Bard College Viewbook 2015-16

A PLACE TO THINK Bard Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

Students leave the Fisher Center after the Matriculation ceremony.

Photo: Karl Rabe

Throughout my time at Bard, I began to understand the value of community. I've never experienced the amount of support from faculty and students at an academic institution the way I did here. Bard pushed me to become even more of a critical thinker, helped me become more open minded, and has given me the support and encouragement to continue to pursue my career goals. —Michelle Asher, M.Music ’15 in conducting

Simply put, I fell in love with science at Bard. The professors here truly care about your education, and their evident enthusiasm for teaching fosters an incredible learning environment. As a chemistry and biology major, I especially appreciate the wealth of laboratory research experience that I have been gaining as an undergraduate.

—Jasper Williams ’14, biology and chemistry major

The Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation, designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects, with the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Science Laboratories and the László Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium, is home to the Biology, Chemistry, and Computer Science Programs.

Photo: ©Peter Aaron ’68/Esto

Construct your own educational program with faculty who are at the top of their fields Join a collaborative community of passionate students whose international perspectives expand every aspect of campus life Explore career-oriented internships and dual-degree programs that combine a liberal arts B.A. with degrees in economics and finance, environmental policy, music, and other disciplines Connect to the world through civic engagement and projects that help change society

Watching the setting sun on the lawn overlooking the Hudson River at Blithewood Photo: Peter Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

We have an incredible array of options and opportunities for students to get involved, a vibrant campus life that invites students to be ambitious and to enjoy the power and thrill of discovering how very large the world is and how capable they are of shaping it. —David Shein, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Studies; Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy

the love of learning

by Leon Botstein, President, Bard College

Many young people arrive at college with a single-minded focus on career and preprofessional education. Parents and students often harbor the illusion that the purpose of college, in contrast to that of high school, is to prepare oneself for the practical business of life, a phrase that is often reduced to the earning of money. Too many educators overreact to this legitimate utilitarian claim by preaching about learning for its own sake. This is a sort of high-minded, old-fashioned special pleading that is actually counterproductive. Learning for its own sake is wonderful, desirable, and enjoyable, but only after an individual has found a way to connect learning and life in a manner that influences everyday life, including earning a living.

Consequently, the plea for learning for its own sake doesn’t come across very persuasively to most parents and students. In the contemporary context it implies that learning in the sense of a more sophisticated understanding of literature, history, and philosophy—the kind of thing one ought to obtain in college—is indeed an irrelevant luxury without even an obvious civic benefit. Therefore, we would do well to make it clear that such learning in college must absolutely be considered useful.

A college that resists the demand that it make a difference in the future lives of students in terms of work is making a grave error, particularly if that college works in what is called a liberal arts context.

The key to this problem rests in the definition of utility. It turns out that when it comes to education, virtue is its own reward. Learning for its own sake is the best preparation for functioning competitively and creatively. Therefore, any responsible professor of a course of study on the undergraduate level errs by denigrating learning done by students that on the surface seems unconnected to becoming trained to do a particular task. Studying philosophy, for example, might be just the thing an undergraduate engineering major needs to become an innovative engineer. The essential training engineers get in problem solving, using mathematics and the procedures of basic science—not applied science—turns out to be critical in the workplace later on. So, too, is an education in complementary disciplines, including history and philosophy. Likewise, a solid understanding of psychology and literature, not to mention American economic and social history, will serve an undergraduate business major better than a course in marketing, especially if that student has the acuity and instinct to recognize its value.

A second barrier to realizing the promise of the college years is a more general skepticism and antiintellectualism inherent in the popular culture surrounding American adolescents. Being an adult is symbolically understood in many ways in this country. It is not primarily understood as a status that implies learning as a central personal habit. As a result, on most college campuses there is a staggering gulf between the classroom and after-class life. There is, in short, a sort of Jekyll-andHyde phenomenon. In very good colleges, students work diligently and are attentive and ambitious.

But the moment class is over and the assignments completed, an entirely different pattern emerges.

Biology class Photo: Scott Barrow

American colleges are notable for their vulgarity in terms of extracurricular social life. There seems to be no connection between what students are learning and the way they go about living.

