Bard College
EN-3: Student Life

The Bard Eco Community is a club that is devoted to bringing eco friendly habits to students. In 2019 they organized a climate strike that led to President Bostein signing the SDG Accord. In 2019 and 2020 they led Recyclemania outreach events.

The Bard College Farm: The 1.25-acre college farm established in 2012 aims to connect students with our local food shed and the understanding that eating is an agricultural, environmental and social act inextricably rooted within the land, its history and our community. The farm not only employs students but supports internships and serves as a campus field station for academic research and investigation. More than 220 students have worked at the farm to produce over 141,000 pounds of crops, which are sold to the College dining service and at a weekly farm stand on campus. The farm is committed to using sustainable and regenerative practices that build healthy soils, grow nutrient dense food and support climate resilience. The farm sources materials like potting soils and seeds from local producers whenever possible and uses Bard College compost made from dining service food waste. Crops grown include peppers, greens, tomatoes, squash, shiitake mushrooms, eggplants, honey and other value-added products that are sold at the farm stand. The farm stand is open on Thursdays, summer and fall, in front of New Annandale House. For more information, visit bardfarm.org.
The Bard College Community Garden: The community garden is an open and inclusive space designed to facilitate campus gardening, food culture, conservation and healing endeavors. Through academic and student led engagement opportunities the garden serves to reconnect students, faculty and staff to the process of growing, conservation and stewardship while fostering community. The garden is managed by two student clubs and hosts a variety of native, medicinal and heirloom open pollinated plants. Crop varieties are chosen that support an emerging heirloom seed library, student run apothecary and the Diaspora Garden, a project dedicated to the propagation of plants that create a direct link to the food cultures, marginalized communities and histories embedded within our campus landscape and Hudson Valley foodshed.

The Root Cellar is a space that promotes free expression of all art forms; music, performance art, etc. It does not discriminate against artists on terms of class, race or gender. The root cellar is also political club, and works to collaborate with different kinds of clubs and organizations within the Bard community. We have partnerships with groups such as Peer Health, Sunrise, and Nobody Leaves Mid Hudson to use our space to promote their sustainability and equity goals. The Saw Kill Coffee House is a student run coffee house on campus. Customers are encouraged to BYO mug. The coffee house has also accepted Caught Green Handed 'Botstein Bucks' ($1 awards students have gotten for doing something sustainable on campus). The cafe reduces, re-uses, recycles and composts.

SECTION 3: ROLE OF THE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT
COMMITTEE (SRIC)
a) The SRIC shall maintain and facilitate an ongoing dialogue between the Bard College
community and the management of public companies held within the endowment.
b) The SRIC shall engage shareholders through voting by proxy and execute shareholder
6
resolutions.
c) The SRIC shall regularly host events on the subject of responsible investment.
d) The SRIC shall support and monitor the Social Choice Fund to leverage positive social
change and offer a socially responsible alternative for endowment gifts.
e) The Chair of the SRIC shall be responsible for scheduling and organizing regular meetings of
the SRIC, as well as maintaining an ongoing dialogue with the appropriate administrative
outlets.

1) The Black Body Experience Conference is in its 5th annual year and was created by alum, Tayler Butler in 2014. It was initially created as a conference under the umbrella of Colored Womxn United, a club at Bard created as a safe space for womxn of color. The first conference was created within a week and consisted of student-facilitated workshops. 2017 was the first year that we had all outside speakers who were professionals in their backgrounds. In 2018, the Black Body Experience Council was created in order to ensure that the conference would be sustained for years to come. Although the theme of the conference varies annually, themes typically focus on various issues affecting womxn within communities of color. Such topics include the following: mental health, reproductive rights, social justice, academics, and politics. (from https://hac.bard.edu/the-black-body-experience). 2) Calderwood Seminars are intended primarily for junior and senior majors in the field. They are designed to help students think about how to translate their discipline (e.g. art history, biology, literature) to non-specialists through different forms of public writing. Depending on the major, public writing might include policy papers, book reviews, blog posts, exhibition catalog entries, grant reports, or editorials. Students write or edit one short piece of writing per week. Recent Calderwood Courses include "Environmental Future on the Global Climate Crisis" and "Public Writing and the Built Enviorment" 3) The Bard Center for Environmental Policy (Bard CEP) held a virtual teach-in on climate solutions and climate justice, focusing on ambitious but feasible state and local solutions to help solve climate change by 2030. The April 7 teach-in—part of Bard CEP's Solve Climate by 2030 (Solve Climate) project—features 50 university-led webinars in almost every state, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, and at international sites in South America, Asia, and Europe through the Open Society University Network. "As learning and activism moves online, it is essential to continue teaching about this central global issue," says Bard CEP Director Eban Goodstein. "This teaching event is designed to engage secondary education, higher education, and local communities across the nation and around the world in a critical discussion about local climate solutions."

