1972, assisted by Pola Chapelle, Mekas completed an autobiographical film that documented his return to Lithuania after a 27-year absence. Going Home was invited to the New York Film Festival and many other festivals that year. It was part of the Conference on Visual Anthropology at Temple University in 1974 and was chosen by the Museum of Modern Art to be screened in its Anthropological Cinema exhibit, which toured internationally from 1975 to 1977. The Bard Years On 3 July 1971, Mekas received a teaching contract from Bard College. Soon after, he began organizing the new Film Department. At first denied tenure, he began a campaign believing that, if he were given tenure, the Film Department itself would be tenured. Armed with letters from colleagues in the film world and former students, he was successful, and in 1979 was granted tenure. Mekas, Chapelle, and their son Sean Mekas a upstate ny artist moved to the Hudson Valley, where he dedicated himself to teaching. Adolph's, a nearby pub also known locally as "Down The Road", became their after hours seminar room. Only a very small budget was available to the Film Department, and the department continued as the "orphan in the storm" for many years. Mekas was not discouraged and, once a year, rented a truck and, together with Pola, visited film friends in New York City. They looked in their friends' labs for reels, split reels, cores, viewers, projectors and occasionally a moviola, which they took back to the Bard College Film Center. The lack of proper funding of the department worked to energize Mekas and his students in innovative ways. For instance, to raise funds for senior projects in film he held lunchtime auctions outside the dining commons on campus. The film department was small - more than three graduates was rare in the early years – but it was active and visible. During his years as chairman, Adolfas brought to the Bard Film Department some of the most noted independent and experimental filmmakers, including, Bruce Baillie, Ernie Gehr, Andrew Noren, Barry Gerson, Peter Hutton and Peggy Ahwesh and film historians and theorists Paul Arthur, P. Adams Sitney. John Pruitt, and guest faculty – friends including Ken Jacobs, Sidney Peterson, Shirley Clarke and George Kuchar. The Film Department grew in stature to become a well-respected film department. P. Adams Sitney writes, "what came to be known as the People's