggles like me.” He built friendships with older prisoners who were motivated to make the most of their time—starting and running community and educational programs on the inside.

When he was moved to Sing Sing in Ossining, New York, Oliveras enrolled in a theology program for college credit run by Mercy College. After he completed the program, he had no further opportunities for higher education until being transferred to Woodbourne Correctional Facility. “At Woodbourne, I saw a flyer for the Bard College program [the Bard Prison Initiative]. I immediately signed up. I wrote an entrance essay. Close to 200 guys applied. I thought, ‘Thank God I went through the theology program, because it taught me how to structure an essay.’ My essay got me an interview with Max Kenner ’01 [BPI executive director] and Daniel Karpowitz [BPI director of policy and academics, and lecturer in law and the humanities]. Only 11 of us were chosen. I felt so honored,” says Oliveras. “Bard came in at a time when other programs were leaving. I’m eternally grateful to Bard.”

Oliveras appreciates the quality of his Bard education, especially the focus on exploring ideas through writing. “It opened up my worldview,” he says. “It introduced me to writers like John Dewey, Plato, Shakespeare. I met professors who had written books, and I could sit down and talk to them. At those moments I felt totally free.” He was awarded an associate’s degree in 2006 and a bachelor’s degree in 2008.

During this period, Oliveras found himself taking writing very seriously. He cofounded Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) at Woodbourne, a program that uses theater as a transformative tool, and applied what he was learning at Bard to his drama projects. “I kept reading plays and seeing what others had done,” he remembers. “I mimicked what they wrote, then I eventually started telling my own unique story.” He was the lead writer for Starting Over, a group-written play that was performed at Woodbourne and Sing Sing, and is being turned into a film as well as slated for production in New York City. Through RTA, Oliveras met Arin Arbus, associate artistic director of Theater for a New Audience in New York City. She read his work and encouraged him to submit it to theaters on the outside. Arbus showed a writing sample—“Dear Friend,” which is a letter to a man being incarcerated for the first time—to Mark Plesent, producing artistic director of the Working Theater in New York City; based on that, Plesent commissioned Oliveras’s full-length play, Song to a Child Like Me. The play’s first public reading, attended by his sister and other family members, was held at the Working Theater while Oliveras was still on the inside.

In September 2010, Oliveras was released. Balancing a full-time job as a housing advocate for Common Ground (a nonprofit dedicated to ending homelessness in New York City), he still writes every day. “In prison, I led a monastic life fully immersed in writing and studies. Out here, I need to work, pay bills, cook,” he says. “I had to relearn all this. It takes time. But I separate at least two hours a day to write. Never neglect your writing, or the work suffers.”

EWG provides playwrights with a stipend, master classes with established playwrights, a biweekly writers’ group led by members of the Public’s Literary Department, opportunities to attend rehearsals and productions at the Public, tickets to shows at other theaters, artistic and professional support, and at least one public reading of their work. Oliveras marvels at meeting with playwrights he once read in A-block. He’s aiming for a full production of one of his plays, and hopes to be able to write full time. “It takes a lot of courage sometimes, using what I’ve learned,” he says emphatically. “There were moments that were really tough. The change wasn’t overnight. It took a lot of things. I had to grow up to be a man in prison."

Read the spring 2013 issue of the Bardian:

Since graduating from the Bard Prison Initiative, the writing career of Manuel Borras Oliveras ’08 has blossomed. He has been accepted to the Public Theater's prestigious 2013 Emerging Writers Group, a selective program created to nurture the work of new playwrights. Of his Bard education behind bars, Oliveras says, “It opened up my worldview. It introduced me to writers like John Dewey, Plato, Shakespeare. I met professors who had written books, and I could sit down and talk to them. At those moments I felt totally free.”

Mentored by CCS Bard director Tom Eccles, Gabi Ngcobo M.A. '10 has become the first curatorial fellow of POOL, a new, Zurich-based program to develop and encourage emerging curatorial talent. She will curate their first exhibit this summer.

