 Message from the President
Dear <<First Name>>,
Downsizing the Bureaucracy at LLI
LLI is a complicated organization set up with a Table of Organization that helps us to know who does what. At least that is the general plan. Over time, tasks are added to the structure, more committees are formed, and they grow as more people are needed to carry out those tasks. At a certain point, keeping track of a growing organization is a challenging task in itself.
The next step is to create Standing Committees to which other committees and teams will report. A Chair is appointed to lead each of the Standing Committees, and there are chairs that lead all the other committees and teams as well. Toss in protocols for interactions between and among all these different entities for efficiency. Add a sprinkle of a determined process for getting from point A to the finished product. Be sure to remind people that the actual work is task-oriented and that more than one person will be working on the matter as time ticks on. And a bureaucracy is born.
Every so often it makes sense to reevaluate the Table of Organization. We had that opportunity open up for us on July 1, when the Council was reformed with new leaders on board. As chance would have it, one of our six Standing Committees needed a chair. During July and August, we had conversations about the open position; a few members were approached about taking on the role of chair, and all declined. That consistent reaction impressed upon me the need to rethink that Standing Committee.
I decided to approach the issue from the opposite direction and presented a new draft Table of Organization to our P&E committee and then to Council the following Monday. All the teams under the Administration-Infrastructure Standing Committee were reassigned to other standing committees. We discussed these changes with the other Standing Committee chairs, and asked for and received their approval. Council then unanimously approved the new Table of Organization.
The Administration-Infrastructure committee has neither a chair nor a portfolio to oversee. This change will have no impact on the services we provide for our members. We will continue to look at and improve our structure going forward. Please keep in mind there is an enormous amount of untapped talent in the membership ranks. Help us find you.
Finally, and most importantly, a special shout out to my fellow chairs of our remaining Standing Committees: Linda Legendre, Curricular and Special Programs; Carmela Gersbeck, Program Support; Robert Inglish, Membership Development; and Jill Lundquist, Planning and Evaluation. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to LLI.
Yours,
Robert Beaury
president@lli.bard.edu
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by Felice Gelman
New members, mentors, and Council members had a chance to meet and chat on a beautiful September day outside the Bertelsmann Student Center. It felt wonderful to meet old friends and greet new members in person and learn about their interests and backgrounds. “It’s fun,” Membership Development Chair Robert Inglish said. After a thoroughly enjoyable coffee hour, everyone went indoors to Weis Cinema to learn the LLI ropes.
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BHSEC Recipients Express Their Gratitude
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by Deborah Lanser
Every year, LLI has provided financial help for students in the Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) program in Manhattan for expenses incurred during their summer internships. The two recipients of this year’s $1,000 grants were Harper Alderson, who worked as an intern at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, and August Levenson, who worked on community murals sponsored by ARTYARD and the Brooklyn Waterfront Artist Collective. Both gained valuable work experience during their internships, as they explain in their thank you letters.
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If You Like to Walk, This Group May Be for You
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by Carmela Gersbeck
Did you know there is a Walking Special Interest Group at Bard LLI? If you like to walk, socialize, and explore new sites, the Walking Group meets every Thursday at 1:30 p.m., weather permitting. Most walks are about 90 minutes and all LLI members are welcome to join! Come meet new people and get a little exercise. (If it’s raining or snowing, the walk is canceled.) The locations will be posted on the Bard website every month. This month’s locations are:
10/6 Montgomery Place (26 Gardner Way, River Rd, Red Hook, NY 12571)
10/13 Poets Walk (776 River Rd, Red Hook, NY 12571)
10/20 Mills Mansion (75 Mills Mansion Drive, Staatsburg, NY 12580)
10/27 Fisher Center - last parking lot (Manor Ave, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY 12504)
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by Jan Kohn
Have you been hoping for more opportunities to get to know other Bard LLI members? The answer may be to join a group of LLI members who share similar interests. You can help form a small, informal, off-campus group of LLI members who organize themselves with the help of a group leader they designate to determine when, where, and how often to meet. The hiking and bocce groups are already successful. Below is a list of other possible interest groups, as well as a request for other suggestions you may have.
Biking * Board games * Bocce * Books * Bridge * Cooking * Current Events * Financial Investments * Foreign language * Gardening * Handcrafts such as embroidery, knitting, crocheting, quilting * Mahjong * Musical such as vocal and instrumental * Painting * Photography * Pickleball * Trivia * Walking
A group leader is essential!
If you have another idea for a group or are interested in participating in a group and/or being a group leader, contact Jan Kohn at jkohn@lli.bard.edu. Membership Development will determine if there is enough interest to form a group, and you will be contacted with the details.
