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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Charles Friou '46 (BardCorps)
Charles Friou '46
Alumni/ae/x“Some of the courses had horrendous reading lists. I remember sitting in Albee one night, like 3 o’clock in the morning, trying to read a novel that had to be finished by the next morning. And Dean Gray walks in, and says, “Oh hi, I just wondered why the lights were on!” It was that kind of intimate, personal, environment that we were in.”
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Leora Fulvio, '97 (BardCorps)
Leora Fulvio '97
Alumni/ae/x"I would say my experience at Bard has pretty much informed my whole life."
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Justin Gallanter, '34 (BardCorps)
Justin Gallanter
Alumni/ae/x“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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Annette "Annie" Gilson, '86 (BardCorps)
Annette Gilson
Alumni/ae/x[At Bard] “There is that interest in exploration; there’s the curiosity; there’s that willingness to be surprised by the world and that is, again, a precious thing, a very precious thing."
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David "Dave" Gracer '88 (BardCorps)
David "Dave" Gracer '88
Alumni/ae/x“I was a reasonably successful student ─ learned a lot, but not all that much of it in class.”
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Ellen Rogovin Hart, '66 (BardCorps)
Ellen Rogovin Hart
Alumni/ae/x"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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Arthur Hughes, '67 (BardCorps)
Arthur Hughes
Alumni/ae/x"The art scene on campus was really sort of remarkable actually."
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Adam Janos, '06 (BardCorps)
Adam Janos '06
Alumni/ae/x"I got here and I remember immediately thinking that I was amongst my people."
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Richard "Dick" Jenrette and Elliott Lindsley '52 (BardCorps)
Richard "Dick" Jenrette and Elliott Lindsley, '52
Alumni/ae/x"I was a new member of the board of the Historic Hudson Valley. I called Laurance Rockefeller and told him 'I have a place your dream can be furthered of house museums from New York to Albany.' And so he came [to Montgomery Place] and saw it and liked it."
-- Dick Jenrette
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Charles S. Johnson III '70 (BardCorps)
Charles S. Johnnson
Alumni/ae/x“Dr. King also got involved with the Memphis Campaign. And it was his involvement in the Memphis Campaign that led to his assassination. And I vividly recall that day at Bard, when the campus really was in shock."
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John Juhl '72 (BardCorps)
John Juhl '72
Alumni/ae/x“At nineteen, I basically moved in to Eva’s house and I helped with different kinds of work around the house, and at the time, there was a saying: ‘Don’t trust anybody over thirty.’ And after a summer of meeting different people that, you know, came through Eva’s house from all over the world I realized that that was complete bunk.”
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Kathryn Kaycoff-Manos, '82 (BardCorps)
Kathryn Kaycoff-Manos
Alumni/ae/x"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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Richard F. Koch, '40 (BardCorps)
Richard F. Koch
Alumni/ae/x"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
Alumni/ae/x"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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Helaine Kushner, '53 (BardCorps)
Helaine Kushner and John Kushner
Alumni/ae/x"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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Ralph Levine, '62 (BardCorps)
Ralph Levine
Alumni/ae/x" 'The more you know about different subjects, the more interesting your own life will be'...I thought it was a good justification for a liberal arts education."
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Richard Lewis '58 (BardCorps)
Richard Lewis
Alumni/ae/x“ . . . one of the beauties of Bard and probably still is, is that you're not seen as a as an academic entity that only is concentrating on one thing that there's a whole life around you and in you that if it's tapped, you know, the whole person, so to speak, comes out, not just not just the academic side of you. “
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Nick Lyons '60 (BardCorps)
Nick Lyons '60
Alumni/ae/x"I still, at this late stage of 88 years old, I can still remember walking down to the creek, to the Saw Kill and Bill Humphrey talking about short stories; neither of us having books in our hands, he would practically have a whole story in his head. I’d never seen anything like that. He could recite the beginning of it and then show where it modulated into another key and then moved into a series of expansions and digressions and finally came through at the end. I was astounded by the way in which he thought about it. I think Bard was exciting to me also because someone like Humphrey had never graduated from college, and there he was, a brilliant teacher, just having his first major book Home from the Hill published which was a runner up for the National Book Award. But it was a year in which, to use an athlete’s expression, I was stretched, I was shown new ways of thinking, new ways of reading. And it wasn’t so much the knowledge that I got as the spirit of the place, the spirit of learning."
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Paul Marienthal (BardCorps)
Paul Marienthal
Faculty/Staff Dean for Social Action and Director of the TLS Program 1995-"Treat people well, show up, be a human being...If you commit and show up relentlessly, you’re going to get something done.”
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Pete Mauney, '93, '00 (BardCorps)
Pete Mauney
Alumni/ae/x"From having had a relatively mixed experience at Bard originally when I was a student I've ended up with a... long ongoing relationship with Bard as an employee...I've really enjoyed it."
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Robert McAlister, '50 (BardCorps)
Robert McAlister
Alumni/ae/x"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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Roderick Michael, '80 (BardCorps)
Roderick D. Michael
Alumni/ae/x"My next term paper was titled 'Socrates and the Bronx.'"
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Carol H. Miller '51 (BardCorps)
Carol H. Miller
Alumni/ae/x“The senior project was horrendous. I did not write very well...it was not exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to sing.”
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Jessica Moore, '81 (BardCorps)
Jessica Moore '81
Alumni/ae/x"If you talked to your teachers they really understood. A lot my teachers really understood, and inspired me...I guess the most important thing to me was the music...really being able to concentrate on classical music."
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Charles Moore, '79 (BardCorps)
Charles Moore
Alumni/ae/x"For 4 years the President could not rest...Our commencement was his commencement."