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A college ought to be measured by the extent to which the curriculum influences dining hall conversation and the kinds of entertainment students choose. It should be defined by the way learning transforms the definition of play. Not only should learning be enjoyable, but what we, as adults, consider enjoyment should be transformed by what we discover through study. Having a good time (18th-century philosophers would not have permitted us to use the word happiness, which was understood as a moral category, more like what we might term individual or collective well-being) is a perfectly reasonable objective in life. The question then becomes what kinds of things one considers play and part of having a good time.

No matter how rigorous the curriculum, no matter how stringent the requirements, if what goes on in the classroom does not leave its mark on the way young adults voluntarily act in private and in public while they are in college, much less in the years after, then the college is not doing what it is supposed to do. This is the reason why, when prospective students visit colleges, they need to look at the student culture and activities. It is the transformation of peer-group values and behavior that can mark a first-rate college education. But one ought not underestimate the obstacles to achieving this goal, given what students bring from their homes and their high schools with respect to the presumed connection between learning and everyday life and what constitutes play and fun.

A third barrier to realizing the potential of the undergraduate years is specific to the way colleges organize their curriculum and faculty. Since World War II, most colleges have required their faculty to have Ph.D.s. All universities and colleges apply some standard of scholarship to their recruitment and tenure procedures. That is why one so often hears complaints about the “publish or perish” syndrome. On the one hand, requiring faculty to publish is beneficial because it ensures what ought to be a minimum level of competence and sophistication in one’s subject. Furthermore, the key difference between high school teaching and college teaching is in the realm of love of subject. Love of subject is measured by the extent to which a teacher spends time, of his or her own accord, working on scholarly endeavors in his or her chosen subject. No college teacher who does not experience criticism and evaluation by peers of his or her own written work deserves the right to assign a paper to a student.

On the other hand, the increased professionalism and emphasis on scholarship and research have inadvertently led to the organization of colleges along the lines of graduate schools and to the devaluation of teaching. Teachers are hired in undergraduate schools along structural patterns that mirror the specialized fields of the graduate schools. The college English department looks unfortunately and inappropriately like a miniature-golf-course version of the 18-hole graduate school department. The same holds true for mathematics, physics, and psychology. This pattern of imitation is especially harmful currently, since graduate training, most noticeably in the humanities, encourages young would-be college teachers to specialize in ways that bear little relevance to the task of teaching undergraduates. In the name of encouraging “new” scholarship and establishing a professional reputation for oneself, fashionable texts, elaborate methodologies, and peripheral questions are favored in dissertations over careful study and interpretation of central issues, texts, and traditions. By the time a graduate student reaches the classroom as an independent instructor, he or she not only has had no useful guidance in how to teach, but is not prepared or inclined to teach legitimately canonical texts and recurrent issues that undergraduates need and want to study. This redefined pseudoprofessionalism has crippled most efforts to reinvent general education. The irony is that this prescriptive procedure delays and inhibits scholarly originality, particularly in the reconsideration of well-established methods, canons, and traditions.

8 The Love of Learning

Furthermore, undergraduate “majors” inevitably favor their best students, defined as those who hold the most promise for a scholarly career. No department wants to become a “service department” without its own majors, relegated to teaching skills and materials to students who are primarily interested in other subjects. It does not seem sufficiently dignified for the purpose of an English department, for example, to educate a literate physician. This is unfortunate. Academic departments often function as if they were merchants in a bazaar, hustling undergraduates to become majors. Administrations, in turn, measure success by counting heads in terms of enrollments that derive from majors: the more majors, the more successful the department. This pattern even spills down to the college applicant, who is asked a ridiculous question: What would you like to major in?

The truth is that life is not divisible into majors. Neither is work nor, believe it or not, learning or scholarship. Asking a high school graduate about a major defined in terms of a university department is usually pointless because the student has no reason to have any notion of what the question might mean or imply. The right questions to ask the prospective student are: What issues interest you? What kinds of things would you like to study? What would you like to know more about? If one starts with the problems that young people formulate about the world, one discovers that answering them requires the expertise of individuals, defined in ways that do not correspond neatly with the departmental structure of a graduate school. And the search for answers to old questions and the framing of new questions demand an encounter with the full scope of intellectual traditions conserved by the university.

