[Pen-l] Leon and me

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

With the exception of the 10 years I spent in the Trotskyist movement, 
my four years at Bard College from 1961 to 1965 were the most intense of 
my life. I entered Bard at the age of 16, a voluntary exile from my 
oppressive high school. As a freshman, I was elated to discover that 
Bard was a haven for people exactly like me. Moving into my dormitory in 
early September, I was amazed to hear another student reciting lines 
from Arthur Rimbaud’s “A Season in Hell” in the original French as he 
walked upstairs to his room. I had arrived! Whether it was heaven or 
hell, I didn’t care. Just as long as it wasn’t Fallsburg Central High 
School.

Bard was part of a handful of “experimental” colleges that had been 
launched in the early 20th century as a bid to integrate work and study. 
Others included Black Mountain College, Antioch and Goddard. All but 
Bard went out of business for reasons I never quite understood. Bard 
would have faced the same fate unless it had been “rescued” by Leon 
Botstein, who assumed the office of President in 1975 at the tender age 
of 29. He was always the wunderkind, having graduated from high school 
at the age of 16-like me. He lined up his first job as President of 
Franconia College in 1970, setting a record for the youngest man to hold 
such an office in American history. Of course, it helped that his 
father-in-law was on the board of trustees of Franconia. From an early 
age, Leon grasped the importance of such old boy’s networks, which are 
essential to the capitalist system-including its blue chip colleges and 
universities.

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/leon-and-me/
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