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Dear Members of the Sarah Lawrence Community,
Fall is in the air! October Study Days last week marked not just the midpoint of the semester but a palpable acceleration of the pace of life on campus, with conference work, performances, art exhibitions, and presentations coming ever more into focus. In today’s From the President’s Desk I’d like to offer a brief snapshot of life on campus right now, when this community’s creativity, scholarship, and commitment to our shared values are as vibrantly on display as the stunning fall foliage!
This semester, we welcomed four new tenure-track faculty members: Julia Clark (Japanese), Sarah Racz (Physics), Joel Swanson (Religion), and Joseph Earl Thomas (Writing). Their intellectual and creative talents and passion for teaching are a perfect match for the College. And they are already receiving acclaim: Joseph’s recently published novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer was just shortlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize!
The work of our faculty and students is not bound by the walls of the classroom. Earlier this month, Biology faculty member Ceci Toro presented at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting in Chicago, connecting with other neuroscientists and sharing information about her yearlong course, Experimental Neurobiology and Physiology. This new course, made possible by a grant from the George I. Alden Trust to purchase cutting-edge laboratory equipment, provides students with research experiences using the zebrafish model organism. Closer to home, this month’s “Faculty Spotlight” in the library celebrated the recent publication of Art History faculty member Jerrilynn Dodds’ latest book, Visual Histories from Medieval Iberia: Arts and Ambivalence. Listening to Jerri talk about her work, it is easy to see why students rave about her classes and the scholarly and curatorial world she opens to them; keep an eye on the Sarah Lawrence Podcast to hear her interview on an upcoming episode!
Since its opening at the start of the semester, the HUB has rapidly come to life. Student groups have taken root in its spaces, and programming and communal gatherings are filling the calendar; just last week, the directors of Spiritual Life and DEIB hosted the first Monthly Friday Breakfast in the kitchen and dining room. And the impact of the HUB — and its focus on Humanity, Understanding, and Belonging — is rippling across campus. Earlier this month, the LGBTQIA+ Space celebrated National Coming Out Day; the Student of Color block party, sponsored by Common Ground and Harambee, spread out across the North Lawn; the Muslim Student Association held a welcome back “Chai and Chill”; and SLC Hillel, Jewish Voices for Peace, and Hujews on Campus all held events marking Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. On any given day, the HUB’s communal spaces and expansive patios are filled with students studying, meeting up, and enjoying each other's company. Indeed, the HUB is living into its vision as the core from which a culture of connection and inclusion spreads outward.
This year, Sarah Lawrence will observe Election Day as a College holiday. The decision to do so resulted from feedback from the community and signals in an important way the College’s commitment to fostering civic engagement and a shared belief in active participation in the democratic process. The College partners with TurboVote to make voting easy for students, faculty, and staff, and has shared information on how individuals can get involved as volunteers and poll workers. Today, two student groups — Democracy Matters and the Law and Political Economy Society — are hosting a faculty talk on the political, economic, social, and environmental stakes of the election featuring Bernice Rosenzweig (Environmental Science), Jamee Moudud (Economics), and David Peritz (Politics). On Election Day, we’ll be running shuttles from campus to residential students’ local polling place and an Election Day Headquarters will be set up for everyone to gather together as results come in throughout the night. And it’s not just our students who are working to support voter engagement: I was gratified this morning to see this opinion piece in The New York Times by SLC alumnus and board member Neil Makhija ’09.
As we approach Election Day, I encourage you to mark your calendars for two upcoming events in our yearlong series on Polarization: Impacts + Solutions. This Thursday, October 24th, Jon Grinspan ’06, author of Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War, will join us to discuss lessons from our nation’s history that resonate in today’s fractured political landscape. Those on or near campus will also want to make special note that on October 29th the library will host a panel discussion on misinformation led by former New York Times editor and political science faculty Andrew Rosenthal and featuring panelists Marek Fuchs (Writing), journalist and author Jeffrey Rothfeder, and Zeve Sanderson, founding director of NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics. Learn more about these and other upcoming events, and watch previous events, on the Polarization website.
Engagement with the broader community is something not limited to Election Day at SLC. Daily, our graduate and professional students from Dance/Movement Therapy, Art of Teaching, Child Development/Social Work, and Human Genetics are engaged in a variety of clinical placements across community centers, schools, hospitals, and other nonprofits. And our students, faculty, and staff volunteer in myriad ways. In just the last couple of weeks, students have participated in an on-campus blood drive hosted by the Prehealth Student Alliance, led Lunchbox Theatre workshops for Yonkers residents alongside Theatre Outreach Director Allen Lang and faculty member Aixa Rosario Medina, headed to the Center for the Urban River at Beczak with the men’s basketball team to clean up the Hudson River waterfront, and volunteered at Wartburg Adult Care Community’s Fall Festival. An October Study Day of Service had high participation by students, who visited the AFYA Foundation in Yonkers to sort and pack medical goods for hurricane victims.
I’m eager to see many of you on campus to celebrate SLC with Family & Friends Weekend. It’s always a wonderful time to welcome loved ones into our vibrant campus life and to provide a glimpse of the many ways our students are thriving.
And then one of my favorite traditions will close out this busy month: s’mores and hot cider in the backyard of the President’s House on Halloween.
I look forward to seeing many of you at these events and throughout the rest of the semester!
Yours,
Cristle Collins Judd
President
president@sarahlawrence.edu
Instagram: @slcprez
Spooky Season at the Library
No bones about it, even the skeletons at the library know the importance of voting. Kudos to director Mustafa Sakarya and the whole library team for yet again going all out for Halloween. If you’re on campus in the next week or so, be sure to check it out!
In Case You Missed It
On October 9, the Gender and Women’s History Collective hosted Claire Potter, professor of history emeritus at The New School for Social Research, for a talk titled, “White Dudes for Harris, Women for Trump.” It was a compelling discussion, and if you missed it you can watch it here.
Coming Up
The Child Development Institute is hosting a two-day conference titled, “What has Happened to Childhood and Democracy? Reclaiming Progressive Pedagogy.” On November 15, Mariana Souto-Manning, president of the renowned Erikson Institute, will deliver the annual Thomas H. Wright Lecture on the topic, “Understanding Children's Rights as Human Rights and Embracing Our Responsibility as Educators”. On November 16, the Cynthia Longfellow Lecture will take the form of a conversation between Associate Dean Lyde Cullen Sizer and Barbara Stengel, president of the John Dewey Society, on the role of progressive education in today’s world. Learn more about the full conference agenda on the CDI website.
Go Gryphons!
Senior days, show days, and game days, oh my! Our student-athletes are having a terrific fall season, and I want to give a special shout-out to the women’s cross country team, who returned from the St. Joseph’s Invitational this past weekend with a second-place finish — their third trophy of the season! Follow all the Gryphon action for the rest of the semester at gogryphons.com.