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Dear Members of the Sarah Lawrence Community,
Family & Friends Weekend is always one of my favorite moments in the fall semester, and this year was no exception. Last weekend, more than 500 guests joined us for this tradition that marks the midpoint of the semester; it was a joy to welcome so many of you to campus and to watch students share their lives at Sarah Lawrence with their lovedones. The weekend ended on an especially high note as our Women’s Cross Country team won the Skyline Championship — a program first. Congratulations and Go Gryphons!
As I shared with families and friends, Sarah Lawrence remains committed to collective engagement in guiding the future of higher education. I recently joined other college and university presidents and education leaders in endorsing Higher Education’s Compact with America: Shared Principles for the Common Good, released by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and the Phi Beta Kappa Society. The enduring principles embraced by higher education and affirmed in this compact reflect Sarah Lawrence’s mission and values. Again as I did during Family & Friends Weekend, I’d like to use this issue of From the President’s Desk to highlight a few ways in which we continue to live into those values by sharing just some of the good work taking place on campus this semester.
In my letter to you last month, I shared that work is underway on a new center for experiential learning, which will help our students connect from campus to the wider world and from their present to their future. I am delighted to share that Sarah Lawrence has been awarded a $1.565 million grant through the Higher Education Capital Matching Program of the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York to support this project. Demolition of the unused section of the Performing Arts Center that will house this new space is now underway, an exciting first step in creating a nexus that will bridge classroom learning with real-world opportunities.
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Connection is at the heart of a Sarah Lawrence education, and nothing better represents that connection than the close, collaborative relationships between students and faculty. A new video series on our website, SLC Transcript Review, presents unscripted conversations between a student and a faculty member to offer an authentic glimpse into the richness of these connections in and beyond the classroom. I hope you’ll watch!
Several of our faculty members were recognized last month, as we celebrated our new faculty chairs and the winner of this year’s Lipkin Prize for Inspirational Teaching, Marty Goldray (Music). These honors recognize not only individual excellence but also the collective dedication of our faculty to guiding student growth.
Faculty accomplishments extend far beyond campus as well. To name just a few: Writing faculty member Victoria Redel’s highly anticipated novel I Am You was released to great acclaim; Filmmaking and Moving Image Arts faculty member Robin Starbuck has been invited to spend two months as a research filmmaker at the Arctic Culture Lab in Greenland; Anthropology faculty member Robert Desjarlais published his latest book, The Visual Afterlife of Abdelkader Bennahar; Writing faculty member Brian Morton ’78 just released Writing as a Way of Life: A Book About Art, Craft, and Devotion; and Russian and Literature faculty member Melissa Frazier published her new book, Signs of the Material World: Dostoevsky, Science, and the Nineteenth-Century Novel. In a recent interview with the Bloggers Karamazov, the official blog of the North American Dostoevsky Society, Melissa spoke about how her SLC course on “Dostoevsky and the West” began her journey with the book— that’s so Sarah Lawrence.
The Sarah Lawrence Podcast features some great recent episodes with faculty members sharing stories about their artistic and scholarly work beyond the College, including David Hollander (Writing), Tristrana Rorandelli (Italian, Literature), and the soon-to-be-released Faculty Spotlights with Carolyn Ferrell (Writing) and Jamee Moudud (Economics).
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Sarah Lawrence’s multidisciplinary approach to education is particularly on display this semester in the Visual Arts. Last week, faculty members John O’Connor (Visual and Studio Arts) and Scott Shushan (Philosophy) collaborated on Minding Art, the first workshop in a series that explores how artistic practice intersects with other disciplines.
That spirit continues in Vital Forms: New Ecological Aesthetics, an exhibition opening November 20 in the Barbara Walters Gallery. Curated by Mitchell Herrmann (Art History) in collaboration with students from his Anthropocene Aesthetics seminar and supported by the Mellon Grant for Civic Engagement and the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE), this exhibition features work by six emerging and established contemporary artists whose work addresses humanity’s changing relationships to nature. It also includes new work developed during the fall residency of the artist duo Alchemyverse. This project represents so well what Sarah Lawrence does best: blending scholarship and practice, creating opportunities for experiential learning and real world experience, and preparing students to engage with urgent global questions.
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Last but not least, happy anniversary to the Art of Teaching graduate program, which was established 40 years ago. Rooted in Sarah Lawrence’s longstanding commitment to children, childhood, and education, the program has prepared generations of teachers who embody our values in classrooms around the world. At a time when the importance of great teachers has never been clearer, we are proud to celebrate and continue this vital work.
This semester’s pursuits — far greater in number than what is included here— are a vivid reminder of how a Sarah Lawrence education shapes lives and resonates beyond campus. They speak to the enduring strength of our mission, our collective dedication to the values that guide us, and the spirit of this community. On November 18, that spirit will be on full display as the College hosts its first-ever Academic Fair, an event that will bring the entire SLC curriculum together under one roof. Students can preview next semester’s course offerings, chat with and offer feedback to faculty as they work to develop future classes, explore internship and global education opportunities, and learn about our five-year Master’s programs. I can’t wait to see our community come together for this celebration of the breadth, depth, and creativity that define a Sarah Lawrence education.
Thank you for being part of this extraordinary community and for all that you make possible.
Yours,
Cristle Collins Judd
President
president@sarahlawrence.edu
Instagram: @slcprez
Announcements
Family & Friends Weekend
Browse this photo gallery to relive the highlights from Family & Friends Weekend. And if you missed my Campus Updates session that featured a Q&A with Provost and Dean of Faculty Kanwal Singh and Vice President and Dean of Students Dave Stanfield, you can watch that here.
SLICE after SLC
This week, faculty from the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE) hosted a panel discussion featuring SLC alums working at the intersection of environmental science, sustainability, and social impact. Students got to see firsthand how a Sarah Lawrence education can lead to meaningful, interdisciplinary work in the environmental sector.
#GoGryphons
More congratulations are in order for our Gryphons! The Women’s Soccer Team has qualified for its seventh consecutive Skyline Conference Tournament, and will take on St. Joseph’s Long Island tomorrow in the first round. On the Men’s Cross Country team, Ivo Duwin ’27 earned the Skyline’s Elite 19 Award, given to the student-athlete in each championship with the highest GPA – a true reflection of SLC’s student-athlete experience. And congratulations to all of our fall sports seniors on their amazing careers!
Halloween & S’more
The rain couldn’t stop us from kicking off Halloween festivities with our annual tradition of s’mores, hot cider, and treats at the President’s House. See my Instagram for more photos from the evening!
Embracing Play
On November 8, our Child Development Institute will host Embracing Play, a day of conversation and workshops on the vital role of play in children’s lives, learning, and communities. Learn more here.