Summer Opportunities at Vassar Help Students Sharpen Career Goals
Braving muggy heatwaves and sudden summer showers, many Vassar students choose to stick around Poughkeepsie during the summertime. But their summer jobs were more than a way to stave off summer ennui. These four student workers are just a few of the many students who engaged in challenging and fulfilling work that allowed them to gain skills relevant to their futures.
Julia Pippenger ’25: Curatorial Work at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Julia Pippenger ’25, a curatorial Intern at the Loeb, was one of two students in charge of curating the exhibition, My Grandmother’s Whispers: Indigenous Prints and Beadwork, which opened September 14 in the Loeb’s Spotlight Gallery. The gallery features new acquisitions in addition to objects in the collection that are seldom exhibited and acts as a space where a wider community of curators—including students and professors—can work to expand beyond the traditional practices of interpretation, research, and display.
“They have given us the reins,” Pippenger said excitedly. “There is a system of checks and balances of course, but ultimately I get to be the one that comes up with the ideas, that does the research, and that suggests which objects to display and how.”
My Grandmother’s Whispers: Indigenous Prints and Beadwork features a series of newly acquired prints from Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts, the only printmaking center in the Umatilla Indian Reservation, nestled in the foothills of Oregon’s Blue Mountains. The prints are of abstracted Dentalium shells, which are used widely as currency and as a status symbol among Indigenous peoples all across the Pacific Americas. Pippenger describes them as paramount examples of “traditional artform and motifs filtered through modern forms” and has juxtaposed them with older beadwork from local tribes in the Loeb’s collection that have hitherto never been exhibited.
“I have learned to trust my taste and intellect,” Pippenger said. “In previous jobs relating to my field of study, I have been an intern who was just sent around to buy coffee, pick up clothes, and [do] other menial tasks.” Compared to the often subservient role that is required of interns at New York City art galleries, Pippenger has earned the responsibility of curating an entire exhibition from start to finish. “Now I have a real project that feels consequential. It is really empowering. It makes me feel that, yes, I could do this,” she said.
Esther Cull-Kahn ’26: Trail Maintenance and Outdoor Education on the Preserve
Esther Cull-Kahn ’26 worked as an education intern at the Environmental Cooperative on the Vassar Preserve, where she helped organize and conduct the Environmental Cooperative’s summer outdoor education programs for Poughkeepsie youth. Cull-Kahn led hikes, taught lessons about the local ecosystem, facilitated students’ first-hand engagement with plants and animals in their local habitats, and organized nature-related games. These summer activities took place in local parks and the Vassar Preserve. “Essentially,” Cull-Kahn explained, “the program aims to get kids from Poughkeepsie to feel excited about nature without feeling intimidated and out-of-place in the great outdoors.” When no programs were scheduled, Cull-Kahn and other student workers contributed to land stewardship tasks such as weeding, planting, and trail maintenance.
The education programs offered by the Environmental Cooperative maintain and build upon Vassar’s connection to the City of Poughkeepsie and its residents. “Most of the kids in our programs have childhoods vastly different from the average Vassar student,” Cull-Kahn explained. Enrolled in severely underfunded and redlined schools, Poughkeepsie students’ access to educational resources is sparse. Since 1982, educational programs at the Environmental Cooperative have served over 50,000 children in local school districts throughout Dutchess County. “All kids deserve to enjoy their local environments, working with it rather than against it,” Cull-Kahn said.
Cull-Kahn and co-workers also have worked at the urban garden in Pershing Park, on the Northside of Poughkeepsie, to provide access to fresh vegetables for the local community. Fresh produce is an especially important and sparse resource, as the United States Department of Agriculture classifies Poughkeepsie as a food desert. “Parks like Pershing also offer a place for Poughkeepsie’s large unhoused community to sleep and gather,” Cull-Kahn added. “I emphasize Vassar students’ responsibility to know and build relationships with the local community,” she concluded.
Ben Richardson ’25: Support for Vassar’s Social Media Team
As the Social Media Ambassador for the Communications Department, Ben Richardson ’25 worked on collecting content that showcases student life for prospective Vassar students. Armed with a camera, Richardson has attended countless Vassar-affiliated events since he started this position in the beginning of his sophomore year. Since campus slows down during the summer, Richardson found that he could become more deliberate and creative about producing content. This summer, he filmed and edited video series on various projects that students in the Ford Scholars program and Undergraduate Research Summer Institute were engaged in. He also filmed and interviewed alums during Reunion Weekend and enjoyed capturing many of their impromptu reminiscences. “The overarching theme between all alums about what they missed most about Vassar was that it was populated by people they knew well and could consistently run into,” Richardson remembered. “Every single person who said that would soon after see someone they recognized walking by.”
The job was directly relevant to Richardson’s future career goals and has helped him pick up necessary video-editing skills. “I am interested into going into marketing, so this has been a great entry-level job to learn skills that I’ll need in the future,” he said. Richardson said he is thankful that he has had the opportunity to learn about how a communications office works and the myriad ways in which Vassar markets itself to the world.
This fall semester, his role shifted a bit as he began working as the College’s only dedicated student photographer for the Communications department at large.
Nalani Palmer ’25: A Friendly Face (and Voice) at the Powerhouse Theatre
Nalani Palmer worked in the box office of the Powerhouse Theater, which runs developing works from playwrights and directors based in New York City and the Hudson Valley. The theater, in its 38th season, hosted more than a dozen readings, workshops, and performances this summer. The season included classics, such as Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, as well as many debuts. Palmer was especially excited for Messy White Gays, written by Drew Droege and directed by Mike Donahue, which focuses on the moments after a throuple loses one of their partners (the other two kill him), and then they realize their friends are coming over for brunch. In addition to answering the phones, responding to emails, and talking to the occasional in-person customer, Palmer had the chance to meet many of the artists, actors, and playwrights who flocked to the Powerhouse Theatre this summer.
“Professionally, I was excited by the prospect of meeting creatives from the city and being surrounded by art. I took Intro to Stagecraft last semester and really enjoyed seeing the work that goes into a show before the curtains come up,” Palmer said, speaking about her initial interest in the job. “It’s wonderful to see the absolute industry of people that must come together to put on a play,” she added.
Palmer found herself part of a rapidly moving machine: At the beginning of the season, free performances for shows in the early stages of production were offered but in order to make reservations, patrons had to call into the box office and do it over the phone. “The phones genuinely did not stop ringing, and honestly I was loving it!” Palmer admitted. “I spoke with people who have been coming to the Powerhouse since the ’90s and they had so many sweet stories to share.”