News + Events

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“Ghost Forests”: Virginia Hanusik ’14 Photographs Louisiana’s Vanishing Wetlands, Which Are Being Lost to Sea Level Rise

South Louisiana contains around half of the country’s wetlands—and accounts for almost 90 percent of the country’s wetland losses. Bard alumna Virginia Hanusik ’14, a New Orleans–based photographer whose work centers on climate change and environmental justice, documents Louisiana’s vanishing wetlands in this National Geographic feature on the “Amazon of North America.”

Post Date: 04-20-2021

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Kingston Air Quality Initiative Turns In First-Year Results

A year ago, the City of Kingston and the Center for the Study of Land, Air, and Water at Bard College began monitoring the city’s air quality. The initial findings show that air pollution is relatively low, yet even during 2020, when vehicle emissions were down due to the pandemic, the city still saw the impact of burning fossil fuels.

Post Date: 03-19-2021

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Professor Eli Dueker Writes: To Judge Coney Barrett from Your Transgender Sorority Vice President: Keep Your Pledge

Eli Dueker, associate professor of environmental and urban studies at Bard College, remembers Supreme Court judicial nominee Amy Coney Barrett as “whip-smart and incredibly kind,” back when they were Kappa Delta sorority sisters at Rhodes College in the 1990s. Professor Dueker has since come out as a transgender man and become an environmental microbiologist, devoting his professional life to addressing environmental racism in the United States. As Coney Barrett faces a contentious nomination process to the Supreme Court, Professor Dueker questions her commitment to the ideals they pledged to at Kappa Delta: integrity, honor, and uplifting of other women.

Post Date: 10-21-2020

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Bard Center for the Study of Land, Air & Water Partners with City of Kingston to Monitor Air Quality

“Although Kingston's air quality is, for the most part, doing well, we know that increased traffic, train activity, wood burning, and household heating systems can contribute to short-term air quality issues and long-term health issues if not appropriately managed,” said Eli Dueker, director of the Center for the Study of Land, Air, & Water, which partnered with the City of Kingston’s Conservation Advisory Council’s Air Quality Sub-Committee to form the Kingston Air Quality Initiative. “This research addresses what Kingston needs to be able to meet its sustainability goals long-term.”

Post Date: 09-01-2020

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Bard College Human Rights Professor and Students Study Urban Displacement and Gentrification with Kingston Housing Lab

This spring, Bard College Professor Kwame Holmes and 13 of his students geocoded and collected information on hundreds of properties in Kingston’s Midtown section in an effort to study the hidden geography of property ownership in the city. Students explored the role of corporate ownership in the local property market, as well as the impact of Airbnbs and other vacation rental sites on the rental market. The class, Urban Abandonment: A Housing Justice Lab, was a collaboration of Bard’s Environmental and Urban Studies and Human Rights programs and part of the Bard Center for Civic Engagement Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences (ELAS) Program, an interdisciplinary program in which students work with different geographies, organizations, and programs in local communities.

Using property tax information from Ulster County Real Property Tax Service Agency, Holmes and his students found that, of the 481 properties they studied in one section of Midtown Kingston, 275 were owned by non-local owners, those who did not have an address within the neighborhood area. Non-resident owner addresses were geocoded, revealing the importance of Saugerties, Westchester County, and New York City to Kingston’s land market. Non-resident owners could be found as far as California, Texas, and Florida. Eighty-seven properties were owned by Limited Liability Corporations, 10 of which shared names with corporate landlords operating in states across the country. These dynamics, the class realized, illustrate the extent to which land in Kingston is a site of profit extraction, and very little of that capital directly benefits local residents.

Furthermore, gathering information from Airbnb, Holmes’s class found that there were 110 vacation rentals available in Kingston, compared to 43 advertisements for regular long-term rentals available on Craigslist. The average rent per bedroom per month on Airbnb was $4,187, a price over 300% more expensive than a regular monthly rental. Holmes, who recently presented the class’s findings to the Kingston Common Council’s housing committee, said the Kingston Housing Lab was born out of an interest in transforming how communities talk about housing inequality and scarcity in small towns.

“Rather than focus on ‘the most affected population’ and recite statistics about rent as a percentage of median income, we wanted to shine a light on home owners and land ownership as an economic and cultural phenomenon and explore their impact on housing availability, quality, and pricing,” said Holmes, scholar-in-residence, Bard Human Rights Program, and faculty advisor, Bard Prison Initiative. “Housing security, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, is a public health issue. We’re interested to learn the impact of ownership from afar upon living conditions of renters, particularly in working class areas. Are non-local landowners more likely to sell for an immediate profit, exposing renters to an involuntary displacement? More transparency in and analysis of ownership patterns are essential for the maintenance of public health.”

Holmes, who is slated to talk about present his class’s results on Radio Kingston and make a presentation to the Kingston Land Trust this week, said he plans to expand the Kingston Housing Lab project, working with students to gather information on all of Kingston’s properties, as well as reach out directly to non-local property owners—particularly those who own three or more residential properties in a neighborhood—to better understand how they interact with their properties and relate to the communities wherein they own.(6.23.20)
 

Post Date: 06-23-2020

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Lindsey Lusher Shute MS ’07 Talks to Mother Jones about Farming in the Face of Climate Change

Shute, founder of the National Young Farmers Coalition, was interviewed by the Mother Jones food podcast Bite about the challenges faced by the rising generation of American farmers, including more extreme weather, stratospheric land prices, enduring legacies of racism, and corporate domination of food markets that weighs down crop prices.
 

Post Date: 01-29-2020