News

As the world watches the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant suffer “weeks of shelling,” the potential for “another nuclear disaster on the scale of the Chernobyl explosion” looms large, writes Bard alum C Mandler ’19 for CBS news. The similarities between Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia are as much organizational as they are structural, says Jonathan Becker, executive vice president and vice president for academic affairs for Bard College. Both share “an environment… in which people are disincentivized from communicating genuine problems to higher-ups,” Becker says, which could result in a “series of mistakes, which are reinforced by a system which doesn't encourage transparent communication.” A nuclear disaster in Ukraine would be catastrophic on “both human and geopolitical” levels, Becker says. Should a nuclear disaster occur, “it will be difficult to imagine the path forward after that,” he said.

 

For the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, Bard Diplomat in Residence Frederic Hof writes about the complexities that the US government, currently the Biden administration, face in trying to negotiate the release of the American journalist Austin Tice, who was kidnapped in Damascus a decade ago and is still being held hostage by Syria’s Assad regime. Hof urges media commentators to “try harder to explain to their readers what exactly they think the president should do and the potential consequences – intended or not – of what they recommend.” Emphasizing the enormous difficulty of engaging in foreign policy with Syria, Hof asserts: “As we encourage our government to act diligently to secure the freedom of Austin Tice, let us at least remember the name of the person responsible for his captivity: Bashar al-Assad.”

Professor Drew Thompson curates an exhibition dedicated to Ben Wigfall, artist, printmaker, and SUNY New Paltz’s first Black professor of art. Benjamin Wigfall & Communications Village opens at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz on September 10. The exhibition surveys Wigfall's multimedia work over four decades, including pieces from the collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Hampton University, as well as display prints, photographs, and other ephemera documenting Communications Village, the printmaking facility he founded in the 1970s that trained and employed local youth to assist distinguished, mostly Black printmakers. Communications Village played an essential role as an alternative space enabling artists of color to make and show their work, says Professor Thompson. “This was a subversive space, not recognized by the mainstream American art scene,” he says. The exhibition runs through December 10 at the Dorsky Museum and then travels to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Drew Thompson is associate professor of Africana and historical studies at Bard College. He has been a member of the faculty since 2013. (Chronogram)