Bard College at Simon’s Rock closes

The closure of Bard’s campus at Simon’s Rock has left faculty facing an uncertain future.
Photo courtesy of the Berkshire Eagle

The closure of Bard’s campus at Simon’s Rock has left faculty facing an uncertain future.
GREAT BARRINGTON — An online petition by a student trying to save the livelihoods of Bard College at Simon’s Rock faculty has gained 912 signatures since it was first released on Tuesday, Nov 19.
And another student is working on a campaign to establish a fund that employees of the school who lose jobs and health insurance can draw from.
After the Nov. 19 announcement that the school would close its early college at the end of spring semester, employees and students have been grappling with the news, attending frequent meetings and trying to help those whose jobs are likely on the chopping block.
There is much sorrow, anger and frustration in the atmosphere, students said.
“It’s been really, really sad,” said Isabella Zeisset, 18, a sophomore, who started the Change.org petition asking Bard to renew faculty contracts. “The students are really worried about the faculty.”
Numerous faculty contacted by The Eagle said it is too early to talk about what’s happening.
And, the students said, it is also too painful. Many longtime faculty and staff at the school are facing layoffs as the school moves its entire operation to Bard’s new Massena Campus at Annandale-On-Hudson, N.Y.
It’s a move that Bard has been mulling for several years.
Bard said in its announcement and on its website that faculty positions will not be transferred from Simon’s Rock, and that they have to apply anew for any available teaching slots.
A spokesperson for Bard has not answered specific questions the number of positions at the New York campus, about 40 miles southwest of Great Barrington.
Rumors are flying through campus about these numbers, students and other sources told The Eagle. The Bard website showed roughly 50 job openings as of Thursday evening.
A Simon’s Rock spokesperson said the school currently has 238 employees. It was unclear exactly how many staff and faculty may lose their jobs.
Those who do get rehired at Bard could lose seniority in terms of benefits. It will be up to the discretion of Bard, the website says.
For these reasons and more the announcement on Tuesday rattled the entire campus and town, given Simon’s Rock’s immense economic and cultural significance in town since the 1960s.
School officials cited declining enrollment as a primary reason.
Students who continue on will transfer to the new Bard campus in the fall to finish their studies. Summer housing will be available “on a limited basis and prioritized for students with the greatest need,” the school website says.
The school is one of Great Barrington’s largest employers. And over the decades its students have worked and shopped at businesses in town. Many returned to the town later to raise families and open businesses.
“It’s a huge deal,” said Erik Bruun, who owns SoCo Creamery downtown and has employed Simon’s Rock Students. “And once you start pulling back the layers of the impacts, [the closing] really almost affects every element of the community. It’s a great loss.”
“The school made a big difference,” Bruun said, “in a lot of people’s lives.”
But Bruun, who wrote about the school in the 1980s when he worked as an Eagle reporter, remembers that the school has long struggled with money.
“It was sort of touch and go in the 80s,” Bruun said. And apparently also for the last “several years,” according to the school’s website.
The school’s board of overseers and college administration “have been working to find a solution for a path forward for Simon’s Rock … after it became clear that the current state of enrollment and fundraising was not sustainable”
The school, as a nonprofit, did not pay property taxes and has not made any payments in lieu of taxes, according to the town.
Another big question is what will happen to the campus. It will be sold, but the question is to whom and for what. Great Barrington residents have floated a variety of ideas, such as affordable housing and even as the new location for a Monument Mountain Regional High School, which could cost around $140 million to rebuild.
In response to questions, Bard spokeswomen Liz Benjamin said that there are no offers currently on the table to buy the campus or any part of it.
The Kilpatrick Athletic Center will carry on with its regular programming through the end of summer. “More information will be shared as it becomes available,” she said.
The Daniel Arts Center, Benjamin added, “will honor all performances and rental agreements through the end of 2025 summer season.”
There are various other campus programs, including a farming program, whose fate is uncertain.
Bard has not responded to the the student petition. Benjamin said that school officials are aware of it, and that “this situation is developing, but faculty and staff will have the opportunity to apply for positions at the new campus.”
