BardCorps is a collaborative oral history project of the Alumni/ae Office and the Bard College Archives. This is modeled on the famous StoryCorps initiative that travels the country recording personal stories in an Airstream trailer. We are recording the stories of Bardians to preserve memory, and to document and expand our collective understanding of Bard’s history.
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Francis Whitcomb, '47 (BardCorps)
Francis "Whit" Whitcomb
"[Tony Garvin] was my adviser in American History, and advised me on my senior project about my great grandfather...He must have been high in social circles...and my senior year he was having a garden party in Rhinebeck, and he comes up to me and he says, 'Frank I want you to meet Mrs. Roosevelt.'"
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Michael Bell, '82 (BardCorps)
Michael Bell
"We are ... what I lovingly refer to as 'Nat's Children.' Natalie [Lunn] was a wonderful person."
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Malia Du Mont, '95, and Joshua Ledwell, '96 (BardCorps)
Malia Du Mont and Joshua Ledwell
"The perspectives I learned from having a more diverse group of people to learn from has helped me a lot in understanding that there's a much more multifaceted world out there."
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Ellen Rogovin Hart, '66 (BardCorps)
Ellen Rogovin Hart
"Well, I remember Bob Dylan coming up a couple of weekends and trying to hit on the young ladies here...also we had...Reverend Gary Davis...I remember going to a concert next to Doc Watson; he was blind and he said 'will you please hold my guitar for me?' And I was so thrilled."
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Roderick Michael, '80 (BardCorps)
Roderick D. Michael
"My next term paper was titled 'Socrates and the Bronx.'"
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David Schechter, '76 (BardCorps)
David Schechter
"I remember standing in the ruins [of the Coach House Theater] in this self important way, saying 'the establishment has burned down, but we shall continue; our theater can exist in the ashes. We need no theater to present our drama!"
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Johanna Shafer, '67 (BardCorps)
Johanna Shafer
"I think in some ways I missed a lot of what should be a normal college experience because I didn't have the time to goof around or spend a lot of hours at Adolph's or anything like that."
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Michael Shafer, '66 (BardCorps)
Michael Shafer
Reamer Kline had to make a speech at one point to a little demonstration about 'the woods.' "Those of you who want to do what you do at Bard, there's a facility: it's the woods. Go do it in the woods." He had a great sense of humor.
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Shelley Weinstock, '76, Lisa Pence, '75, and Deborah Bornstein-Gichan, '76 (BardCorps)
Shelley Weinstock, Lisa Pence, and Deborah Bornstein-Gichan
"I loved how we used to sit around the Dining Commons and all of us would be so excited about our different studies....It gave us the opportunity at that time to go, 'You know what? I've never taken that type of class. I think I want to.' And we could."
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Lydia Anderson, '03 (BardCorps)
Lydia Anderson
“We called [the Ravine houses] an ewok village-- these odd little stilt-houses.”
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Robert Bassler, '57 (BardCorps)
Robert Bassler
“I got a C. I had never gotten a C in art, ever. I was a straight A student, I mean I wasn’t a straight A student in everything but I was a straight A student in art to the point of getting a scholarship to art school... then I come to Bard and I get a C. I was totally mystified.”
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Lisa DeTora, '89 (BardCorps)
Lisa DeTora
"I used to wear really short fluffy pink things, which was totally not Bard at the time, and I had pink glasses. And I used to giggle all the time."
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Justin Gallanter, '34 (BardCorps)
Justin Gallanter
“Anybody, practically, could get in; but then they were weeded out. And they were weeded out pretty mercilessly… maybe half the class left at next semester. I mean, they were just unqualified. “
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Richard F. Koch, '40 (BardCorps)
Richard F. Koch
"There were very very few Jews at Bard--and we were not welcome in the fraternities, of which there were three then."
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Henry Kritzler, '38 (BardCorps)
Henry Kritzler
"I have often advised young people in times of economic upheaval--go back to school, sweat it out, and improve yourself until it's over."
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Eve Odiorne Sullivan, '62 (BardCorps)
Eve Odiorne Sullivan
"I was intending to major in math, and I guess I got either a very high mark or the very highest mark on the math midterm. And Professor Tremblay, god rest his soul, wrote on my math mid-term, I can see it now in my mind’s eye—he wrote, 'Today you are a man.'"
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Wayne Berman, '87 (BardCorps)
Wayne Berman
"Now I eagerly read everything on everything. I would have been intimidated, before I came to Bard. I wouldn't have read certain kinds of things because I would have felt like 'that's out of my world.'"
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Helaine Kushner, '53 (BardCorps)
Helaine Kushner and John Kushner
"The only thing I knew was the Orient Theater...When I went into the Fisher [Performing Art Center] I thought of this: we did some great work...I'm sure it's lovely for theater majors to have that beautiful theater but it's not the theater; it was the teachers. We produced some wonderful plays and work."
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Bob Amsterdam, '53 (BardCorps)
Bob Amsterdam
“Bard gave me a major scholarship, and I'm grateful to Bard in a number of respects. It’s a beautiful campus, I made good friendships here. In opening horizons for me, it was very, very important for me in my life.”
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Kathryn Kaycoff-Manos, '82
Kathryn Kaycoff-Manos
"There was a guy with a cape with white makeup following me around and acting like a vampire.There are, like, freaks here; what have I done?"
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Robert McAlister, '50 (BardCorps)
Robert McAlister
"I am a strong believer in experiential learning and because of the experience we had as veterans, I think we brought some different perspective to the classroom."
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Linda Murphy, '88 (BardCorps)
Linda Murphy
"Frank [Oja] pointed to that door at one point and said, 'Everybody in this room says that's a yellow door, but everybody...sees a different color yellow.' In other words, we don't all see things the same way, it's impossible. And that taught me to be accepting."
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Edie Shean-Hammond, '72 (BardCorps)
Edie Shean-Hammond
"I came [to Bard] never having seen the place, having absolute faith in Walter Cronkite, telling me it would be okay."
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Darius Thieme, '51 (BardCorps)
Darius Thieme
“Don’t be afraid to live with a blank page, and at the end of the day wind up with a blank page. That’s not bad. A blank page is just part of what you have to do... because you have to spend that time thinking about it.”
