Weird Bennington Dream

(((I had a dream last night that my old Bennington professor David Slavitt held me down in his class gave me an elegant blue yakuza-style tattoo over my back.)))

((Now that I'm actually reading what I just wrote, it seems pretty weird. Whatever, are your dreams normal?)))

(((Slavitt was seriously the best writing instructor I ever had. A vicious editor. Apparently he ran for local office recently and wrote a book about it.)))
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What I like most is his on-the-money descriptions of local pols and personalities, and his unique take on the milieu of Cambridge and Somerville. Slavitt, writes honestly about his fears running for office: after all he is no spring chicken, he has an ongoing flirtation with prostrate cancer, and like anyone who has lived any length of time he has a few skeletons in his closet. Slavitt ruminates;

“ What if Toomey or Green goes to the library and looks into my literary career. The “Exhibitionist,” my pseudonymous potboiler of 1967, was widely attacked as a “dirty book,”…. Worse than that….there’s an elegant little joke that poet and small press publisher Robert Wallace put out in 1987: “ The Cock Book: A Child’s First Book of Pornography…” None of this puts me in the same league with Paris Hilton, but she is not running for office.”

(((Benningtonites: Did you ever have a dream at school where the entire campus was in a church-style lock-in inside a gymnasium? I know two other people who used to have that same dream.))))

Well, I did leave my legacy.

(((Still, going strong I hear! As I recall, there was only 3 of us when we started it. And the only public relations we had was scamming the Student Life xerox code.)))

"Bennington Free Press
Founded in the spring of 2003, the Bennington Free Press is a fast-growing student newspaper distributed throughout the College community. Over the past few years, the BFP has grown from a photocopied 8.5"x11" newsletter to a full-fledged tabloid-sized newspaper with a circulation of over 1,000. Its volunteer student staff has grown from 4 to 12 students, and in 2005 it acquired a newsroom on the second floor of Commons. Believing that a student newspaper is as crucial to a college community as is the formation of a strong student government, the BFP provides a wealth of information from a student perspective and provides experience for students who are interested in writing, editing, photography, publishing, advertising and public relations."

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Happy Birthday, Bennington!!

((((The old grand dame' turns 75 today and gets $20 million to support its groundbeaking "Democracy Project" curriculum initiative. Whatever happened to the fledgling, loose cannon "School of the Dumb Rich" I attended in the early 2000's? We ate ice cream everyday and did jello shots in costume. I bet the current students probably have to attend classes and everything. The only "lord" I knew there was Emilee. Democracy seems so, I dunno, well-rounded. I'm going to have to counter-donate $20 for the study of Anarcho-Primitivism.))))

"Bennington Receives $20 Million Gift from Robert & Susan Borden ’69: Single Largest Gift in the College’s History

Robert and Susan Paris Borden ’69 have made an historic $20 million gift to Bennington College.

“We are inspired to make this gift for a number of reasons—to honor the College’s 75 years of educational innovation, to celebrate President Coleman’s 20 years of transforming, spirited leadership, and to support Bennington’s next great pioneering initiative,” said Bob and Susan Borden, an alumna and College trustee, on the announcement of their gift.

Bennington is developing a new curricular program that will bring an undergraduate education into the heart of the most urgent public problems facing societies throughout the globe. The College plans to locate, throughout its curriculum, courses and experiences that will enable all of its students, regardless of their academic interests or vocational plans, to become committed to and capable of addressing the most urgent issues of our time.

“For the foreseeable future, generations of young people will inherit an unequal, unstable, and unsustainable world,” Mr. and Mrs. Borden continued. “The danger to democracy is that, without a new kind of college education, too many citizens may feel increasingly powerless, overwhelmed by the magnitude and complexities of urgent, real-world problems.”

“Our aim,” according to President Elizabeth Coleman “is to harness the intellectual power, passion, and boldness of our students and faculty and apply these resources to pressing world problems. In regaining the lively and generative association between citizenship and education—once understood to be the cornerstone of American democracy—we also intend to bring a new and renewed intensity and depth to liberal education. The Borden’s remarkable generosity makes such dreams possible.”

Lord Holme of Cheltenham, (Richard Holme), Member of the British House of Lords, and chairman of GlobeScan and of Bennington College’s International Advisory Council, explained, “Bennington is unique in its ground-breaking approach to and delivery of higher education over the past 75 years. There can be no more important business in education than widening and developing the international perspectives of the brightest and best of young Americans. Whether we like it or not, we are all nowadays citizens of the larger world."

“This extraordinary gift represents an unprecedented moment in Bennington’s history. The College had planned to announce its intention of raising $75 million by the end of Bennington’s 75th anniversary year. Now with the splendid generosity of Bob and Susan Borden, we’ve already far exceeded that objective, enabling the trustees to raise their goal to $100 million,” said Deborah Wadsworth, Chairman of the Board."

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