Judi Arner Brown '68 (BardCorps)
Files
Interviewee Role
Alumni/ae/x
Loading...
Class Year
1968
Other Program
Sociology Major
Interviewer
Ingrid Spatt '69
Description
Arner went to a big, impersonal NYC high school, but knew she wanted a small intimate college. Although her mom actually discovered Bard for her, it turned out to be the perfect fit. She came to Bard for an interview, fell in love with the campus, the general atmosphere and was accepted on the spot. Arner was 16 when she started, and although she felt she was an intellectual equal to her peers, she also felt her high school education was inadequate in comparison to theirs. She was deeply stimulated by the intellectual environment of the student body saying: “I loved that as often as not the music that came blaring out of windows was classical music and that people read poetry and real literature and talked about stuff that mattered.” A sociology major, her senior project was titled "Communes : an Empirical Study." She relates that she wasn't interested in communes for the "hippie" lifestyle, but rather for the many benefits of communal living. She remained involved with Bard and maintained the close friendships she made here. Arner closed her interview by reflecting on her frustration with the fact that alumni/ae support is small in comparison with other institutions, noting that the largest donors have no direct affiliation with Bard.
Keywords
Old Theater, Stone Row, Blithewood Pool, Cruger Island, Carl Hutchinson, Robert Koblitz, Reamer Kline, Gerry DeGre, Fred Crane, Down the Road, Old Gym, Professor Thurley Randolf, Harold Hodgkinson, Senior Project, Blithewood, Tewksbury, Heinrich Blücher, Hannah Arendt
Location
Bard College
Interview Date
11-18-2002
Interview Duration
32:29
Recommended Citation
Arner, Judi, "Judi Arner Brown '68 (BardCorps)" (2012). BardCorps -- All Oral Histories. 70.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/oral_hist/70
Rights Management
The use of any image or audio from the Bard College Archives without permission is prohibited.
Significant Quote
“I really didn’t learn how to do research, I learned how to approach a problem and it was, very– it was perfect for me because it went along with my own way of thinking. I came away from there believing that there was nothing I couldn’t tackle, I didn’t have to have all the information in my head as long as I knew how to get it, and knew how to think clearly, and I’ve been able to use that my whole life; I’ve taken jobs that I really wasn’t qualified for and it never bothered me, I just thought, Well you know, I’m smart, I’ll pick this stuff up before someone figures out I don’t know what I’m doing. And I think I learned that at Bard: give me a problem and I’ll find a way to solve it.”