Message from the President

Dear <<First Name>>,

The faces of LLI are all around this month! Getting together in person has become so much more meaningful and lovely, and I hope you will attend some of our many upcoming courses and events. Please note the details in this newsletter and sign up when you can. Also, read about our recent events, including the Dean Stuart Stritzler-Levine Seniors-to-Seniors Scholarships Presentation and Tea held on April 22. Wow!

This year’s Annual Meeting will be held in Olin Hall on Friday, May 13. We need your response right now, so that we can finalize catering plans for the light brunch we’ll serve just before the meeting. Use the link in the email that you received from the LLI Council to let us know whether or not you will attend. Please join fellow members to say thanks, to review this past year, and, hopefully, to approve the budget for the year ahead. 

Many of us have enjoyed the thought-provoking history courses that Robert Beaury has taught at Bard LLI. At our Annual Meeting, he’ll speak about our future, as he prepares to become LLI President on July 1. Come to greet him and the newly-elected Council members.

Also, watch for the Annual Member Survey which will be sent to you on Monday, May 16. Each survey question was carefully considered by those responsible for LLI’s current and long-range planning. Your voice truly matters, so please respond.

June will bring our SummerFest, and, this year, non-members can register to attend these LLI courses for a small fee. Read more in this issue, and note that registration opens in ProClass for everyone on May 20, first come, first served. We will continue to require proof of full vaccination/booster for all in-person courses and events. Please remember to wear your LLI name tag!

The 2022-23 LLI membership renewal and application period will be June 1 - 21. I sincerely hope that you will renew your membership and urge others who are interested to submit the simple ProClass application. LLI welcomes applicants from all backgrounds, and limited confidential scholarship help is available.

Spread the word that LLI is a labor of love for learning. Pretty great, isn’t it?

Yours,
Nanci 
president@lli.bard.edu

Election Results

by Linda Stanley

Bard LLI has once again successfully elected officers and members at large, who will guide us over the next two years. Two hundred and twenty-three members voted, which may be our best turnout. Robert Beaury was elected President, Mary McClellan was elected first vice president, Jerry Brockett was elected treasurer, and Kayla Bell and Michael Weinstock were elected as members at large. They will take office on July 1, 2022, the beginning of our fiscal year.

Bard LLI has met the challenge of another demanding year with amazing resilience. Thank you to our dedicated group of volunteers, including our officers, committee and team chairs and members, presenters, class and session managers, producers, and all those who got us on Zoom and also managed to get us back on campus for classes for the spring semester. And our new officers are dedicated to keeping us moving forward with online, hybrid, and in-person classes.

Linda Stanley, chair of the Nominations and Election Team, wants to thank the committee members for all their hard work from December 2021 to March 2022: Barbara Burns, Carol Goss, John Mathews, Chuck Mishaan, Marge Moran, and Navin Sharma. A great group to work with!

An Invitation to the Annual Meeting

by Deborah Lanser

Please join other LLI members at our annual meeting in Olin on Friday, May 13. A light brunch starting at 8:30 a.m. in the atrium will provide a chance to socialize with other LLI members. The business portion of the meeting will begin in Olin Hall at 9:30 a.m. Outgoing President Nanci Kryzak will review the highlights of our 2021-2022, and current second vice president Felice Gelman will discuss the recent changes in the bylaws. Robert Beaury, in his current role as treasurer, will discuss the state of our finances and present the preliminary 2022-2023 budget for approval. Then we will hear from Robert Beaury in his new role as president and welcome incoming Council members, first vice president Mary McClellan, treasurer Jerry Brockett, and members at large Kayla Bell and Michael Weinstock. After the business portion of the meeting, you can enjoy Gary Miller’s slideshow, Faces of LLI. Please come—your participation matters. 

Your Feedback is Important

by LInda Stanley

You will receive the Annual Member Survey on May 16, and once again the leadership of LLI needs your help! Your responses to this annual survey always provide vital feedback so we can plan for the ever-changing future. We need to know what matters to you!

Thank you for taking about 10 minutes to complete this survey. Submissions will be accepted until May 30. We are thinking about you, and we eagerly await your responses.