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by Robert Inglish
All LLI members and presenters will be invited to a party on Friday, November 4, from 5:00 p.m. ‒ 7:00 p.m. to watch the sunset over the Hudson from the beautiful Blithewood Manor on the Bard campus while sipping wine and enjoying hors d’oeuvres. This will give our members an opportunity to give a special shout-out to all the LLI volunteers who keep LLI running with their dedication and enthusiasm and to the wonderful presenters who dedicate their time and share their knowledge and their passion. More information will come soon.
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Update on Montgomery Place Farm and Farm Stand
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by Susan Phillips
Local residents and seasonal visitors look forward to picking up beautiful fresh produce and locally made farm offerings from June to November at the Montgomery Place Orchards Farm Stand on 9G in Red Hook, New York. Known especially for well over 60 varieties of apples, sold as they ripen and are picked, the place is always busy, especially during autumn. Montgomery Place Orchards has been run by Talea and Doug Taylor for 35 years. Talea took time out of her very busy day to answer my many questions and show me around the farm kitchen and cold storage buildings at Montgomery Farm, where products are made and stored before hitting the farmstand shelves.
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by Kathy OConnor
On Thursday, September 20th, the Friends of the Stevenson Library held a special opening and reception: an exhibit of 22 books from Alvin Patrick's collection of approximately 5,000 rare or first edition books written by African Americans. Mr. Patrick titled the exhibition Faces of the Struggle: Frontispiece Portraits in African American Literature (1834 to 1949). It includes portraits of some of the greatest civil rights activists of the 19th and 20th centuries.
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Art on Campus: Octopus or Tarantula?
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by Dona McLaughlin
There is a delightful small fountain lying in wait for you between Olin Hall and Warden’s Hall, just to the west of Olin. Titled Fontaine 1984, it is in operation seasonally, from now through October.
At first glance, it may resemble a pile of stainless steel cannons – but the cylinder parts are animated, moving up and down. The sculpture soon begins to suggest the tentacles of an octopus. The row of pipes and rusted knobs underneath continue this image, and the tiles at the bottom of the fountain are an oceanic sea-green.
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Transformational Gifts Expand Bard’s Work in Native American and Indigenous Studies
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by Deborah Lanser
A $25 million endowment gift from the Gochman Family Foundation will allow Bard to create an American and Indigenous Studies program that can more fully reflect our continent’s history. Bard College President Leon Botstein noted, “This is a fantastic contribution to the study of America, vital to a liberal arts education offering a broader understanding of the country.” The gift will facilitate a wide range of initiatives, including increased enrollment of students from Native American and Indigenous communities, a Chair for a distinguished/senior scholar of Native American and Indigenous studies, additional faculty positions, library acquisitions and archives, an annual lecture series, arts programming, curricular enrichment programming, and community-focused events.
These initiatives were developed in partnership with the Native-led Forge Project, whose Executive Director, Candice Hopkins, a Carcross/Tagish First Nation member and a 2003 CCS Bard alumna, will join the CCS Bard faculty as its first Fellow in Indigenous Art History and Curatorial studies. She plans to curate a major exhibition in 2023 that will center on the development of contemporary Native art. She will also teach one course per year about themes related to Native and Indigenous art history and curatorial studies.
In addition to the funds provided by the Gochman Family Foundation, George Soros and the Open Society Foundations have committed to providing a matching $25 million, for a total of $50 million. For more information about these gifts, click here.
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In Memoriam -- Roger Phillips
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With sadness, we relay the information that LLI member Roger Phillips died on September 15, 2022 after a short illness. He is survived by his loving partner, LLI member Charlene Rosen. Roger was a graduate of Bard College (1953). He was a sculptor, and has a piece on the Bard campus, “Three Red Discs in a Rectangle.” It is located on the north side of the Bertelsmann Campus Center. Roger had an interesting life and you can read about it here.
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Council Notes for September
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by Deborah Lanser
The following topics were discussed at the September meeting:
- Council members voted unanimously to reorganize LLI around five standing committees rather than six. For more information, please see President Robert Beaury’s message in this issue.
- Council members approved a plan by Membership Development Chair Robert Inglish to set up a party at the beginning of November to celebrate our volunteers and presenters. All LLI members will be invited.
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Highlights of the Bard Calendar
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by Felice Gelman
Cinema buffs, the moment has come. The Center for Moving Image Arts has restarted its Monday and Tuesday movie screenings. The full schedule for October is here but a few of the offerings are highlighted in the article below.
October has many other interesting Bard-sponsored events. A few are highlighted here.
Tuesday, October 11, from 7:00 to 11:55 p.m. at the Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center, Bard CMIA will continue its series of Japanese masterworks with Kihachi Okamoto’s Red Lion and Japan’s Longest Day.
Saturday, October 15, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., in Olin Hall, the Bard Conservatory of Music presents a lecture-recital Cinderella No More, a program celebrating the viola and its history offered by the renowned violist Timothy Ridout of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. He will be accompanied by two Conservatoire colleagues and a Bard Conservatory viola student.