If we expect college graduates to function as leaders in the civic arena, then colleges must expand the extent to which their campuses are used as important public spaces. Ours is an age of extremes.

We are surrounded by crowds, but each individual finds himself or herself on a somewhat isolated and autonomous outing. We have embraced the mall as the ideal shopping venue. Although the mall has many virtues, it isn’t quite like a town square. At the same time, we spend a good deal of time alone, looking at a television screen or a computer. We may be making contact with others over the Internet, but that, too, is hardly comparable to a public gathering.

Colleges and universities possess a unique opportunity. They have the physical spaces and the traditions that can encourage individuals on campus and from surrounding communities to come together around common interests. Public discussions, exhibits, lectures, and concerts are indispensable in our communities. Colleges are uniquely able to sponsor programs in which open debate and free inquiry are sustained. They offer a neutral ground where the rules of discourse inspire seriousness and assure civility. Institutions of higher education must also lend a direct hand to the improvement of secondary and elementary education. If we use the public space of our campuses on behalf of the cultural and political life of our communities, we also do a favor to our students.

They will see that the institution they attend makes its own contribution to the outside community, particularly to the quality of cultural life and political discourse. They, in turn, may develop the expectation that they, as students (through community service programs on campus) and alumni/ae, should help sustain this sort of activity in their own communities. The university can be a center for and a model of cultural creation, debate, service, and political exchange among citizens of the future, one that is dominated not by commerce and a narrow definition of utility but by a love of learning.

The preceding passage is adapted from Jefferson’s Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture by Leon Botstein (Doubleday, 1997).

The Love of Learning 9

First-year picnic Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

The Language and Thinking Program is all about conversation.

In part that means serious, engaged discussion among the students about the material they’re studying together. But also, recalling an older sense of the word “conversation,” it means cultivating the habits of thought and behavior that sustain a vibrant intellectual and creative community.

—Thomas Bartscherer, Assistant Professor of Humanities

At Bard, we show up. We build, paint, dig, teach, play, sing, sweat.

We show up in the middle of the night, work in the rain, crawl under the car, whatever it takes. This does not mean erasing the self. It means struggling with the tension between self and collective interests, and then acting compassionately. —Paul Marienthal, Dean for Social Action; Director, Trustee Leader Scholar Program

From its historic Hudson Valley setting to its state-of-the-art science and arts facilities, Bard offers an idyllic environment where students can enjoy a rich social life interwoven with their cultural and intellectual pursuits. The College affords a wide range of activities and opportunities for students to engage in challenging and rewarding ways with peers, faculty, alumni/ae, local neighborhoods, and the world at large. It also provides a support system of advisers, tutors, counselors, and related programs to help students successfully negotiate their undergraduate experience.

Bard’s parklike campus is situated on the east shore of the Hudson River. Students stroll or bike to class among stately trees of every size (Bard has three of New York State’s largest trees) and description. They can admire spectacular sunsets over the Catskill Mountains to the west and enjoy the special light that inspired the Hudson River School of painters. They study, work, and relax in campus buildings that range from the venerable buildings of Stone Row, which date to the late 1800s, to cutting-edge architecture by Robert Venturi, Rafael Viñoly, and Frank Gehry. Many facilities are clustered at the center of campus, including classrooms and libraries; art studios and music practice rooms; the gymnasium and athletic fields; Kline Commons, with its student and faculty dining halls; and Bertelsmann Campus Center, which has a movie theater, post office, café, bookstore, and meeting, exhibition, and event spaces.

The student body is remarkably diverse—ethnically, racially, economically, and geographically.