Diplomat, lawyer, and writer Ronan Farrow '04 examines the Benghazi hearings. "Congress isn't just wasting America's time—it's squandering a chance to save lives in the future."

Depending on one’s viewpoint, it would seem either incongruous or quite likely that twins would study the same subjects at the same college. But for Alina and Janeta Marinova ’06, a double major in economics and mathematics at Bard was simply something both of them wanted to pursue. Here, they talk about their time at Bard and where their careers have taken them since then.

Fashion photographer, designer, and Bard alumnus Tapu Javeri speaks with Pakistan's Friday Times about national style, working with models under water, and photographing Aung San Suu Kyi.

Macalester College professor and Bard alumna Karen Saxe '82 has been named a Congressional fellow of the American Mathematical Society and elected as second vice president of the Mathematics Association of America.

The Bard SummerScape festival opens on Saturday, July 6 at 8pm, with A Rite, a major new dance-theater piece by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and SITI Company. Co-commissioned by SummerScape and created by Bill T. Jones and Anne Bogart '74, two titans of American performing arts, A Rite commemorates the centenary of Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring and its notorious, game-changing Paris premiere.

A playground where Adam Yauch '86 played as a child has been renamed in his honor. The Beastie Boys member known as MCA died last year after a battle with cancer.

The New York Times praised Julia Bullock's "rosy, agile voice" as Vixen in a production of "The Cunning Little Vixen" at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater in New York City.

New York–based artist John Jurayj's exhibition What's Left is on view at the Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles through May 25.

Valerie Doescher '11 was an all-star activist for global human rights while a student at Bard. She is the recipient of the Cooky Heiferman Signet Award and the Clinton R. and Harriette M. Jones Award from the College. These days her work continues as a programs associate at the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.

Alumnus and ICP-Bard faculty member Joshua Lutz '97, MFA '05 (ICP) blends fact and fiction in his new photography book and solo show Hesitating Beauty.

Photographer and Bard alumnus Paul Salveson '06 has won the National Media Museum's 2013 First Book Award for his collection Between the Shell.

Alexis Gambis '03 will be shooting key scenes for his film The Fly Room at Bard in June. Gambis is seeking extras and actors for speaking roles. Auditions will be held on April 25 and 26.

Four Bard alumni/ae have been recognized by the Fulbright Commission and the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) for the 2013–2014 award year. Matthew Christian '11 (Simons Rock '07) has won a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Senegal. Amith Gupta '12 and Amber Winick BGC '12 have been named as alternates for research awards to Jordan and Hungary, respectively. Bardian Ada Petiwala '12 has won a language fellowship from CASA for the 2013–2014 academic year. She will spend the year in Cairo, where she will hone her language skills and continue her study of Middle Eastern politics and culture.

Bard alumnus Nsikan Akpan '06 made the jump from biomedical research to science journalism, and gives advice to his fellow science writers on how to do the same.

Miss Lovely, a film directed by Ashim Ahluwalia '95, won the award for best feature at Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.

Two graduates of the Bard MFA program, Carrie Moyer MFA '02 in Painting and Chris Sollars MFA '07 in Sculpture, have been announced as 2013 Guggenheim Fellows.

In a career spanning five decades, Bard alumnus Steve Schapiro '55 has made his mark as a celebrity and documentary photographer, particularly known for his many iconic portraits of musicians, actors, and artists in the 1960s and 1970s.

Bard alumnus Richard Frank '74 is a Harvard economics professor and adviser to President Obama on healthcare reform.

The celebration on April 14 will include an open house with chamber music performances, followed by a celebration in the performance hall at 4 p.m., with Conservatory director Robert Martin; musical performances by students of the Conservatory and Bard’s Music Program; a reading by acclaimed poet Robert Kelly, Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature; and remarks by László Z. Bitó ’60 and Bard College president Leon Botstein.

Elyse Foladare '12 got involved in AmeriCorps while studying at Bard. These days she's working with the organization as a watershed ambassador, taking care of the habitat in her native New Jersey.

Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Arthur Aviles '87 reprises the role created for him 25 years ago, performing D-Man in the Waters on March 30 and April 5 at the Joyce Theater in New York City.

Lindsey Shute CEP '07 participated in a recent Tedx Manhattan talk titled "Changing the Way We Eat," in which she talks about farming as a career path for young people. (Her segment begins at minute 26.)

Bard alumna and Oberlin professor Julia Christensen '00 has received a prestigious Creative Capital grant to build DIY video projectors out of reclaimed electronic waste.

Bard College and Simon's Rock alumnus Ronan Farrow has been awarded a 21st Century Leadership Award from the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.

Hesitating Beauty, a new book of photography by Joshua Lutz '97, MFA '05 (ICP), is a meditation on his mother's mental illness. His work will be on display at New York’s ClampArt Gallery from April 11th to May 18th.

Roberta Smith for the New York Times calls the paintings of recent Bard graduate Lucy Dodd MFA '12 "as wry as they are beautiful."

Alexis Gambis '03 has crafted a career at the intersection of science and film, launching a film festival, pursuing advanced degrees in molecular biology and film, and making movies that tell a different story about scientists.

The Da Capo Chamber Players present a program of chamber works in their annual “Celebrate Bard!” concert, on Monday, March 11, at 8 p.m. at the new László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building. “Da Capo’s annual ‘Celebrate Bard’ concert features faculty composers, other composers from the area, Bard alumni, and current students. It is thus a celebration of the creativity, imagination, continuing influence and vitality of the Bard Music Program,” says flutist and Da Capo member Patricia Spencer.

John Kisch '76 has been collecting visual artifacts of African American cinema for decades. Now his collection is available to museums, as a coffee table book, and as an iPad app.

On Tuesday, February 19, Bard College will host a talk and discussion with Salim B. “Sandy” Lewis, a Wall Street leader, founder of his firm, who now, with his wife, is the owner and operator of Lewis Family Farm in Essex, New York, a beef farm with a unique USDA certificate in grass. Lewis will explore “Why Fixing Wall Street and the Economy is Critical to the World” in a discussion with Matt Taibbi ’92, the renowned political and financial columnist for Rolling Stone.

Bard Prison Initiative graduate José Pérez received his associate's degree from Bard in January, and got married on Valentine's Day, but he's still behind bars. He doesn't come up for parole for seven years, but he and his wife are planning for the future.

Bard alumna Susan Lowenstein Kitchell '48 will receive a "Standing on Her Shoulders Award" from the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts for her work in reproductive rights.

Sung Jin Hong '03 creates and directs One World Symphony's Baroque[n] Hearts, which also features Bard alumna Eva Sun '09.

BuzzFeed offers "23 Reasons Why Ronan Farrow Is Cooler Than You."

A new partnership between Bard's Center for Civic Engagement and regional schools has Bard students offering homework help and mentoring to local students.

Devotees of American Public Media’s Marketplace will be pleased to know that the show’s Africa correspondent is Bard’s very own Gretchen Wilson ’97. During the last eight years, Wilson has established herself as a political reporter who tackles serious labor, economic, and social justice issues.

Millions around the world consider basic water and sewerage systems a far-off luxury. Fortunately, people such as Christophe Chung ’06, a water supply and sanitation consultant at the World Bank, are helping to bring the life-sustaining liquid to some of the world’s most water-scarce places, North Africa and the Middle East.

In the Bardian

Few of us truly appreciate how our most essential element—water—makes its way from the source, through plumbing, and out a tap. In fact, millions around the world consider basic water and sewerage systems a far-off luxury. Fortunately, people such as Christophe Chung ’06, a water supply and sanitation consultant at the World Bank, are helping to bring the life-sustaining liquid to some of the world’s most water-scarce places, North Africa and the Middle East.

