\n<\/p>\n
Leon Botstein, 79, took up the Bard presidency in 1975 at just 29 years old.<\/p>\n
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | nancykennedy\/iStock\/Getty Images | Jemal Countess\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Bard College Faculty Senate on Tuesday urged the Board of Trustees to develop a \u201ctransition in leadership\u201d proposal to eventually replace longtime president Leon Botstein, but stopped short of condemning him for his ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or calling for his resignation. The Senate\u2019s letter adds to escalating pressure against the New York liberal arts college president, who has seen Bard through significant curricular changes, acquisitions and program expansions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe share in the profound outrage and horror at the revelations contained in the Epstein files and extend our deepest support to the women and children who were exploited, trafficked, entrapped, and abused by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. The revelations about President Botstein\u2019s relationship to Epstein raise questions that concern the College as a whole as well as President Botstein personally,\u201d the faculty wrote. The letter does not directly criticize Botstein, who, according to the Times Union<\/em>, is \u201cknown to exercise broad power over hiring and tenure decisions.\u201d <\/p>\n The \u201ctransition in leadership\u201d the letter refers to is based on comments that Botstein allegedly made to faculty leaders in February, stating that he may retire in the near future, The Guardian<\/em> reported. Faculty requested the board communicate about the transition timeline and asked for a \u201csubstantive\u201d role in leadership decision-making and the search for a new president.<\/p>\n The Senate also aims to form an ad hoc elected faculty committee to \u201cplan long-needed reforms to our institutional structures necessary for the creation of a more robust and democratic system of faculty governance, one that will endeavor to protect Bard\u2019s singular approach to the liberal arts beyond its current leadership.\u201d <\/p>\n Botstein, 79, took up the Bard presidency in 1975 at just 29 years old. Over the course of his 51-year tenure, he expanded graduate programs, launched the Levy Economics Institute and founded Bard High School Early College, a group of schools operating in seven cities that allow students to begin their college courses two years early. He also helped establish the Bard Prison Initiative, which offers liberal arts bachelor\u2019s and associate degree programs at seven correctional facilities in New York. <\/p>\n In addition to their request for a transition plan, the faculty asked the board to create a fund equal to the principal amounts, plus interest, of donations made to the college by Epstein and an associate, former Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black. Epstein gave an unprompted $75,000 donation to the school in 2012 and gifted 66 laptops in 2016. The new fund would be \u201cused for continuing curricular, academic, and community initiatives concerning sexual violence, to be overseen by an enduring committee consisting of elected representatives from staff, students, and faculty,\u201d the letter states. <\/p>\n In late February, the board hired the law firm WilmerHale to conduct an independent review of Botstein\u2019s communications and financial connections to Epstein. Spokespeople for Bard did not respond to Inside Higher Ed<\/em>\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leon Botstein, 79, took up the Bard presidency in 1975 at just 29 years old. Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | nancykennedy\/iStock\/Getty Images | Jemal Countess\/Getty Images The Bard College Faculty Senate on Tuesday urged the Board of Trustees to develop a \u201ctransition in leadership\u201d proposal to eventually replace longtime president Leon Botstein,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[23670,14766,4785],"class_list":{"0":"post-46287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-botstein","9":"tag-mounts","10":"tag-pressure"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}