HI All-

Here are some quotes/notes I pulled  from the April 25th 2014 Bennington College Inaugural Address by  Mariko Silver that I found particularly inspiring.  Hope you enjoy them at this crazy time of year. Link bellow to full address.

"Teachers here are practitioners working at the very edge of new ideas. Students are researchers, collaborators, and scouts in uncharted territories, learning by doing, learning by making-every moment, every day.

Faculty, students, and staff don't come to (college) to get something. They come here to do something-to make something.

This work takes more than inspiration; it takes persistence, it takes perseverance, it takes the kind of drive that can only come from inside. This drive does not come from the desire only to please others, or to tick all the right boxes so that you can get a degree. Thriving within this community takes self-discipline and individual initiative.

At the core of Bennington's philosophy are two fairly simple ideas: That the student be at the center of his or her education, and that the College be at the center of the conversations shaping our world. The linkages between these two ideas are, in Bennington-speak, 'our work.'

The College's job is to kindle a spark. To help our students use it to illuminate our world in ways replete with wonder and grace, wisdom and beauty.

Profoundly... personally... our efforts revolve around a search for perspective-the sweet-spot that locates a body, a mind, a concept. A place, this place, that allows us to stand within the swirl of ideas and actually build a deeper understanding.
Our interwoven world requires something that is not quite captured in the words "interdisciplinary education." It requires an approach that transcends disciplines.
The intensity of the work takes real rigor, the demands of the questions and problems we face require new frameworks.  Rigor unbound by convention.
At the same time, we should be engaging in a deeper conversation about what happens while you are with us. How we support, encourage, call forth the best, most surprising work from our students. How we help them uncover the path they will want to follow when they leave. How we help them become not just leaders but stewards-of their own lives, of their communities, of the planet, and of our future.

Our world requires us to make (and remake) new rules, and new roles-constantly.

Our obligation, at its best, is about generating, together between teacher and student, new ways of knowing, thinking, and doing-new ways of seeing, listening, and being. Our obligation is about new ways to conceptualize the world and new ways to participate in it, new ways to imagine, to shape, and to make it.

And, as always, let's remember that this work is hard, and we need to be kind, generous, and supportive of ourselves and our community. Progress demands patience equal to passion. "

TO see the full address:
http://inauguration.bennington.edu/live
Click under coverage

Best,
Rhea


Rhea Nowak
Associate Professor of Art
SUNY Oneonta
Ravine Parkway
Oneonta, NY 13820
607-436-2827