Vassar recently hosted a three-part webinar titled “Innovation in Higher Education: Building Capacity for Inclusive Leadership” that featured conversations with people in the academic and business worlds. All agreed that transforming global society into a more equitable one will require today’s students to engage in a broad, liberal arts education.
Students, administrators, alums, and others in the Vassar community enjoyed a plethora of events in observation of Black History Month, included exhibitions, a panel on STEM-related fields, a dinner, and an update of the Buildings and Belonging project, focused on the history of African Americans on campus.
Three alums and three faculty members talked about their own journeys as people of color in STEM fields and offered some advice to current Vassar students.
Vassar students enrolled in an intensive class with Lecturer and Chair of Dance Miriam Mahdaviani collaborated with a professional instructor from Battery Dance, a New York City dance company, to create a pair of performances with students from Poughkeepsie High School.
For nearly 40 years, Vassar has had a College Historian to help research and document our institutional history—the most recent being Colton Johnson, Professor Emeritus of English and former Dean of Studies and Dean of the College. As Ronald Patkus, Adjunct Associate Professor of History on the Frederick Weyerhaeuser Chair and Associate Director of the Libraries for Special Collections assumes the role, he promises to take an unflinching look at Vassar’s past.
More than 150 members of the Vassar community gathered on the campus November 19 to pay tribute to the life and career of beloved architecture professor Jeh Vincent Johnson, who designed the Center—rededicating the gathering place in his name.
Three military veterans and a member of a military family talked about how their experiences in and out of the military had shaped their lives at an event titled “Service after Service” hosted by the Vassar Veterans Association.