Students come to Bard from all regions of the United States and from 60-plus countries, bringing with them a wide range of experiences and perspectives. Undergraduates also share the campus with the students, faculty, and visiting scholars and artists of several affiliated research centers and graduate schools, including the Bard College Conservatory of Music, Center for Environmental Policy, Levy Economics Institute, Center for Curatorial Studies, Hessel Museum of Art, Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, and Center for Civic Engagement, to name just a few. These programs present lectures, concerts, exhibitions, panel discussions, and other events that are open to the entire Bard community; some welcome undergraduate assistance with research and events.

The breathtaking Gehry-designed Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts is home to SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, Bard’s renowned annual summer productions that draw crowds, and rave reviews, every year. The Fisher Center also hosts Live Arts Bard (LAB), a residency program that commissions avant-garde performers, composers, writers, and other artists to come to campus to collaborate with faculty and students on new works. Students in the Dance Program have also benefited from partnerships with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and the Trisha Brown Dance Company.

The nearby communities of Tivoli, Red Hook, Rhinebeck, Kingston, Hyde Park, Hudson, and Woodstock offer historic sites, such as the Franklin D. Roosevelt estate, music and other cultural venues, art galleries, eclectic food and shopping options, and parks for bicycling, hiking, and kayaking. Many students are involved in civic outreach projects in these and other communities, participating in tutoring and environmental programs for children; teaching English as a Second Language to migrant workers; and helping inmates in local prisons prepare for the GED exam.

Additionally, New York City is 90 miles away and easily accessed by public transportation. Many classes take advantage of the opportunity to visit museums, studios, theatrical productions, and Students and other volunteers come together for barn raising and barbeque, while listening to Bard bands.

Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

concert halls. Students can attend a class on visual imagination for the modern stage and that same evening catch a production on Broadway. The cultural traffic between Bard and New York flows both ways: world-class writers, artists, and musicians based in the city frequently come to campus to do what they do best for the benefit of the College and broader community.

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Resnick Commons residence halls Photo: Peter Aaron ’68/Esto

Student Life Students at Bard are actively involved in shaping both their education and their community—from their residence halls to participation on committees that address all matters of concern to the College. It is a community that is respectful of differences, embraces individuality, promotes honest dialogue, and encourages all students, faculty, and staff to discover their best selves. To that end, undergraduates have access to a variety of support services and resources, and a full range of activities that reflect academic, social, artistic, athletic, and purely casual pursuits.

Residential Life On-campus living at Bard affords students the opportunity to meet and share accommodations with others from all over the country and the world. The residences are as eclectic as the College’s student population; rather than having a uniform architectural design, the halls evolved as Bard has grown, but all residences offer options for student development in small-group settings.

The Bard campus boasts more than 50 student residences featuring WiFi, social rooms, kitchens, and laundry facilities. Most of them are coed, and roughly one-third of the rooms are single occupancy. Residence halls are staffed by Peer Counselors. PCs assist students in navigating campus life and organizing social, cultural, and educational events to foster a peer community as well as an extension of academic life. Area Coordinators are full-time staff who provide support to residents and PCs through counseling and crisis management.

Students who live on campus, as most do, are required to participate in a meal plan, which offers flexible menus (including vegetarian, vegan, and limited kosher and halal selections) and extended meal times in the campus dining commons. Students can also enjoy meals at two cafés on campus.

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Ann Seaton (left), director of Difference and Media Project, director of multicultural affairs, and visiting assistant professor of humanities Photo: Scott Barrow

Student Government and Committees All Bard students belong to the Bard Student Government, a democratic forum that raises issues and takes or recommends action by the College. Opportunities to serve include the Student Judiciary Board, which enforces and protects the rights of all Bard students; Student Life Committee, which coordinates with the Dean of Student Affairs staff and other offices to improve student services and residential life; Educational Policies Committee, which acts as liaison between students and faculty; and Fiscal Committee, which allocates funds to student organizations. Students are represented at Board of Trustees and Bard College Alumni/ae Association Board of Governors meetings.

Clubs Students can choose from more than 150 active student clubs on campus, ranging in subject from African culture to zero waste. Getting involved is easy: any student with a particular interest can start a club, including first-year students. A sampling of clubs includes: AfroPulse, Asian Student Organization, Bard Christian Fellowship, Bard Community Gospel Choir, Bard Emergency Medical Services, Bard Rugby Football Club, Bollywood Club, EcoReps, Hudson Valley Explorers Club, Jewish Student Organization, Latin American Student Organization, Model UN, Queer Straight Alliance, Trans Life Collective, and Women in Philosophy.

