Great Barrington — Bard College at Simon’s Rock held its 56th commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 17. For graduates, it was the end of an era as students moved on into the “real world.” It was also the end of an era for the college as it was its final commencement ceremony on its Great Barrington campus.
In November, the college announced that it would be leaving Great Barrington for a new campus at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. The college will be laying off 116 employees as part of the campus closure.
While the May 17 commencement ceremony celebrated academic achievements, the reality of the impending campus closure influenced the speeches. “While I will try not to dwell on the reality that this is our last commencement here in Great Barrington, it would be odd not to acknowledge that this is the reality upon us,” said Provost and College Vice President John Weinstein. “Throughout the past seven months since the announcement of the move of our campus, I’ve drawn upon my own academic background in Asian studies to help me process this change. One concept I’ve taught in courses here over the years is the Japanese traditional notion of ‘Aware’ [pronounced: ‘Ah-wah-re’]. As an emotion and as esthetic, it celebrates the sadness we feel when experiencing something beautiful. Think of the cherry blossoms that bloom so briefly in the spring and that play such a vital role in Japanese culture. Their intense beauty actually derives from our knowledge that they will have fallen and withered soon after we enjoy their beauty.”
Weinstein explained that when he first started to teach the concept of “Aware,” he saw it as very negative. “But over time, I have come to realize that moments truly are the more beautiful when they are more fleeting,” Weinstein said. “That is how I’ve approached a year when, time and time again, I wanted to be able to truly enjoy an event that I knew would be the last of its kind.”
In his speech, Weinstein paid tribute to those in the Simon’s Rock community who recently passed. “Early in 2025, we lost Peter Cocks, a faculty member in political science who always demanded the best from his students and inspired them to rise to the challenge,” Weinstein said. “The rigor that Peter embodied is something I want to bring with us to our new space. I also want to bring trust, and no one embodied trust more than Ba Win.”
Ba Win, who died in late April, served in multiple roles during his time at Simon’s Rock, including as the college’s dean of students, provost, and vice president. “He was a fundamental figure in the history of Simon’s Rock,” Weinstein said. “He was actually the first person I met here, as he chaired the search committee that hired me back in 2001. I learned so much from Ba Win, but most important was that we trust our students. He said time and time again that trust, not rules or punishments, should guide our work. The graduates we celebrate today could not have achieved their academic and personal successes had we not trusted that they would and could.”
Chair of the college’s Board of Overseers and 1976 graduate James Clark was the next speaker to address and congratulate the graduates. “It’s a job well done, and you should be really proud of yourselves,” Clark said. “But at the same time, I ask you to take a moment to remember and thank those around you who helped you on this journey, especially your friends, parents, siblings, mentors, and all of those who have been there for you and helped you get to this momentous milestone. Today is a special commencement because not only will all of you graduate into the next phase of your lives, but Simon’s Rock itself will also move on to a new and exciting phase of its existence. Before doing so, let us all take a moment to reflect on what this special campus has meant to all of us and the memories that we’ve collectively created in this place. It has been a remarkable run in Great Barrington.”
Chair Emerita of the college’s Board of Overseers Emily Fisher said that the decision to close the Great Barrington campus was made “in the best interest of the college.” “This campus is a special place, but it’s not just a beautiful piece of land with classrooms, dorms, an athletic center, and a performing arts center,” Fisher said. “It’s special because of the energy of the students, faculty, and staff. It’s their commitment for everyone to engage, learn, and share. It’s the relationships that have been formed and cherished over two years, four years, and beyond.”
Fisher said that, despite all of the positive elements that embody Bard College at Simon’s Rock, the college has been experiencing many of the same challenges that have caused other liberal arts colleges to fold. “[Problems have included] the higher costs needed to maintain our campus and the drop in the birth rate that has caused an unsustainable enrollment for several years,” Fisher said. “Our Board of Overseers has been discussing our options for survival. Last year, after finally agreeing that we had to sell this campus, we spent many meetings discussing our options. One board member said that Simon’s Rock had a special ‘secret sauce,’ and that we could never replicate it. We could never offer the experience that we so cherished. Other board members agreed, and when we asked them what was in the ‘secret sauce,’ they described feeling seen and valued, and having easy access to conversations with faculty and staff. For the next several meetings, we talked about how we could make that happen at a new location, until we finally agreed to move the college to Bard’s new campus. Our move to the new campus will take our ‘secret sauce’ and offer our students exciting new opportunities.”
The commencement speaker for the event was 2001 graduate Chloe Demrovsky, who currently serves as an executive in residence in global business and economy at New York University. Demrovsky previously served as the president and CEO of Disaster Recovery Institute International.
“I can see how choosing this unique school and surrounding myself with like-minded, stubborn, and different people who are not afraid to ask questions helped me to shatter the low expectations put on a young woman knocking on the door of a good ol’ boys club and in a world that is changing more rapidly than in any other age of technological revolution,” Demrovsky said. “ChatGPT can write an essay for you in seconds with efficient output, to be sure. But it cannot do the learning for you. It cannot take you on the journey, and that is the outcome that makes us grow. It is the process that makes us effective. Efficiency is no guarantee of efficacy.”
