On education: The trouble with American higher education is that it has On the Bard- Head walked away from teaching and has tilted toward West Point Exchange: It’s the most important inter- research and graduate education, which is why of the institution relationship that we have. colleges like Bard are the best places They seem so different, but they are more to get an undergraduate alike than you’d think. In my view, our students education. Our curriculum is have the most to learn from the cadets. quite distinctive. I believe every young person should Class do some years of service.

After 35 years at Bard College, Leon Botstein reflects on his life as a public intellectual By Olivia J. Abel Photograph by Kelly Shimoda

On his position: This job is all about helping people — whether students or people who work here or people avid Schwab recalls when Leon Botstein first sashayed into his in the Valley at large. DManhattan law office more than 35 years ago to apply for the job of president of Bard College. His first impression? “He was very young.” His second impression? On becoming a scientist: “He was very articulate.” And although Bot- stein showed up with some pretty snazzy This country needs more credentials — he was already president of engineers, more scientists. the now defunct Franconia College in New Hampshire, a post he landed at the tender age That is crucial for the future of 23 — “it was his charisma, his intelligence, of the American his vision of what an undergraduate college economy. could be,” according to Schwab — that ulti- mately led to the 28-year-old landing the col- lege’s top spot. On fund-raising: But did Schwab, the chairman emeritus It’s crucial, and I don’t mind doing it. of Bard’s board of trustees, ever imagine that decades later Botstein would still be at it? But it is so hard to do and hard to do “Not at all. We all thought that Bard might well. You’ll never persuade someone be a stepping-stone to a more prestigious who has no instinct for generosity, college presidency. But rather than move on, he ended up making Bard as prestigious as no matter how rich anybody would want.” they are. That he has.

48 August 2011 www.hvmag.com Hudson Valley August 2011 49 Over the last 35 years, Botstein has trans- formed Bard College from a sleepy little lib- eral arts college on the banks of the Hudson with a reputation as a pot-smokers paradise, to an intellectual powerhouse with global reach. During his tenure, he has tripled the student body and made admission much more competitive; lured prominent faculty; established a distinctive curriculum; orga- nized the college’s first graduate programs; instituted dual degree programs in places like Russia and Palestine; and helped Bard’s music programs earn worldwide acclaim. His flair for the dramatic — he was instrumental in getting noted architect Frank Gehry to design the space-age Fisher Center for the Arts in the mid-1990s — helps keep Bard in the spotlight. His radical views on high school education — basically, he thinks it is a waste — are well known, and he is busy establishing Bard-sponsored “early-college” high schools Opposite page: Botstein has called conducting “like being a in New York City and beyond. His latest cause traffic cop.” Left: Botstein and Stephen Colbert go head to du jour is increasing scientific literacy among head on The Colbert Report in October 2010. Above: Newly today’s youth with a mandatory, intensive named President Botstein and Bard student Bob Reselman three-week course at the college. But perhaps show off their ’70s style in this 1977 photo what is most extraordinary is that Botstein, 64, has simultaneously reached the pinnacle of a second career: he is music director and principal conductor of both the American mon. But I don’t do either.” Apparently, sleep Manhattan’s High School of Music and Art; he you determine where Bard College can make ment, he replies only that “People are always What I do is try to Symphony and the Jerusalem Symphony is fairly dispensable too — Botstein stays up went on to receive his undergraduate degree a contribution, you have to recruit the people uncomfortable with people who don’t fit into Orchestras. to the wee hours most nights, thinking and from the University of Chicago before earning to lead it. Recruiting is the essence of build- a neat picture. We’ve solved the dilemma of change an institution. How does he do it all? writing, and cruising a bit on the Internet, a Ph.D. in history at Harvard. ing a college.” the two-career family in the way we have. But Says Schwab simply, “He’s a very unusual which he calls “a cross between a sewage pipe These days, Botstein’s dizzying schedule Despite his hectic travel schedule, Bot- she does participate in official events at the To do that you have to guy.” and a clear water system.” And while he says changes all the time. He says that he rarely stein spends much of his time on the Annan- college just as I make required appearances Or, as Stephen Colbert put it when Botstein that he has no problem disciplining himself gets out to concerts because he spends every dale campus and calls the Hudson Valley the at the Whitney to support her work.” really listen to other came on his late-night show last October, to get offline, he is, apparently, human after free moment learning new music. “I have a rel- “ideal” place to live. “It is not suburbia — I On weekends, Botstein often pops into “you’re an egghead.” And with his bald pate all: “I do cherish the moment where, early in atively busy concert schedule,” he says. This can’t imagine living there. But this is an inde- town where he loves to mill about A.L. Stick- people, you can’t have and ever-present bow tie, Botstein certainly the evening, I can lay down and take a little year, for instance, he’ll be in Israel to conduct pendent community with an independent les 5 & Dime Store (he dubs it “one of the looks the part. Of course, he is an egghead nap,” he admits. just four times (12 times a year had previously cultural life and an independent sensibility,” great treasures of Rhinebeck”) or dine with all the ideas yourself who is savvy enough to come down from his Botstein credits his over-the-top work been the norm). But wherever in the world he says. “I am deeply attached to the land- his family at Red Hook’s Mercato, Tivoli’s ivory tower and appear on mainstream TV ethic to his parents — Jewish doctors who he wakes up, he says that he works on “both” scape and the region.” But he quickly adds Osaka Restaurant, or Rhinebeck’s Le Petit shows. So when Colbert joked, “I believe you fled the Holocaust in Poland and ultimately of his careers every day. “You can’t keep up that interacting closely with said landscape is Bistro. And lest you think he takes himself used to pet a white cat and plan world domina- settled in the Bronx where they raised three activity by blocks. But of course, the ratios not on the agenda. “I go outdoors as little as too seriously, Schwab insists that Botstein “is tion” — a reference to the character Dr. Evil children (his brother is a renowned geneticist change,” he says. “When I’m in Israel, from the possible; and when I do, I try to stay on things funny, but not in a comedian type of way. He in the Austin Powers films, you couldn’t help at Princeton, his sister is a physician). “My mornings until around three in the afternoon that aren’t green.” is very witty, very clever, he is a joy to argue but think, “Hmm. I see the resemblance, and parents were idealists and they both loved are devoted exclusively to the music. Then, While it might seem natural for an uber- with. Sometimes I tell him he should have if anyone could dominate the world, well, it their work. Many people grow up in homes from three to six, I work on programs there; intellectual to crave the stimulation of New been a lawyer and he disagrees. Lawyers are would be this guy.” where their parents complain about what they then from six until I go to bed, I’m online and York City, Botstein actually finds it “enervat- not among his favorites.” But despite all his “impressiveness” — as do, but I learned from home the love of work. on the phone to Annandale.” ing. It’s too distracting. I spend fewer than 20 Botstein is certainly up for vigorous Colbert called it — Botstein insists, “Really, I owe them both a great deal.” Botstein credits his ability to delegate nights a year overnight in the city.” His wife debate about a wide range of topics. He’ll I’m just like you. I work hard, I have a fam- He describes his childhood home as a sort responsibility at the college as the key to his of 20 years, Barbara Haskell, is a senior cura- proudly, yet matter-of-factly, tell you all about ily.” At least that is what he told me when of intellectual salon, where he studied piano success. “I wasn’t always good at it,” he says. tor at the Whitney Museum of Art and lives Bard’s latest initiatives. There is the merger we sat down for an interview in the book- and violin and where big ideas were batted “But I learned. It was one of the few advan- in Manhattan during the week. When their with the Longy School of Music outside of crammed library of the President’s House about freely. “If there were guests, you sat at tages of being a young college president. I two grown children were younger they also Boston, and the ground-breaking this month at Bard, a room so perfectly suited for this the table with them. There was no kids’ table, knew I didn’t know anything, and that I was lived in the city from Monday through Friday. for a new building that will house the music “public intellectual” that it seems as though it nobody talked baby talk to you,” he says. It dependent on other people giving advice.” (Botstein also had two daughters with his first conservatory. There is the early college high must have been crafted on a movie set. While seemed the world was full of possibilities. He refers to his job as “institution building,” wife, one of whom was killed in a car accident school in rough-and-tumble Newark, New the thought, “No sir, you are nothing like me,” After all, his mother, a leading polio scholar, which he differentiates from regular manage- when she was seven.) “But the kids spent all Jersey, that opens next month. Like the other rattled around my head, Botstein soon fessed managed to succeed despite the fact that she ment “where you make a few changes and their holidays and summers here,” Botstein Bard-sponsored schools, this one offers two up to his workaholic ways. “I don’t work to was almost entirely deaf. “My father was abso- you incrementally improve something. What says. “They loved it, they could roam around years of regular high school and two years of live, I live to work,” he says. “I have no hob- lutely determined that despite her illness and I do is try to change an institution. To do that free, and bicycle, and of course, they met a college courses; students graduate with an bies, I have no interests, I’ve never taken a immigration, her career would not be sacri- you have to really listen to other people, you lot of interesting people here.” When asked associate’s degree. vacation. I love to ski, I love to play backgam- ficed,” he says. At 16, Botstein graduated from can’t have all the ideas yourself. Then, once about his unorthodox marital living arrange- continued on page 118

