Newsmakers

After earning degrees from Bard and New York Theological Seminary and enrolling at Yale, George Chocos shared his story recently as part of Senate and House briefings with faith leaders.

Janet Echelman MFA '98 creates aerial sculptures out of high-tech fibers used in NASA spacesuits. Her work has been commissioned for the inaugural exhibition at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Center for Civic Engagement Senior Fellow Jonathan Cristol discusses revisions to the UNSC within the current structure.

After spending his last two years taking college classes at BHSEC Manhattan, Conrad Taylor transferred to Binghamton University and got elected to City Council.

On Thursday, November 12, the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College brought 48 students to the nation's capital for Bard Works D.C. This career development event featured Bard alumni/ae presenting on their work in the D.C. area, with opportunities for students to ask questions and connect with leaders in politics, government, the nonprofit and private sectors, and the arts. The Bard Works D.C. schedule included a reception on Thursday evening with Bard alumni/ae, parents, and friends, and a day of panels on Friday. Bard Works 2016, a weeklong professional development event for Bard juniors and seniors, will take place January 24–29 in Annandale.

Governor Andrew Cuomo welcomed 80 additional educators to the Master Teacher Program this fall, including Bard MAT alumna and Red Hook Central School District science teacher Amanda Stoddard MAT '08. These outstanding teachers have been recognized for their dedication to providing the most innovative STEM education to their students, their commitment to professional growth, and their enthusiasm for sharing their successful practices with colleagues in their schools and districts. Stoddard joins fellow Bard MAT alumni/ae master teachers Kate Belin '05, Colleen Bucci '08, and Beth Goldberg '06.

Los Angeles–based photographer and Bard alumnus Skyler Dahan talks about how a class with Bard Professor Tim Davis got him out of his comfort zone.

For the first time, the Museum of Modern Art and the Performa art biennial have co-commissioned a work: There Are Certain Facts That Cannot Be Disputed, by Bard alumna Juliana Huxtable.

Washington State native and Bard alumna Jenny Riffle answered curator Stuart Pilkington's call for landscape photography in one's own back yard with Snoqualmie Evergreens.

Seven of the 10 recipients of the 2015 Anonymous Was A Woman Award have Bard College affiliations, including faculty members, visiting artists, artists in residence, and alumnae. Anonymous Was A Woman is an unrestricted grant of $25,000 that enables women artists, over 40 years of age and at a significant juncture in their lives or careers, to continue to grow and pursue their work. The award is given in recognition of an artist's accomplishments, artistic growth, and the quality of her work. The Bard-affiliated 2015 winners are: Wendy Ewald, former Bard MFA visiting artist; Rachel Harrison, Bard MFA faculty member and former visiting artist; Pam Lins, Bard MFA faculty member; Jennifer Montgomery, former Bard MFA faculty and Bard MFA ’94 alumna; Dona Nelson, Bard MFA faculty member; Lisa Sanditz, visiting assistant professor of studio arts at Bard College; Julianne Swartz, artist in residence in studio arts at Bard College and Bard MFA ‘02 alumna. More about the award

Last week Gettinger and Holland Michel participated in a two-day war game designed to explore the different ways that drones could be used for tactical and strategic effect in a conflict.

"Focusing on diverse topics ... Siegel’s increasingly elegant and astute works dive deep into her subjects but never explain them," writes Steel Stillman.

Bard alumna and deaf artist Christine Sun Kim received her MFA in Music/Sound from Bard. Her installations highlight the conceptual aspects of sound and engage both deaf and hearing participants.

Visitors came from around the country to visit Annandale October 23 – 25 for Family and Alumni/ae Fall Weekend. The three-day schedule included a host of activities, from canoeing on Tivoli Bays to the Fisher Center debut of The Orchestra Now, Bard's new training orchestra and master's degree program. Participants attended sample classes in every division, shared the annual Fall Harvest Lunch and many other meals, enjoyed a farmer's market and student art sale, student and alumni/ae athletic events, and behind-the-scenes tours of favorite places on campus.

J. p. Lawrence '14 interviews Bard biologist Felicia Keesing and other experts about the potential increase in the number of rodents and ticks brought about by a local abundance of acorns.