Some petition supporters expressed their concerns and anger in comments.
“Shameful,” wrote one. “The school knew full well and hid this from us when our daughter started a few months ago. At the least they should offer the teachers the new jobs and allow all students to enter Bard full time ASAP.”
“The faculty at the Rock,” wrote another, “are the school’s heart and soul. I was there twenty years ago and can attest to the lifelong impact of the incredible professors I had back then.”
The petition’s author, Zeisset, said she has “deep connection” to the school. Her parents met at Simon’s Rock when they were students. She will continue to Bard next fall, but worries about the employees and faculty here. She hopes the petition will help pressure Bard to hire them.
“A lot have dedicated half their lives to Simon’s Rock,” Zeisset said. “Just the idea of leaving their life’s work behind has been really difficult.”
Salem Lockney, a junior, said she’s working on the fundraising aspect of this for the employees. A professor is helping her figure out the “ethics” conundrum of who would be able to draw money from a fund and how much.
“I’m not sure what that looks like yet,” said Lockney, 18, who also attended the pre-college Simon’s Rock Academy. “I have so much anger about the whole thing and I wanted to do something about it.”
“The staff and faculty,” Lockney said, “have really changed my life.”
Canyon de Chelly (1904) – Seven Navajo riders on horseback
At a time when questions of representation, cultural legacy and historical narratives are at the forefront of public conversation, the Norfolk Library’s upcoming screening of the award-winning documentary “Coming to Light” offers a timely opportunity for reflection.
The event will be held on Thursday, Nov. 6, at 5:30 p.m., and will include a post-screening discussion with the film’s director, Lakeville resident Anne Makepeace.
“Coming to Light” offers a deeply researched, visually rich portrait of photographer Edward S. Curtis, whose early 20th century mission to record Native American life resulted in tens of thousands of images, sound recordings and texts.
But the film goes beyond biography, critically examining Curtis’ romanticized vision of Native American life and engaging with the descendants and communities whose lives and traditions the photo archives continue to affect.
Between 1896 and 1914, Curtis photographed over 80 tribes from Arizona to Alaska in an effort to capture Native American cultures he feared were disappearing..
“Curtis saw cultural genocide going on, and he feared these cultures would disappear,” Makepeace said. “He wanted to show these people are still here and these traditions are still happening.”

In the late 1990s, when Makepeace was developing her film on Curtis — about a century after he had started his photographic work — she wanted to see how present-day Native Americans felt about his photographs. She found that while academics had long derided Curtis’ work as extractive, colonialist, and often staged, most Native Americans she spoke with were overwhelmingly appreciative of his work. In fact, some of Curtis’ photographs ultimately helped certain tribes revive specific ceremonies.
“Coming to Light” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was shortlisted for an Academy Award in 2000, and was later aired on PBS’ “American Masters” in 2001. As the documentary nears its 25th anniversary, Makepeace reflected on the significance of the film and its lasting impact.
“The film shows the beauty and resilience of these cultures and the diversity of each of the varied tribes that were documented,” she said.
At a time when cultural preservation, national identity and documentary ethics are more important than ever, Makepeace said she believes the film’s message remains especially relevant in 2025.
For further details on the screening and to reserve a seat, visit: norfolklibrary.org/events/documentary-film-coming-to-light/
To see more of Makepeace’s work, visit: makepeaceproductions.com/index.html
Victoria Morse, director of Gallery of Dreams
Victoria Morse, director of Gallery of Dreams, welcomes those interested in local arts — and artists who create it — to 156 Gay St. in Sharon.Look for a sign at the side of the road and art on the front porch.
In the light-filled parlor room of the gallery, complete with a comfortable couch, Morse warmly greeted visitors and invited them to browse the art in the two intimate exhibit spaces. Morse’s posture revealed her life as a dancer
Morse’s husband, artist Bruce Morse, founded the gallery that he and Victoria ran together for many years. When he died in 2021, Victoria temporarily closed the gallery.