“In a polycrisis world, big changes are coming, but out of chaos comes opportunity,” Demrovsky told graduates. “It is essential to stay curious, keep learning, and figure out how to be useful. It is learning itself that you must learn to love. It may not be an efficient process, and it certainly wasn’t for me, but it has never been more important to do what is hard and what may feel inefficient, because it is the journey with all of its trials and tribulations, with all of its profound humanness that makes the meaning. None of us came to Simon’s Rock to live a conventional life. We’re not conventional. We’re Rockers.”
Valeriia Pavlyk was the class speaker for those who earned their Associate of Arts degree. “A shout out to all of my fellow Ukrainians,” Pavlyk said. “We’ve been through chaos, heartbreak, and the weight of war and distance. But we still found ways to love. For so many of us, Simon’s Rock wasn’t just a school, it was a refuge. Some of us came here caring, [with] grief, fear, or the weight of complicated pasts. Some of us left behind homes we can’t return to, or the homes that never felt safe in the first place. And somehow, here among the woods the strange schedules of shuttle and strange traditions, we found something like peace. This place became a shelter, not perfect, not permanent, but real. We found people who listened, who laughed with us, cried with us, and danced with us.”
Graduate Sayed Eqbal Srosh was the student speaker for those who earned their Bachelor of Arts degree. “My [educational] journey began in January 2020, at the American University of Afghanistan,” Srosh said. “I started with a dream of becoming the next leader in my country. I was full of hope and ambition, ready to begin the life I had dreamed of. But just over a year later, the world around me collapsed when the Taliban returned to power. What followed were days of fear, uncertainty, and displacement. Yet, through the chaos, I found a lifeline, an opportunity to continue my education at the American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan.”
Srosh said that he eventually transferred to Bard College at Simon’s Rock. “After arriving here, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but what I found here was extraordinary,” Srosh said. “The path at times was long and often difficult, but it was also shaped by something stronger: a hope to rebuild, hope to keep learning, and hope to create a future not just for myself, but for those I had to leave behind. Every step of the way education gave me a reason to keep going. The support I received from faculty and staff was beyond anything I imagined. My professors believed in me, my peers welcomed me, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I belonged.”
“Here at Simon’s Rock, I discovered parts of myself I never knew existed,” Srosh said. “I found a passion for photography, and what began as a hobby became a powerful form of self expression. Through the camera lens, I learned to see the world and myself differently. I also found doors opening professionally. This journey from Kabul to Bishkek to Great Barrington has changed me. I have grown stronger, more focused, and more resilient. I carry with me the pain of loss, but also the power of perseverance. I’m proud of who I’ve become. I’m proud of who I’ve become. I’m proud of my family who supported me through it all, and I’m proud of the friends and mentors who lifted me on the dark days. Graduating this May is more than a personal milestone. It’s a testament to triumph over adversity, a loving reminder that no matter how uncertain the path, there is always a way forward.”
Srosh added that, while the college campus may be closing, Simon’s Rock “will continue to shine through each of us, wherever we go. We carry its values, curiosity, the courage that endures, and compassion that connects. We are the legacy of this place, and the world will know Simon’s Rock through the light we bring into it.”
The last speaker in the ceremony was Simon’s Rock President Leon Botstein. “This commencement ceremony wouldn’t be complete if we did not focus on, as they say colloquially, the ‘elephant in the room,’” Botstein said. “You are graduating at what may be the most precarious moment in American history regarding the future of democracy, justice, and freedom. Improbably, perhaps for many of us who are immigrants and for many in this space, we are at a time where the fundamental rights that are inscribed in the founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution, are genuinely at risk. This threat to democracy and to liberty is not a partisan matter for those of you and the majority of Americans who voted for the president. You did so freely using your best judgment. There should be no rancor about what happened. There should be no moral superiority about what happened. But it has turned out to be wrong and dangerous, and we all make mistakes.”
“The task for us is to prevent the damage, temporary and permanent,” Botstein advised the graduates. “It is not plausible to blame the universities for antisemitism, which is the oldest prejudice in Western history. It is wrong to assign disagreement to an entire enterprise of knowledge, research, and teaching, which we are part of, which has been the secret for American economic and scientific success. [It is a] collaboration between government and institutions of learning. To use the power of funding to invite censorship, the overturning of science, the destruction of rules of evidence, is not only improper, it is dangerous to freedom.”
“Given your education and your privilege, you must use it to fight for some recognition of right and wrong,” Botstein told the graduates. “[Use your education for] the capacity to forgive your enemies, and to love thy neighbor as thyself, whoever that neighbor may be, especially if they don’t seem to resemble you. Because the principle of democracy is that, fundamentally, at the end of the day, we are all equal.”