Mark O'Connell writes about how Simon's Rock Dean Leslie Davidson gave him the support he needed as a struggling, young gay man.

"Austrian and Curato turn the simple wedding of two worms into a three-ring circus that slyly turns the whole controversy over same-sex versus heterosexual marriage on its head."

Eden, one of the first graduates of Bard's Center for Curatorial Studies, talks about her new role leading Houston nonprofit, multidisciplinary art center DiverseWorks.

Fite transformed a 6.5-acre abandoned stone quarry in Saugerties, New York, into a monumental sculpture park. Now visitors can stay overnight in Fite's own house.

Jim Toia captures nature in his work, creating art from preserved spider webs. An exhibition of his work is now on view at the New Jersey State Museum.

Jonathan Cristol '00 talks with Anna Maria Tremonti and Michelle Fanzo about the impact of the permanent member nations on the UNSC.

Tirzah Brott's Senior Project gets some media attention and she lands a job as an assistant photo editor at New York magazine with the help of fellow alumna Roxanne Behr '10.

After speaking at Bard on September 28 about her memoir, Suffering the Silence, which started as her Senior Project, Cashel appeared on Good Day New York on Fox 5.

"Adam Conover’s new television series isn’t the first dedicated to the fine art of debunking, but it’s one of the most entertaining."

Jonathan Cristol, Bard alumnus and senior fellow at the Center for Civic Engagement, answers an intriguing question from the application for the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program.

Daniszewski and Lazar are tutors in the New Generation Academy, an intensive one-year college preparatory program, at Bard partner American University of Central Asia.

Fennelly talks about working with Maryanne Amacher and David Behrman as a student in the Bard MFA program.

On Monday, September 28, Bard alumna Allie Cashel ’13 will read from a memoir of her experience with chronic Lyme disease, Suffering the Silence: Chronic Lyme Disease in an Age of Denial. The reading is presented by the Written Arts and Biology Programs. A living portrait of chronic Lyme disease and its patients’ struggles for recognition and treatment, Suffering the Silence, originally Allie Cashel’s Senior Project, is now a full-length memoir that details Cashel’s own experience with chronic Lyme and shares the stories of a number of other patients from around the world. Introduced by Mary Caponegro ’78, Bard literature professor, and followed by a Q&A, this event takes place at 7:30 p.m. in Weis Cinema in the Bertelsmann Campus Center.

"I suspect the timeline for Assad to go will keep getting pushed into the future," says Jonathan Cristol, Bard alumnus and senior fellow at the Center for Civic Engagement.

Emmy-winning actress Blythe Danner '65 has built a remarkable resume of stage and screen roles, but Brett Haley's I'll See You in My Dreams will be her first lead part in a film.

Benjamin Barron '15, who cofounded the new fashion and culture publication ALL-IN with fellow alum Allison Littrell '14, tells us why he's not crazy and why print is more important than ever.

Eccles and Katrib's selection of works by eight artists uses smartphones, billboards, and sculpture to challenge the meaning of public space.

"A growing influencer in wood work, Sam Horowitz, showcases his intimate relationship with natural materials to reconstruct and influence our environments," writes Meg Busacca.

The 2008 grad has moved up fast, and "distinguished himself as a fearless reporter on all things media."

Back in high school, when Betsaida Alcantara was considering college applications, her counselor told her Bard was “too out of reach.” But she applied anyway, and got accepted. Recently, a friend joked that when Alcantara, director of media planning for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, was traveling on Air Force One earlier this year, she should have called that counselor from the plane.

Back in high school, when Betsaida Alcantara was considering college applications, her counselor told her Bard was “too out of reach.” But she applied anyway, and got accepted. Recently, a friend joked that when Alcantara, director of media planning for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, was traveling on Air Force One earlier this year, she should have called that counselor from the plane. The anecdote was well received by her audience of Clemente Course in the Humanities graduates, to whom she gave this year’s commencement address.