50 August 2011 www.hvmag.com Photograph by Steve J. Sherman Photographs: (above left) courtesy of Comedy Central; (above right) by John Duke Kisch/courtesy of Bard College Hudson Valley August 2011 51 Botstein continued from page 51

Botstein speaks passionately about the need to ramp up scientific literacy in this country. “Increasingly, the issues that face us, politically, have some component of science in them: the environment, energy, employment, tech, health, disease. This country needs more engineers, more sci- entists; that is crucial for the future of the American economy.” The problem, he says, is the way that science is taught in schools. “Memorization, cookbooks, facts. That is not what it is. There is none of the discovery, the investigation, the method, the joy. We need the doing of science as opposed to the delivery of facts. Science is the thing that any child is most curious about. They are not interested in Thomas Jefferson or politics or literature naturally. They are naturally interested in why is it cold? Why is it hot? Why is someone tall? Why does the grass grow? That curiosity seems to be so natural, so intuitive, but it is beaten out of us by our formal schooling.” The response to the first Citizen Science three-week seminar in January was “fantas- The problem, he says, is the way that science is taught in schools. “Memorization, cook- books, facts. That is not what it is. There is none of the discovery, the investigation, the method, the joy”

tic,” says Botstein. This year, the students got their hands dirty performing experiments and analyzing specific problems that dealt with the question of how we can reduce the global burden of infectious disease. “It is in small groups and it is ungraded. You don’t have to be afraid of saying, ‘I don’t under- stand.’ A lot of idealism was generated.” And of course, idealism is what it is all about for Botstein, who shows no signs of slowing down, or — gasp — retiring. “He has expressed no desire to leave,” says Schwab. “We’ve expressed no desire for him to leave, so the length of time can be 10 years, 15 years. It depends on health, vigor... desire. It’s impossible to imagine him retir- ing. He’s not going to sit on a beach and read a book.” •

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