Pressure Mounts on Botstein

The Bard College Faculty Senate on Tuesday urged the Board of Trustees to develop a “transition in leadership” proposal to eventually replace longtime president Leon Botstein, but stopped short of condemning him for his ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or calling for his resignation. The Senate’s letter adds to escalating pressure against the New York liberal arts college president, who has seen Bard through significant curricular changes, acquisitions and program expansions.

“We share in the profound outrage and horror at the revelations contained in the Epstein files and extend our deepest support to the women and children who were exploited, trafficked, entrapped, and abused by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. The revelations about President Botstein’s relationship to Epstein raise questions that concern the College as a whole as well as President Botstein personally,” the faculty wrote. The letter does not directly criticize Botstein, who, according to the Times Union, is “known to exercise broad power over hiring and tenure decisions.”

The “transition in leadership” the letter refers to is based on comments that Botstein allegedly made to faculty leaders in February, stating that he may retire in the near future, The Guardian reported. Faculty requested the board communicate about the transition timeline and asked for a “substantive” role in leadership decision-making and the search for a new president.

The Senate also aims to form an ad hoc elected faculty committee to “plan long-needed reforms to our institutional structures necessary for the creation of a more robust and democratic system of faculty governance, one that will endeavor to protect Bard’s singular approach to the liberal arts beyond its current leadership.”

Botstein, 79, took up the Bard presidency in 1975 at just 29 years old. Over the course of his 51-year tenure, he expanded graduate programs, launched the Levy Economics Institute and founded Bard High School Early College, a group of schools operating in seven cities that allow students to begin their college courses two years early. He also helped establish the Bard Prison Initiative, which offers liberal arts bachelor’s and associate degree programs at seven correctional facilities in New York.

In addition to their request for a transition plan, the faculty asked the board to create a fund equal to the principal amounts, plus interest, of donations made to the college by Epstein and an associate, former Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black. Epstein gave an unprompted $75,000 donation to the school in 2012 and gifted 66 laptops in 2016. The new fund would be “used for continuing curricular, academic, and community initiatives concerning sexual violence, to be overseen by an enduring committee consisting of elected representatives from staff, students, and faculty,” the letter states.

In late February, the board hired the law firm WilmerHale to conduct an independent review of Botstein’s communications and financial connections to Epstein. Spokespeople for Bard did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment.