Bard College will use gifts totaling $50 million to enhance its programming in Native and Indigenous ... [+]
Bard College has announced that it has received a $25 million endowment gift from the Gochman Family Foundation, which will be used to form a Center for American and Indigenous Studies, add new faculty appointments, boost student scholarships, and appoint an Indigenous Curatorial Fellow at its Center for Curatorial Studies.
Bard, a private liberal arts college located in the Hudson River Valley about 90 miles of New York City, will develop the initiative in partnership with the Forge Project, a program devoted to indigenous art and co-founded by Becky Gochman. The Gochman Family Foundation support will be matched by an additional commitment of $25 million from George Soros and the Open Society Foundations.
“I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Gochman Family Foundation for this generous endowment gift to support Native American and Indigenous studies in undergraduate and graduate academic programs,” said Bard College President Leon Botstein, in the college’s new release. “This is a fantastic contribution to the study of America, vital to a liberal arts education offering a broader understanding of the country.”
The gift will enhance Bard’s work in Native American and Indigenous Studies in consultation with Forge Project Executive Director Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation), who Bard announced will join the college as a Fellow in Indigenous Art History and Curatorial Studies. She will curate a major, inaugural exhibition in 2023 focused on contemporary Native art to celebrate the initiative. Hopkins will also teach one course per year focused on Native and Indigenous art history and curatorial studies, in addition to coordinating other events related to Native and Indigenous studies.
Claiming that the gift” represents institutional change, which has been building at Bard and is core to the vision of Forge Project,” Hopkins said the gift will provide “the basis for the future building of this knowledge, to shift and expand discourses across fields of study, whether it be in Indigenous and American studies, art history, or curatorial practice. Critically, it also centers the needs of Indigenous students, reducing barriers to higher education, and recognizes that students want to attend programs where they see their interests reflected.”
The endowment will also support undergraduate and graduate scholarships for students from historically underrepresented populations and geographic regions, such as Native American and Indigenous communities.
The College will establish a chair for a distinguished/senior scholar of Native American and Indigenous Studies, which will be named after a prominent Indigenous woman to recognize the academic contributions of Native women and educators. Additional faculty will be recruited in interdisciplinary fields and Indigenous Studies. Library acquisitions and the development of archives dedicated to Native American and Indigenous history and culture will also be supported by the gift.
“I’m honored to work with Candice Hopkins and Bard to support Indigenous students’ ability to attend the College, and make possible the broader institutional transformation that will have an impact not just in the immediate term, but for generations of students, faculty, and staff to come,” said Becky Gochman.
Becky Gochman, a former art teacher, is married to David Gochman, whose family sold a majority stake in Academy Sports + Outdoors for more than $2.1 billion in 2011.
The Open Society Foundation, founded by billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros, has been a major supporter of Bard. In 2021, it made a commitment of a $500 million challenge grant to the college.
