To the editor:
My offspring attended Simon’s Rock for four years, and it was a lifesaver for them.
The education system is incredible and unique. Extremely excellent teachers encourage students to lead discussions, and many of them come from high schools where the norm is to keep quiet or be bullied.
Maybe that is part of why Simon’s Rock got rated one of the top liberal arts college in U.S. News and World Report in the early 1990s, as well as by other college reviews such as Harvard’s.
From our experience, President Leon Botstein did little to nothing to help “The Rock.” He rarely appeared there, and it seems clear now that the plan to move the school was several years in the making. He certainly cleared out a lot of property at Bard to replace an early college which will never be the same. Certainly if he had wanted the excellence that Simon’s Rock had, he could have encouraged faculty to join rather than firing them. And why was it so important for Simon’s Rock at Bard to officially change its name a few years ago to “Bard College at Simon’s Rock”? This upset students and alumni who felt a lot of deserved pride in their relative independence.
Could the recent initiative Simon’s Rock took to greatly expand their LGBTQ program to encourage students to come from unfriendly states be the problem? Maybe that is partly the reason, as I suspect some Bard alumni who are contributors may have objected to that. It does seem clear to many at Simon’s Rock that they were on their own and unfavored stepchildren.
I would like to be part of any initiative to save the property from undesirable potential buyers. Please feel free to contact me so I can find out more.
Dr. Barbara Barak
Great Barrington
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