With the exception of the 10 years I spent in the Trotskyist movement,
my four years at Bard College from 1961 to 1965 were the most intense of
my life. I entered Bard at the age of 16, a voluntary exile from my
oppressive high school. As a freshman, I was elated to discover that
Bard was a haven for people exactly like me. Moving into my dormitory in
early September, I was amazed to hear another student reciting lines
from Arthur Rimbaud’s “A Season in Hell” in the original French as he
walked upstairs to his room. I had arrived! Whether it was heaven or
hell, I didn’t care. Just as long as it wasn’t Fallsburg Central High
School.
Bard was part of a handful of “experimental” colleges that had been
launched in the early 20th century as a bid to integrate work and study.
Others included Black Mountain College, Antioch and Goddard. All but
Bard went out of business for reasons I never quite understood. Bard
would have faced the same fate unless it had been “rescued” by Leon
Botstein, who assumed the office of President in 1975 at the tender age
of 29. He was always the wunderkind, having graduated from high school
at the age of 16-like me. He lined up his first job as President of
Franconia College in 1970, setting a record for the youngest man to hold
such an office in American history. Of course, it helped that his
father-in-law was on the board of trustees of Franconia. From an early
age, Leon grasped the importance of such old boy’s networks, which are
essential to the capitalist system-including its blue chip colleges and
universities.
full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/leon-and-me/
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