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Simon’s Rock opens new Center for Equity, Inclusion, and Community

The Bard College at Simon's Rock campus in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
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The Bard College at Simon's Rock campus in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

The new Center for Equity, Inclusion, and Community has opened at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

The doors officially opened at the new center on September 16th. Sarah Porter-Liddell is the Dean of Equity and Inclusion at the private liberal arts college.

“I was hearing from a lot of the students of color – and by affinity organizations, I mean our groups like the LGBTQIA+ organizations, our Jewish student union, those type of organizations – I was finding out that they didn't actually have a cultural center of any time on campus, a designated space for their organizations and for students of color to kind of operate out of, and I was like, Oh, we've got to fix that,” she told WAMC.

Her search led her to the multi-purpose Owl’s Nest building on the Simon’s Rock campus.

“I was able to move a desk in here and start holding meetings out of the building," said Porter-Liddell. "So, students kind of got used to seeing me in this space. And then this past summer I got approval to use a portion of my Office of Equity and Inclusion budget to do a renovation of the building.”

While the Owl’s Nest previously only utilized its main floor as a public space, it’s now fully open to the early college students as the Center for Equity, Inclusion, and Community.

“On the main level, there's my office, which is the Office of Equity and Inclusion, there's now a fully functional conference space for students to use," said Porter-Liddell. "And then upstairs where students used to live, we've taken that space offline and we've added another fully functional office space and a student lounge space. So, it's really a very comprehensive building for students, faculty, and staff to really utilize this space as an opportunity in the community to build community, build culture, and have a place for our students of color and affinity organizations to call home here.”

When Porter-Liddell took over the space, its walls were bare.

“All of the art that is currently in the building was donated from Simon's Rock community members, either other students or faculty or staff within the community who have painted works or provided works to be housed in our building- And we're still accepting stuff," said Porter-Liddell. "So if people want to donate art to the building, please do. We've got plenty of white space to hang things up.”

The Office of Equity and Inclusion – which is comprised solely of Porter-Liddell – offers a variety of services to the Simon’s Rock community.

“There's a symposium on social justice and inclusion that happens in the fall, which will actually be happening this year the week of October 24th," she said. "So, we've got a full week of events. In addition to the symposium, things that are coming up, the Council for Inclusive Community is also a campus wide organization that is overseen through this office. So, students who have issues of inclusivity and really want to talk to someone and get some concerns brought up and opportunity to provide training and resources to the community, they can talk to anyone who serves on the Council for Inclusive Community or directly to myself, to bring awareness to the campus.”

It also operates the school’s bias response team.

“The bias response team is myself and three other members within the community who address issues associated with protected classes, right?" said Porter-Liddell. "So, issues of implicit bias that may be related to race, gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, gender identity, those types of things.”

Porter-Liddell says the center isn’t just a boon for Simon’s Rock, but the wider Great Barrington community.

“When we think about organizations that specifically put an emphasis on support for our communities of color and affinity organizations, I’d like for this center to be a space like that, right?" she told WAMC. "An opportunity where people in the community can say, hey, I would like to partner with Simon's Rock, with the Office of Equity and Inclusion, and with that center to host this event or to provide resources to our community about these things. So, I really would like to see Simon's Rock be a beacon in the Great Barrington community for support in that way. And while we are small, we are mighty. So we can definitely work with the community to be another opportunity where information about equity, inclusion, social relations, social justice, those types of issues are really emphasized and do some great work here.”

Looking ahead, Porter-Liddell says she’d like to see Simon’s Rock bring in more professionals to do equity and inclusion work.

“What I would love to see is that we expand and become a larger department, at least with one or two other full time professionals dedicated to enhancing inclusivity, and equity and inclusion work on this campus,” she said.

She dreams of rallying donor support to one day build a bespoke space dedicated to equity and inclusion on the Simon’s Rock campus.

“There's a pretty nice sized lot of land right next to us, and I would love to build a space that has a much more open floor plan per se, where I could provide like multiple student office spaces, a larger programmatic space, a really functional area where more than five or six or five or 10 people can be in at a time and let that be the programmatic area, and let this building that we're currently in be more for an administrative building and have them connected," said Porter-Liddell. "So then we would have a fully functional Center for Equity and Inclusion like you'd see on the traditional campus, but you got to start somewhere. So getting this building together first was the first step in the right direction.”

By way of disclosure, the college has been a WAMC underwriter.

Josh Landes has been WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief since February 2018, following stints at WBGO Newark and WFMU East Orange. A passionate advocate for Western Massachusetts, Landes was raised in Pittsfield and attended Hampshire College in Amherst, receiving his bachelor's in Ethnomusicology and Radio Production. His free time is spent with his cat Harry, experimental electronic music, and exploring the woods.
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