In the summer of 2024, she was ready to reopen. “Last year, I did tag sales and invited friends to join. Then we said, ‘Let’s have a pop-up shop.’”She liked it so much that she decided to reopen the gallery with an inaugural show on Aug. 29, 2025.
With partners and artists Katherine Grealish, Jane Capellaro and Harper Blanchet, who painted walls and worked out new lighting, she readied the gallery rooms.
The inaugural show features sculpture, collage, pottery, painting and jewelry, all from local artists. On display are work by her partners, as well as pieces by Cassandra, Karen and Scott Culbreth, Victoria and her late husband Bruce, Kara O’Neill, Tina Riley, and Diane and Joel Schapira.
Morse described the immediate rewards. “As I was putting together this show, it struck me how much joy and love artists put into their art and how much dedication they have.”
Morse sees putting up shows as “creating a story.I lay it out and see how things fit together.”
The next show will open Oct. 31 and will be a mix of work from new artists and new work from the artists of the inaugural show.
Morse said she is happy to look at portfolios. “I am looking for artists, crafts people, jewelry makers and unusual things.” She invites artists who might want to exhibit, or anyone with questions, to call her at 860-671-4651. A website is coming soon.
Gallery of Dreams is open Friday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.
The rocker/director Rob Zombie unveiled his first-ever art exhibition, “What Lurks on Channel X?” at an opening reception at Morrison Gallery in Kent on Oct. 25. Zombie (left) is pictured here with Jed Hotchkiss, an artist from Canaan. The exhibition will be on view until Nov. 16.
The silent film ‘Der Golem’ will be brought to life with a live klezmer-infused score at The Mahaiwe.
On Sunday, Nov. 2, the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington will present a screening of Paul Wegener’s “Der Golem”(1920), accompanied by a live klezmer-infused score.
Conductor Jonathan Yates transforms traditional Yiddish folk melodies and Jewish liturgical music into a rich, cinematic soundscape performed live by clarinetist Saerom Kim and the Avalon String Quartet.
Wegener’s German Expressionist landmark film tells the haunting 16th-century legend of a clay figure brought to life to protect Prague’s Jewish community — only to turn on its creators. The film was a sensation on release, influencing works from operettas to the 1931 cult classic “Frankenstein.”
Regarding the relevance of the work, in a recent phone interview Yates said, “The reason movies like ‘Der Golem’ stay so relevant is that we, as humans, are quite capable of creating all sorts of monsters that turn on us. In terms of how it relates to modern technology, you need look no further than a movie like ‘1984,’ in some ways very much in the same genre as ‘Der Golem,’ for a vision of how AI might come back to haunt us!”
Israeli-born composer Betty Olivero’s evocative score heightens the film’s drama with color, urgency, and nuance, creating an unforgettable, fully immersive experience for both eyes and ears.
About the score and the challenges of producing it live, Yates said, “The process of putting together Betty’s inventive and colorful score with the movie is challenging, but very fulfilling. A lot of film composers use a click track, so that every moment lines up exactly with their score, but Betty’s approach is freer. Though the timings and scenes are notated in the score, it’s the musician's responsibility to make sure it all fits, which gives us more latitude in our interpretation. There are also moments in the work in which there is no music for the film so that you can appreciate the pure expressivity of the visual language, and times when the film is paused so you can just be invested in the music. While the music is extremely evocative and interacts in a thrilling way with the movie, it is more of a complete art piece than a traditional film score — and we think that makes it even more exciting.”
Violist Anthony Devroe added, “This is a return performance to Close Encounters With Music for the Avalon Quartet, but a debut performance for myself and Saerom, and we’re all just so thrilled and grateful to get to share this very special project. It’s a unique work — the combination of a masterpiece of a film with an inspired original score, written more than 70 years after the movie-- it promises to be a very special afternoon.”
After each performance, audiences are invited to an “Afterglow” reception to meet the artists and mingle with fellow music lovers. Select concerts will also be available online, extending CEWM’s reach to listeners far beyond the Berkshires.
Tickets are available at mahaiwe.org or by calling 413-528-0100.