1) Naturalized Borders (to Gloria) was the first iteration of a multifaceted, interactive land art and community-based project, including a 72-foot-long line of indigenous crops (corn, beans, and squash, known as “the three sisters”) planted in the shape of the U.S.-Mexico border line on the Bard College Farm. It includes the harvesting, sharing, and clearing of crops and land; a mobile paleta cart-turned-drawing studio upon which persons of any background are invited to memorialize real or imagined borders; and the documentation and archive from various stages of the project. Continuing the legacy of Chicana feminist writer Gloria E. Anzaldúa, the work seeks to unearth histories of immigration, labor rights, borders, land sovereignty, and systemic oppression. This event happened November 21st-23rd 2019. 2) (R)evolution of indiginous Food Systems of North America Sean Sherman, Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge reservation, and the founder of the company The Sioux Chef, is committed to revitalizing Native American cuisine. Through his research, he has uncovered and mapped out the foundations of the indigenous food systems through an indigenous perspective. Chef Sean has become renowned nationally and internationally in the culinary movement of indigenous foods and with an ever-growing team of indigenous minded peers, is leading a movement to completely redefine North American cuisine through the understanding and utilization of indigenous food knowledge. This is an evolution of Native American Foods, taking important educations of the past and applying them to the now. Chef Sea presented on Bard's campus on October 29th 2019.

There have been several clubs that use the outdoors. We confirmed that the Eco Community specifically follows Leave No Trace Principles.

Sustainability is embedded in the curriculum of the annual Citizen Science program, a scientific literacy program required for all first-years during January. Students are encouraged to think about water and their communities. Over the last five years, the directors of Bard's first year Language and Thinking program have been very receptive to incorporating readings related to sustainability, including adding the Pope's 2015 encyclical on the environment to the reading list.

BardE3s host events that delve into human habits and how they impact sustainability. Students involved in the Bard Farm have seasonal opportunities to participate in the "Students Feeding Students" program, where they cook a dish in the dining hall kitchen using farm-fresh ingredients. Wellness: The Health and Wellness Education Department supports students’ physical, mental, social, environmental, spiritual, and academic health and wellness, with a focus on health promotion for individuals and communities. To help students manage stress, Health and Wellness offers individual sessions and group workshops in mindfulness, meditation, and guided journaling. First Year Orientation includes Title IX work and Diversity work

The Office of Sustainability (BoS) hires students to work on sustainability-focused jobs on the farm, through BardEATS and through the BardE3s Program. Peer Health Educators facilitate conversations and events around a variety of health topics, including the benefits of stress reduction, eating a well-balanced diet, regular stretching and exercise, alcohol and drug harm reduction, body positivity, sexual health, contraception, safe sex, navigating relationships, and sex positivity.

The Pledge: As I graduate from Bard College, I recognize the imperative for the public and private sectors to bolster climate change mitigation efforts. To that end I pledge to weigh the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider. I will endeavor to make mitigation of climate change and a healthier global environment a priority in my work and civic life.
Students were given a sustainability pin to wear after taking the pledge and could opt in to a sticker or a commemorative Botstein Buck. Staff and faculty donned it as well.

Bard students participate in the Amphibian Migration and Eel Monitoring projects, as sponsored by the NYSDEC and supported locally by the Town of Red Hook, Saw Kill Watershed Community, and EUS.

Bard College Student Constitution: http://student.bard.edu/bsg/files/2018/09/Student-Government-Constitution-of-Bard-College-Fall-2018-2.pdf