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Bard Sophomore Sydney Oshuna-Williams ’24 Honored as a Newman Civic Fellow

Sydney Oshuna-Williams ’24, who is majoring in film and electronic arts and philosophy, has been recognized for her commitment to solving public problems. Campus Compact, a national coalition of colleges and universities working to advance the public purposes of higher education, has named Oshuna-Williams one of 173 student civic leaders who will make up the organization’s 2022–2023 cohort of Newman Civic Fellows. The Newman Civic Fellowship recognizes students who stand out for their commitment to creating positive change in communities locally and around the world. 
 
As the founder of the Me In Foundation, Oshuna-Williams seeks to increase artistic education opportunities for underrepresented youth through social and cultural awareness year-round programming. In her first semester at Bard College, Oshuna-Williams created the Me In Foundation as a Trustee Leader Scholar project. The Foundation allows youth scholars to share their stories through a variety of different art forms and currently works with over one-hundred and fifty K-12 students in Upstate New York and Atlanta. Oshuna-Williams is also a Mogul in Training at Usher Raymond’s non-profit organization, Usher’s New Look, where she facilitates conversations centered around college and career readiness as well as financial literacy. Oshuna-Williams continues to use her passion for storytelling to bring untold truths to the surface because, as she says, “Every story deserves to be heard by the characters who live it."
 
Through the fellowship, Campus Compact will provide these students with a year of learning and networking opportunities that emphasize personal, professional, and civic growth. Each year, fellows participate in numerous virtual training and networking opportunities to help provide them with the skills and connections they need to create large-scale positive change. The cornerstone of the fellowship is the Annual Convening of Fellows, which offers intensive skill-building and networking over the course of two days. The fellowship also provides fellows with pathways to apply for exclusive scholarship and post-graduate opportunities.
 
The fellowship is named for the late Frank Newman, one of Campus Compact’s founders, who was a tireless advocate for civic engagement in higher education. In the spirit of Dr. Newman’s leadership, fellows are nominated by Campus Compact member presidents and chancellors, who are invited to select one outstanding student from their campus each year.
 
“Sydney Oshuna-Williams, a second year Posse scholar at Bard College, is a very active student addressing mental health healing in our student body (as a peer health educator specializing in the healing of BIPOC students) and securing pathways to creative careers for kids in our neighboring communities. Sydney is currently serving as a peer counselor (Bard's version of residential advisor) to support students in their living environments and a Sister2Sister mentor (a student-led mentorship program providing guidance and opportunity to young women of color). Sydney also partners Bard's neighboring school districts with schools in her home state of Georgia to bridge opportunity across geographical limitations,” said Bard President Botstein.

Post Date: 03-21-2022

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Bard College Appoints Joshua Glick as Visiting Associate Professor of Film and Electronic Arts

Bard College’s Division of Arts is pleased to announce the appointment of Joshua Glick as Visiting Associate Professor of Film and Electronic Arts for a three-year period from 2022 to 2025. Professor Glick’s research and teaching focus is the comparative histories of film, television, and radio; nonfiction media; race and representation; and the civic uses of emerging technology. He will also be teaching in Experimental Humanities.

Joshua Glick is the author of Los Angeles Documentary and the Production of Public History (University of California Press, 2018). Josh’s current book explores the rising interest in nonfiction on both the left and right of the political spectrum. It examines, in particular, the way documentary’s proliferation across new platforms has transformed the relationship between Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and Washington D.C. Josh is also actively involved in public humanities projects, collaborating with archives, museums, and community organizations. As a Fellow at the Open Documentary Lab at MIT, he recently designed the interactive online curriculum: Media Literacy in the Age of Deepfakes. He also co-curated the exhibition currently up at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York: Deepfake: Unstable Evidence on Screen. The show investigates the history of media manipulation, the rise of “deepfake” videos, and how synthetic media can be used for the public good. Josh holds a PhD in Film & Media Studies and American Studies from Yale University. Prior to coming to Bard, he was the Isabelle Peregrin Assistant Professor of English, Film & Media Studies at Hendrix College.

Post Date: 02-02-2022

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Masha Shpolberg Joins the Bard College Film and Electronics Arts Faculty

Bard College’s Division of Arts is pleased to announce the appointment of Masha Shpolberg as Assistant Professor of Film and Electronic Arts for a tenure-track position beginning in the 2022-2023 academic year. Professor Shpolberg’s research and teaching explore world cinema, with special attention to Russia and Eastern Europe, ecocinema, women’s cinema, and global documentary.

Masha Shpolberg’s first book project focuses on the aesthetics of labor in Polish cinema of the late socialist period, examining how filmmakers sought out new ways of representing the laboring body at a time of massive workers' strikes—and how they co-opted, confronted, or otherwise challenged the representational legacy of socialist realism. She is also currently working on two edited volumes: Cinema and the Environment in Eastern Europe, forthcoming from Berghahn Books, and Contemporary Russian Documentary, under contract at Edinburgh University Press. Masha has contributed film criticism to Film Quarterly, Senses of Cinema, Tablet, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. She holds a Ph.D. in Film & Media Studies and Comparative Literature from Yale University. Prior to coming to Bard, Masha taught at Wellesley College and the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Post Date: 02-02-2022

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Review: Kelly Reichardt’s Latest Film First Cow Gains Praise in France’s Le Monde

The French newspaper Le Monde reviews S. William Senfeld Artist in Residence Kelly Reichardt’s film First Cow as a “chef-d’œuvre” or “masterpiece” and calls her one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of American cinema. In French.

Post Date: 10-25-2021

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Gregory Mingo Pardoned in One of Andrew Cuomo’s Last Acts as Governor of New York State, with Support from Bard-CUNY Clemency Team

After 40 years in prison, Gregory Mingo was pardoned on the night of Monday, August 23, along with several other incarcerated people, in one of Andrew Cuomo’s last acts as governor of New York State. Bard College students in HR 321, Advocacy Video, worked together with students in the Defenders Clinic at CUNY Law School and the human rights organization WITNESS to create short video self-presentations by applicants for clemency in fall 2020, including one with Mr. Mingo. The Bard-CUNY team visited Mr. Mingo in prison in the midst of the pandemic to interview him.

To be granted clemency is a rare victory after an arduous process on the part of the incarcerated individual and their advocates. “There could not be a better person to leave prison and rejoin the rest of us,” wrote Thomas Keenan and Brent Green, who cotaught the class, in a message to the Bard community. Watching the video, they said, “you can easily see why the Governor's decision was long overdue. Advocating for basic human rights and decency, especially in apparently enlightened situations like ours, ought to be unnecessary. The reason we teach this at Bard, and attempt to put it into practice, is that it's not, and because sometimes—but who knows when—it works.”

Advocacy Video is an Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences class cotaught by Thomas Keenan, professor of comparative literature and director of the Human Rights Program, and Brent Green, visiting artist in residence. This is a Human Rights course crosslisted with Film and Electronic Arts. The four videos produced by students in fall 2020 are available on the Human Rights Program website.

Post Date: 08-23-2021

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Firelight Media Names Filmmaker Hazel Gurland-Pooler ’99 as a Grantee for 2021 Impact Campaign Fund

Bard alum Hazel Gurland-Pooler’s film Storming Caesar’s Palace will receive a grant award of between $10,000 and $25,000 from Firelight Media’s Impact Campaign Fund. The Fund supports the creation of audience engagement and impact campaigns for nonfiction film projects by and for communities of color in the United States. Storming Caesar’s Palace is the untold story of Black women who took on presidents, the mob, and everyday Americans, challenging the pernicious myth of the “welfare queen.”

Post Date: 07-13-2021