Alcantara, 31, has come a long way since arriving in the United States at age 10 with her parents, neither of whom spoke English, from the Dominican Republic. From involvement in community outreach, she went on to join the press teams for Senators Robert Menendez and Charles Schumer, and the Obama presidential campaign; high-level communications positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), General Services Administration (GSA), and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); and now, handling communications for a presidential candidate. She credits her remarkable rise to a combination of openness, a hunger for knowledge, good mentoring, and her Bard education. “It’s been an incredible journey and I still haven’t processed it all,” she says. “Bard taught me how to think critically, write, and be creative—three important skills for a successful career in media, politics, and communications.”

She says leaving HUD was not an easy decision. “Secretary Julián Castro is a rising star in the Democratic Party,” she says. “I went to HUD because I wanted to get back to a mission, and you can’t find a more fundamental mission than having a roof over your head.” Castro (touted as a possible running mate to Clinton) had just arrived in Washington from being mayor of San Antonio, and Alcantara wanted to help him acclimatize. But less than a year into the job, the Clinton office called her. “They saw my work at EPA, GSA, and HUD and thought I was a very creative communicator. I was flattered and torn.” She listed pros and cons: The pros—“I’m young, I don’t have children, I should do it while I can”—won.

Betsaida Alcantara HUD Photography

Alcantara has always been a community and political activist. Her father is a labor organizer who mobilized migrant farmworkers in New York State 20 years ago, and started one of the first migrant labor organizations. She chose Bard because of its political activism. “I remember U.S. News & World Report ranked Bard near the top for political activism. I knew people from Bard who were involved with migrant farm work advocacy, so it was a natural connection.”

She studied political science with Omar Encarnación, professor of political studies, as Senior Project adviser. After graduating, she worked for the Worker Justice Center of New York. When Bard’s Career Development Office called and suggested she apply for a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Public Policy Fellowship in Washington D.C., she went for it, and within months, was working for both Menendez, one of the few Hispanic senators in Congress, and Schumer as a policy fellow. It was doubly gratifying that the senators were fighting for the immigration reform bill, one of her core interests. “Our family came to this country legally, but I saw the struggle of undocumented people.

In 2008, she joined the Obama campaign as deputy press secretary in Florida and bilingual spokesperson. She describes it as “communications boot camp. But I was young and hungry to learn. And I learned that elections matter.”

The following year she became deputy press secretary for the EPA, dealing with such issues as 2010’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill. “The EPA is one of the most vilified agencies, so from a communications standpoint it was extremely challenging, but also incredibly rewarding,” she says. She was promoted to press secretary, and worked on climate change, the first national program for fuel-economy standards for vehicles, and greenhouse gas emissions. “These were proposals that could change the course of a country, and that to me was incredibly exciting.” The position also offered her first crossover role, in which she was addressing the general population as well as the Hispanic audience. One task was to get out public health and environmental messages and engage more people. So she arranged for EPA Director Lisa Jackson, the first African American to head that agency, to appear in Oprah Magazine and on The Dr. Oz Show, appealing directly to moms.

In 2012, she accepted the position of communications director at GSA. It was a controversial time: the organization was embroiled in scandal following high-level firings over misspent taxpayer dollars. Friends questioned her choice. But, she points out, “We had a mandate from the president saying, ‘You are the new leadership of GSA, turn the ship around.’” It was her first management role. She was in charge of 100 people, with an annual budget of around $10 million. And she started by arranging a series of high profile interviews for the GSA director, such as with CNN and the New York Times.

To expand her career options, she applied for a six-month President’s Leadership Workshop at the White House. She was one of only 20 accepted out of thousands. As soon as she heard Castro was moving to HUD, she told the White House she wanted to be his communications director. “Two days later I was in his office talking to him. That’s how quickly it moved.” Alcantara says she had a great time at HUD, and planned to stay longer, until the Clinton campaign came calling.

For Clinton, she’s working on strategic planning, centered on the candidate herself, organizing interviews and media events. “There’s so much noise out there it’s hard to get the message out,” she says. “How do you let people know about her criminal justice reform initiative? Or that she's proposing a huge college assistance program? It’s a tough job, but I like challenges and I want to make sure Hillary wins.”

Photo: Bard alumna Betsaida Alcantara in conversation with President Obama. Credit: Photo by Pete Souza
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Bardians at Work,Politics and International Affairs | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Center for Civic Engagement |