SummerFest Registration Starts on May 20!

by Cathy Reinis

Time to get out our calendars and put in reminders: the SummerFest catalog will be available on May 13, giving us one week to plan for registration when it opens the following Friday at 9:00 a.m. Registration will be done in ProClass, so a good thing to do during that week in between is to check that you have your Username and Password and can jump right in! 

The Curriculum Team has finalized the schedule for SummerFest. There will be one Zoom class on Thursday morning from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and eight on-campus classes on Friday—three in the 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. period and five in the 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. period.

If you have friends who would like to sample LLI during SummerFest, tell them about the catalog and registration dates. Nonmembers can create a ProClass account; they can create a Username and Password and register for class. ProClass will ask nonmembers to use a credit card to pay $25 per class. They can find videos on how to use ProClass on the LLI website under Courses.

June is Membership Month

by Cathy Reinis

Mark your calendar to renew your LLI membership between June 1 and June 21. You will get a reminder on June 1 with a link to the renewal application. This is also the time for nonmembers to apply to join LLI. If you have friends who are interested, tell them to go to our website, lli.bard.edu, to find directions on applying to LLI. If there are more applications than open spots, new members will be selected by lottery; occasionally someone is admitted who brings skills immediately needed by LLI.

The annual membership fee remains $175.00. The membership fees allow us to fund the tools for remote and hybrid learning, to continue to contribute to Bard College, and to keep LLI on a solid financial footing.

Seniors-to-Seniors Tea Was Inspiring

by Susan Phillips

Each year Bard LLI has supported a small group of Bard seniors with scholarships that enable them to complete their senior projects. This year’s six recipients described their involved, personal projects at the annual Dean Stuart Stritzler-Levine Seniors-to-Seniors Scholarship Recognition Tea on May 22 in the Laszlo Z. Bito Auditorium. LLI President Nanci Kryzak opened the event with grateful words about Stuart Stritzler-Levine who died in 2020 and was instrumental in the founding of LLI. David Shein, Dean of Studies & Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and OSUN-Bard Network Programs introduced the students. Then the seniors presented their projects to an audience of LLI members, who were captivated by their creativity and commitment. 

Keep reading to learn more about the ideas of these remarkable young scholars.

Be a Friend to a New Member

by Felice Gelman

How often do you have the chance to make a new friend? That’s the opportunity we at LLI have when we volunteer to be a mentor to new members. The mentor program has been in place for several years, so most of us have been paired with a mentor when we joined LLI. Instead of walking into a classroom where you didn't know a soul, or getting on a Zoom class with tens of unrecognized faces, we had at least one person who introduced us to the organization, made sure we knew how to sign up for classes, perhaps advised us on getting our parking tags and where to find an elusive parking spot, or even took us on an informal campus tour. By volunteering to be a mentor, you can be that helping person for someone new to LLI and, perhaps, find a new friendship.

If you are interested in being a mentor–-or better yet, in being the team leader–please contact Maddy Watterson at MWatterson@lli.bard.edu.

Acknowledging the Original
Stewards of the Land

by Kim Sears

Bard College’s Land Acknowledgement Statement was developed in dialogue with members of the Cultural Affairs Department of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. It begins:

“In the spirit of truth and equity, it is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are gathered on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, who are the original stewards of this land.” 

What does it mean to build an American and Indigenous Studies Program with this statement at its heart? How would a collaboration between the original stewards and a committed academic community change the attitudes and trajectories of future generations who inhabit this space? Bard College is embarking on an effort to find out.

Eye Opener at the Hessel

by Dona McLaughlin

From empty cigarette wrappers to dented drink cans and bottles, the current show at Bard’s Hessel Museum has plenty of energy, both pleasant and unpleasant.

Interference presents 14 graduate exhibitions curated by this year’s Masters of Arts candidates of the Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies. In the first room, there is a pop-art-like presentation of two wall-length shelves holding 54 charge cards. Hanging from the ceiling like a giant chandelier is a rotating stock market report in colored LED lights.

A wall poster says, “Throughout our lives, the photographs and mementos we choose to  collect come to represent a multitude of intimate concerns that reveal who we are, who we cherish, which memories comfort us, and which memories haunt us still.” There are 32 reprints of a college ID strung horizontally against one wall.

There are pictures of a set of lawn chairs, a large family portrait, and a push-car for children – part of a photographic series called All That I Can Carry. There is a series entitled Beast, Chimera, Kin, which re-envisions “the animal as a locus of  possibility.” These artworks foreground ways of cross-species world-building that benefit life at large.

