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Dear Members of the Sarah Lawrence Community,
As I write to you today, I’m reflecting on themes of community, gratitude, and tradition — fitting sentiments for this time of year, but also ones that feel especially present on campus right now. Living here, I have the privilege of seeing how our community expresses these values in ways both large and small every day.
Over the past week, gratitude has been at the center of several gatherings across campus. Graduate Studies hosted a “Thankful for Each Other” lunch — a moment for students, faculty, and staff to pause and appreciate the relationships that sustain their work — while Peer Counselors and Spiritual Life collaborated on a gratitude meditation session in the Spiritual Space in The HUB. These are just two examples of the many ways our community works daily to connect with and care for one another.
That spirit of connection and community was powerfully on display at last week’s first-ever Academic Fair. Walking into the multipurpose rooms of the BWCC, it was impossible not to feel awed and energized by the breadth and depth of this education, and by seeing the collaborative relationships between so many faculty and students in action, all in one place. The experience was a bit like making one’s way through a living, breathing 3-D version of one of everyone’s favorite publications, the Sarah Lawrence Course Catalogue. And in true Sarah Lawrence fashion, the fair offered the opportunity for a dynamic exchange of ideas with curiosity at the forefront — faculty seeking student input on forthcoming courses, students sharing their interests and aspirations, and everyone together mapping possibilities for the semester and years ahead. It was a lively and extraordinary encapsulation of what’s at the heart of this transformative education, and I left feeling profound gratitude for the community that makes it possible. I’m not the only one who expressed the hope that the fair might be a new tradition in the making!
Meanwhile, I'll keep this month’s From the President’s Desk brief, as I’m elbow deep in pie making. As many of you know, each year I bake pies for students who stay on campus during the Thanksgiving break. What began in fall 2020, in the uncertain months of COVID, as a small gesture of appreciation for our students, has grown into something that I (and I hope the students!) very much look forward to. It’s a tangible way for me to show gratitude to them and an encouragement for them to connect with one another over something homemade in a long weekend that can feel quiet for those remaining on campus. This is one tradition I know will continue… at least until the oven in the President’s House gives out! (And if you haven’t read alumna Ann Patchett’s essay about a lonely Thanksgiving on campus warmed by food and friends, I commend it to you as an annual seasonal treat, right up there with listening to Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant”, whose real-life Alice, Alice Brock, was a Sarah Lawrence student.)
Like so many practices and traditions that have evolved over our almost century-long history as a college, when I baked those first pies I had no idea it would become something lasting. These things often begin that way: a simple moment of gratitude, a gesture of care, an action that meets the moment, a shared experience that resonates more deeply than we expect, a new way of connecting, a reimagined way of interacting. And when we commit to building and sustaining a community that values one another and the relational work at the core of our educational model, those moments have a way of becoming the endearing and enduring traditions that make us who we are.
With gratitude for all you bring to this community,
Cristle Collins Judd
President
president@sarahlawrence.edu
Instagram: @slcprez