Courage to Be Fellow Reflection: Adriana Želmira Ondrejka

 Adriana Želmira Ondrejka

My name is Adriana Želmira Ondrejka and I am a rising junior at Bard. I was born and raised in Manhattan in Midtown, by the East River. I chose to come to Bard as a bit of a getaway from the city; as much as I love it I really wanted the cliché college experience away from home (but close enough to run back for a weekend) and to put some distance between myself and high school. I recently moderated into Historical studies and French. I have been studying French for about seven years now, and plan on studying abroad for Spring 2025 in Paris. I also have always had a passion for history, and during last summer I got an internship at the National Museum of the American Indian helping out with their special events sector. I really wanted to continue to work on the skills I learned there, so when I saw the posting for the Courage to Be fellowship at the Arendt Center I immediately jumped on it. I was a little nervous at the start of the semester because I didn’t know what to expect, however soon after I got to know Jana, Maggie, and everyone else working at the Center I not only felt comfortable there but eager to contribute to the space and its mission. Our weekly meetings to work on our search for speakers not only were productive, but times that I was able to get to know my fellow fellows, Kai-Lin and Julia. I must confess that I still felt a little lost during the Fall, and the speaker options that I started with were not where I ended up. That said, I believe that those experiences of reaching out to people and not getting a response or being rejected helped build my confidence in a way, and by the time that I asked Mayor Kamal of Hudson NY to come talk, I was already unfazed by the process and knew how to communicate with people effectively. Granted, that was also thanks to seeing Kai and Julia execute their events first, teaching me how to do it right, and I owe them for that. 

I decided to ask Kamal to speak because I thought having a local politician would be very impactful for the students. Here at Bard, we have a high visibility on voting and politics, with our school body having some of the highest numbers of registered voters in the country and our very active Center for Civic Engagement. Thus, I thought people would really appreciate being able to hear from and talk to a professional who was deeply involved in that world. Being not only the first black mayor of Hudson but its youngest, Kamal showed a lot of courage and fortitude during his campaign against an incumbent, as well as his first year in office which took place at the start of the pandemic. As a person, he is both charismatic, as one would expect of a politician, but also receptive and approachable, and it made me very happy to see students going up to him after his talk to speak with him personally. Overall, I just think local politics are key to how our nation gets by, yet it receives so little attention due to the flashiness and drama constantly provided by the national sphere. I believe it takes a lot of courage to not only talk about what is wrong with the world, but to take the initiative to run for office and try to change the issues you care about. For these reasons, I knew Kamal would be a great fit for Courage to Be. 

The event consisted of a dinner followed by the Mayor’s talk, a short break, and then questions from the audience. I had given Kamal some guidelines of what to speak on, but I really wanted him to feel he had the freedom to talk about what was meaningful to him. Therefore I was not surprised when he gave a funny yet emotionally moving speech about his journey as a politician. Some things I was familiar with, such as his struggle against an incumbent or the fact that his term began with the pandemic, however there were of course many new things I learned which only added to my esteem for him. For example, it was notable hearing about his own struggle with academia and how it took time for him to form a personal relationship with it, discovering what he wanted to use it to accomplish in his life. In addition, how serendipitous it was that he was known as “the Mayor” in high school, and that that role sat dormant with him for years until he found one day that it was his true calling in life. Moreover, the conversations between him and the Courage students only brought out more wonderful details. In particular, there was a person that actually lives in Hudson, and she was able to talk to her own representative about the work he was doing for the city. Specifically, gentrification is a huge problem there, as in much of New York, and the Mayor explained many of the solutions he is trying out to combat rent inflation and the loss of local communities. All in all, I was more than happy with his talk and extremely proud to have gotten him on board to come here, and I hope to continue helping out at the Hannah Arendt Center in the future. 

You can watch a recording of Mayor Kamal Johnon's "Courage To Be" Talk here.