Monday, October 17, from 7:00 p.m. to 11:55 p.m. at the Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center, Bard CMIA will screen Peter Watkins’ well–reviewed made-for-TV film Edvard Munch.
On Thursday, October 20, at 2:00 p.m., the Bard Center for the Study of Hate will host a webinar discussion of David Kertzer’s new book The Pope At War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler, Discussants will be Pulitzer Prize–winning author David Kertzer, the Paul Dupee, Jr. University Professor of Social Science at Brown University, and John Pawlikowski, Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago and the former director of their Catholic-Jewish studies program. To receive registration information for the webinar, join BCSH’s mailing list here.
Beginning Friday, October 21 through Saturday, October 22, Bard CCE will host Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck Conference with Rutgers Presidential Term Chair in African American History and author Marisa Fuentes and NYU assistant professor of history and co-director of the Native Studies Forum Elizabeth Ellis. Details on the program and location will be announced soon. Check here for details.
On Thursday, October 27, from 5:15 p.m. to 6:30 pm, in Olin Room 102, Susannah Heschel, Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies and chair of the Jewish Studies Program at Dartmouth, will give a talk on Arabs, Jews, and the Critique of Modernity. She will discuss Jews in Europe as scholars of the Qur’an and early Islam, emphasizing the parallels between the Qur’an and rabbinic writings.
On Saturday, October 29 at 7:00 p.m. and Sunday, October 30 at 2:00 p.m. at the Fisher Center Sosnoff Theater, The Orchestra Now highlights four German and Austrian composers of the early 20th century whose music was unfairly ignored or suppressed following World War II. Bard LLI members are offered free tickets this semester. Book by calling the box office 845-758-7900 Mon-Fri 10-5 and mentioning you are a member of LLI.
On Thursday, November 3, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m,, at Bard Hall, several Bard departments will sponsor Medieval Song: A Talk, A Performance, a collaborative project by NYU professor of French literature, thought, and culture and medieval literary scholar Sarah Kay and the early music ensemble Concordian Dawn, directed by Christoper Preston Thompson, tenor, and medieval harpist.
If you prefer something more distinctly avant garde, Friday, November 4 at 8:00 p.m. at the Fisher Center Sosnoff Theater, the Bard Conservatory percussion studio presents Uncaged, four compositions by John Cage and a Percussion Concerto by Bard Conservatory dean and composer Tan Dun. A donation is suggested when you book your tickets, or you can register for a livestream for free.
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Important Dates for LLI Members
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Wednesday, October 12: Membership Development Committee meeting at 10:00 a.m. on Zoom. Any member interested in observing a Membership Development meeting should email Robert Inglish at ringlish@lli.bard.edu.
Thursday and Friday, October 13/14: No LLI Classes.
Friday, October 14: Curriculum Committee meeting at 10:00 a.m. on Zoom. Any member interested in observing a Curriculum meeting should email Anne Brueckner at abrueckner@lli.bard.edu.
Monday, October 17: Council meeting at 9:30 a.m. on Zoom. Any member interested in observing a Council meeting should email Mary McClellan at mmcclellan@lli.bard.edu.
Thursday and Friday, November 3/4: No LLI classes.
Friday, November 4: LLI Reception at Blithewood to honor presenters and volunteers.
Wednesday, November 9: Membership Development Committee meeting at 10:00 a.m. on Zoom. Any member interested in observing a Membership Development meeting should email Robert Inglish at ringlish@lli.bard.edu.
Thursday and Friday, November 10/11: Fall semester ends.
Tuesday, November 15: Curriculum Committee Open House meeting at 10:00 a.m. on Zoom. All members are encouraged to observe a Curriculum meeting to find out how classes are produced. If interested, email Anne Brueckner at abrueckner@lli.bard.edu.
Monday, November 21: Council meeting at 9:30 a.m. on Zoom. Any member interested in observing a Council meeting should email Mary McClellan at mmcclellan@lli.bard.edu.
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This newsletter is a publication of Bard LLI Council. Communications Team Chair: Cathy Reinis. Writers and editors: Susan Christoffersen, Kathryn Clark, Felice Gelman, Carmela Gersbeck, Deborah Lanser, Jill Lundquist, Dona McLaughlin, Kathy OConnor, Susan Phillips, Margaret Shuhala. Photographers: Gary Miller, Chair, Carol DeBartolis, Carmela Gersbeck, Kathy OConnor
The opinions and views expressed in the LLI Newsletter are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of LLI or its members. In addition, any link to a website or content belonging to or originating from third parties are not investigated, monitored or checked for accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability or completeness by LLI, nor does LLI accept any responsibility for such content.
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