There is a smoke-fired ceramic called Nine Hellish Spirits, No. 8, by Anne Chou. There is a framed standing glass circle with encapsulated lenses that refers to the Holy Communion wafer (Magesterio, by Feliciano Bejar). The Emaús workshop, a group of 1960s monks who influenced the development of abstract  art and modern architecture in Mexico, is represented by an untitled photograph of a  provocative and alarming being clinging to a wall.

There are multifaceted conceptual art pieces by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha titled Audience Distant Relative.

The section called Back to Back, the work of three contemporary artists, is a video combining “Jersey club and foot-works, genres of electronic music that emerged from Black and Latinx communities in the late 1990’s” – essentially repeated music and an agitated film sequence of photos overlaid by energetic dancers.

Finally, there is an installation of a wounded deer made of fabrics, soil, beads, purple sand, plastic, plywood, tinted foil, glitter, acetate, and markers.

Much of the art is very hard to “like” – but it will juggle your visual senses.

Council Notes for April 2022

by Deborah Lanser

The following topics were discussed at the April 2022 meeting: 

• Members will be asked to vote on the amended bylaws at the end of April. Felice will report on the results of the vote at the annual meeting. 
• All members who use an LLI Google account will be asked to set up two-factor authentication.
• Fall classes will start on September 15/16 to accommodate Bard’s fall schedule.

Any member interested in observing a Council meeting should email Linda Stanley at lstanley@lli.bard.edu.

by Felice Gelman

It’s May, and Bard students are busy completing their senior projects in anticipation of  Bard’s commencement on May 24, but that doesn’t mean there are no events of interest to LLI members.

Suppose you would like to hear some music and support the graduating Bard Conservatory students. In that case, you can attend any one of the Graduate Degree concerts held in the Bito Conservatory performance space in the afternoons and evenings in May. The concerts are listed here. 

And there’s more:
Thursday, May 12 through Saturday, May 14, Bard seniors will present their dance projects at the Fisher Center. You can reserve tickets here. 

Wednesday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. throughout the month of May, the Bard Hessel Museum showcases Interference, the 14 exhibits curated by graduating CCS students. You can reserve your tickets here. 

Tuesday, May 17 at 6:30 p.m. at the Kingston Library, 55 Franklin St., Kingston, Bard College Chief of Staff Malia DuMont will be in a conversation with Bard’s Diplomat-in-Residence, Ambassador Fred Hof, about his new book, Reaching for the Heights: The Inside Story of a Secret Attempt to Reach a Syrian-Israeli Peace.

Important Dates for LLI Members

May 10: Curriculum Committee meeting at 10 a.m. on Zoom. Any member interested in observing a Curriculum meeting should email Anne Brueckner at abrueckner@lli.bard.edu.

May 11: Membership Development meeting at 10 a.m. on Zoom. Any member interested in observing a Membership Development meeting should email Kim Sears at ksears@lli.bard.edu.

May 13: Bard LLI’s Annual Business Meeting will be held on campus in Olin from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. The budget will be presented and election and bylaws amendment results will be announced. A light brunch will be served in the Olin Atrium at 8:30 a.m.

May 13: SummerFest catalog is available.

May 16 - May 31: The annual survey will be sent to all members.

May 20 - June 10: SummerFest registration takes place.

June 1 - June 21: Bard LLI’s membership renewal takes place, and new member applications are accepted.

June 3 - June 24: SummerFest 2022 takes place on four Thursdays: June 2, 9, 16, 23 and on four  Fridays: June 3, 10, 17, 24. Invite a friend to take a class for $25.
        
June 8: Membership Development meeting at 10 a.m. on Zoom. Any member interested in observing a Membership Development meeting should email Kim Sears at ksears@lli.bard.edu.

June 14: Curriculum Committee meeting at 10 a.m. on Zoom. Any member interested in observing a Curriculum meeting should email Anne Brueckner at abrueckner@lli.bard.edu.

June 21: Council Meeting at 9:30 a.m. on Zoom. (Juneteenth is celebrated at Bard so Council will meet on Tuesday.) Any member interested in observing a Council meeting should email Linda Stanley at lstanley@lli.bard.edu.