IN NOVEMBER 2024, BARD COLLEGE ABRUPTLY ANNOUNCED
it would be closing its Great Barrington campus at Simon’s Rock at the end of the school year, and the news set off alarm bells across the community. The predicted layoffs of teaching staff were one big concern, as was the disruption to the education of students. The loss of nearly 250 local jobs was another. The news was also, of course, a harsh emotional hit to a tight-knit community of current students and staff, alumni, and supporters. South County residents were left to wonder what would happen to one of the region’s go-to gyms, the Kilpatrick Athletic Center, and to one of its homegrown arts venues, Great Barrington Public Theatre, whose productions had been staged at the campus’s Daniel Arts Center since 2019.
Today, students are more or less settled into the new Bard College campus in Barrytown, New York, but only a couple dozen of the original 200-plus faculty and staff have retai…