The World Bank lends money for capital projects, provides infrastructure-planning expertise, and collaborates with public agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and private firms to initiate projects in many developing countries. Chung is an urban water specialist working on teams that aim to upgrade and expand water infrastructure in Beirut, improve basic service delivery in slum areas of Cairo, and help implement pollution control programs in Lebanon and Egypt. He also works on a capacity-building project based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, which trains public officials to better manage water resources. “I do believe the work is needed, especially now with so many transitions in the region,” says Chung. “But while I’ve developed a real love for infrastructure and utility management, I’ve come to realize that talking about it
may not be the best pick-up line to use.”

Bringing water and sewerage systems to poor urban and rural communities is critical to economic progress and social stability. Chung points out that contaminated water is the leading cause of cholera, dysentery, and typhoid—diseases that contribute to high infant and child mortality rates in some African nations. Illness decreases worker productivity, prevents children from attending school, and increases medical expenses for families already living on meager incomes. In addition, no industrial or agricultural product can be made or grown, packaged, and distributed without ample, sanitary water. Put simply, clean water saves lives.

Chung helps with the planning and preparation necessary for getting these complex projects off the ground. Says Chung, “The World Bank requires that all proposed projects go through an extensive review to ensure that the project is beneficial, realistic, and self-sustaining by the time the bank’s involvement is complete. We also make sure that social and environmental safeguards are taken into account so that the project doesn’t have an adverse impact on people and the environment. We consult with local governments and stakeholders, NGOs, community leaders, and universities to ensure that those affected by and benefiting from the project are taken into account in our project design and implementation. Also, at a very macro level, we have to evaluate the country’s existing capacity, finances and budgeting, and its ability to maintain or operate the system after it’s built.”

Chung’s interest in addressing the challenges faced by residents of the Middle East began while he was a political studies major at Bard. However, it was an art history course about war and architecture that took his political thinking in a different direction. He says, “I was initially concerned with the broader question of how peace could be brought about through political system reform, but then I came to believe that stability is also contingent upon basic considerations, like how people of different ethnicities and religions interact with each other in their day-to-day lives. That led me to examine the role of public space in postwar stability and redevelopment, which drew me to explore the political dimensions of urban planning and architecture.”

When he was a senior, Chung won a Watson Fellowship, which provides college graduates with a $25,000 stipend for international travel and independent study. Fellows are chosen from among the nation’s leading colleges and universities. Recipients stay abroad for 12 months and delve deeply into a particular issue or project. Chung traveled to rural communities in Peru, Bolivia, Vietnam, and India, where he studied terrace farms—multileveled fields built into mountains and hills and supported by various types of retaining walls.

Terraced fields reduce erosion and water runoff, making them more water efficient. Chung became particularly interested in how traditional farming techniques can be used to adapt to climate change and water scarcity. He also documented how rural residents maintain their agricultural livelihoods in the face of political difficulties, globalized food markets, and the constant pull of the city. “Rural farmers continually wrestle with the idea of leaving the farming life and moving to the city. This tension got me interested in urban migration and growth.”

Returning to the United States, Chung worked as a program assistant in New York City for the UN Development Programme’s Equator Initiative and enrolled in the master’s program in urban planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2009. “Going from Bard to MIT seemed to fit,” he says. “What I appreciated at both places were the small classes, discussion-based learning, and emphasis on innovation and critical thinking.” In his master’s program, Chung became deeply interested in studying water and sanitation infrastructure. He spent the summer of 2010 in Ethiopia working for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees; he conducted water-quality assessments in four refugee camps, where many children suffered from water-borne diseases. The very existence of the camps—their size and the relative spontaneity with which they appear—is exactly the type of social problem that urban planners hope to deter. Wrote Chung in his blog from Ethiopia: “The fact that a settlement of thousands—a virtual city—can form in the middle of nowhere, and a small office of individuals is made responsible for all aspects of the refugees’ lives, is challenging, to say the least.”

Chung has been working at the World Bank for more than a year, and he plans on staying put. “I like Washington, D.C.,” he says. “After traveling so much, I’m happy to be settled. I’ve even started buying stuff for myself. Like furniture.”

Read the fall 2012 issue of the Bardian: