Lessons in Structure, Support, and Shared Space
On Teaching, Learning, & Community at Bard
A few months ago, I was invited to teach at Bard’s MFA program for the summer. I accepted, committing to a three-week stretch—the longest period any faculty member typically stays. Bard’s MFA is structured differently than most: it’s a low-residency program that spans three years instead of two. Each summer, students return to campus for an intensive two-month period, while the rest of the year is devoted to independent study.
Faculty rotate in and out by discipline, usually staying for two to three weeks. I chose to come during weeks 3 through 5, thinking the students would have had some time to settle into their studios but wouldn’t yet be consumed by thesis work. I’d been told to expect an intense atmosphere and spartan accommodations—but I still wasn’t fully prepared for what that actually meant.
Thankfully, I caught an Instagram story from another faculty member before arriving. They posted a shot of their room: a standard-issue dorm setup—a thin bed, a laminate desk, a squat dresser, and one lonely, glowing window. That’s faculty housing??
We started texting:
“Yeah, it’s worse in person. They didn’t tell you?”
“I didn’t know it was this bad… any tips?”
“So many. Bring whatever you need to be comfortable. They have basic linens like bedsheets and towels, but that’s about it. Oh, and bring a sharp knife. For cooking lol.”
I asked, “Why do people keep doing this?”
The answer came quickly:
“It’s the community. Everyone’s suffering together.”
My first day was Monday, June 16. I asked if I should arrive on Sunday to settle in and get my bearings. I was told no—come Monday morning. So I left early to make it in time for our first meeting at 10 a.m., followed immediately by a Sculpture Caucus from 11 to 3pm. A map arrived by text an hour after I got there, which meant I had no idea where I was going when I first arrived. I parked, rushed into my meeting, and eventually got a ping with building locations.
After the caucus, I realized I couldn’t even get into my dorm without an ID card—and the office closed at 4. It was 3:30. I sprinted across campus to an office I’d never been to, to get a card I didn’t know I needed, to enter a dorm I didn’t want to sleep in.
Thankfully, I made it. My roommate was Ana Pi, a Brazilian dancer and choreographer—wonderfully warm and sweet, thank god. The rest? A different story. The bathroom was dull and clinical, the bed was barely a suggestion of comfort, and the kitchen had no bowls. Just three small plates, a fork or two, and very little else. This was my new reality.
The next three days were spent trying to adapt—locate things, fix things, improve things. By day three, I still wasn’t sleeping. I woke up nauseous with a pounding headache. I bought a better pillow, requested a foam topper and boards to support the mattress—simple advice I had been given in advance but didn’t have time to implement. The whirlwind of arrival leaves little room for preparation. And still I found myself asking: Why do people do this?
By the end of the first week, things started to shift. I got to know my fellow faculty better. Asad Raza, Associate Co-Chair of Sculpture, arrived the same day I did. We were in the 2017 Whitney Biennial together but had never actually met. I’d respected his work from afar, but didn’t know much else.
Over the next three weeks, we became quite close. He’s disarmingly transparent—his energy almost childlike. Something like: Hey would you want to do this thing cuz I think it would be fun to do it and it would be fun to do it together. That’s not a direct quote, but it’s an accurate representation of his energy. He told me about his family, his art experiences, what he’s excited about and what troubles him. In a short time, we shared a lot.
A week later, Eli Green arrived. She and Asad were roommates—a hilarious combination. Eli is low-key, gentle, observant - serene. The perfect counterbalance to Asad’s spark. We began hanging out almost regularly—me, Asad, Eli, Ana, and Jumana Manna, a Palestinian filmmaker who felt like family from day one. Slowly, the anxiety of arrival began to soften.
I also noticed how invested the students were. Their conversations—with each other and with their work—were thoughtful, generative, alive. The school-wide intros for first-years initially felt a little too feel-good to me, lacking a critical edge. But then it clicked: this was onboarding. These students had just landed, full of doubt and nervous energy, and this was the school’s way of saying, You belong. Let’s start from here. It wasn’t just community-building for its own sake. It was infrastructure. I haven’t seen another program so deliberately construct community from the beginning—and that gave me a lot to think about.
The three weeks were exhausting. I did three to five hour-long studio visits a day, plus all-school intros, screenings, meetings, and caucuses. By day’s end, I often had nothing left to say—my brain fully short-circuited. It took a week just to get proper cooking supplies, to understand how the place functioned. Communication had no central hub, and that was a constant frustration. But the conversations, the camaraderie, the weird shared sense of “we’re in this together”—that made up for it. In the end, it was true - why do it? The community.
Still, I believe you can build that kind of community without all the friction. You can have a centralized hub for communication. Clear onboarding that lifts the mind and spirit to a place that can facilitate your best work with your students. A space where questions meet answers without delay. And where the facilities are beautiful, and housing feels like a gift, not a punishment.
The future art school will have all of that. It will offer urgent classes, meaningful tools, and the people who know how to guide, empower, and embolden. This future isn’t far off. And it’s not impossible.
Stay tuned.