Athletics and Recreation Bard’s wide range of athletic and recreational programs includes intercollegiate competition, intramural and club sports, and other extracurricular pursuits. The Stevenson Athletic Center is the hub of activity for campus sports. Many students also take advantage of Bard’s location in the Hudson River Valley to pursue such interests as mountain biking, hiking, running, cross-country and downhill skiing, ice skating, rock climbing, and kayaking.

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Gemma Godfrey ’18 on the Bard Raptors women’s soccer team Photo: Stockton Photos

The College offers intercollegiate programs for men and women in basketball, cross-country, lacrosse, soccer, tennis, track and field, swimming, and volleyball. Men also compete in baseball and squash. The Raptors, Bard’s athletic teams, compete under the auspices of the Liberty League, National Collegiate Athletic Association (Division III), and other national organizations. Club sports include equestrian, fencing, rugby, and Ultimate Frisbee, while intramural programs are offered in basketball, soccer, floor hockey, kickball, tennis, volleyball, softball, badminton, and squash. Fitness classes range from aerobics, yoga, and Pilates to aquacise, Spinning, and weight training.

Other Activities Many activities enrich life on and off campus, from garage-band concerts at SMOG, a student-run music venue, to language tables, where students share meals and practice conversation in Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish, Hebrew, Japanese, Russian, and other languages. Other student-generated activities include the Root Cellar, which has an impressive collection of zines; Sawkill Coffee House; and Thursday Night Live, which consists of acoustic concerts, contests, open mic nights, and more at Down the Road Café. The Difference and Media Project is a multimedia laboratory for students and others to explore “difference” in its many connotations.

Various student publications and media also comment on life at Bard or examine political, social, and artistic topics: • Bard Free Press—This student-run paper covers local and campus news, culture, and activities.

• WXBC Radio—Bard’s free-form, uncensored radio station provides original broadcasting for 16 hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the academic year • Bard Papers—This annual arts and literary magazine draws from undergraduate and faculty work.

Now a multimedia platform, Bard Papers accepts poetry, prose, video, sound, and Web-based work; submissions are blind-juried by student staff.

16 The Bard Community

Lunch and conversation in Kline Commons Photo: Scott Barrow

Spiritual Life The College chaplaincy is committed to helping students, staff, and faculty explore and develop their spiritual identities. The diverse perspectives of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism are not only researched but practiced at Bard. Clergy members offer study on a formal and informal basis, develop programming for the campus at large, and support student organizations.

Weekly worship in different traditions, and services and celebrations for holy days, are held throughout the academic year. The Center for Spiritual Life, located in the residential Resnick Commons, is home to the Buddhist meditation room, Beit Shalom Salaam House of Peace meeting room, Muslim Prayer room, Center for the Study of James, and a kosher/halal kitchen.

Student Resources • Help in writing a paper—or with any academic subject—is found at the Learning Commons, which provides tutoring and other forms of academic support to all Bard students. In addition to academic skills workshops, the Commons offers assistance in more than 40 subjects, including Q-exam preparation; First-Year Seminar; and composition of Moderation papers, Senior Projects, and master’s theses.

• The Career Development Office (CDO) offers much more than career advising; it also helps students connect with professionals and find meaningful internships and jobs. Career advisers provide guidance on writing resumes and cover letters, and help with practice interviews. The fall recruiting season starts off the year with a robust schedule of interviewing opportunities for seniors. Throughout the year CDO hosts career-specific panels, networking events with alumni/ae, and workshops on how to conduct a successful internship or job search. CDO helps students translate their liberal arts education into a career with passion and purpose.

• SPARC, the Student Publicity and Activities Resource Center, helps students implement and publicize events; the student sound crew, trained by audiovisual professionals, helps host them.

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Bard College Farm cranberry bog Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

Sustainability Bard has an Office of Sustainability, a one-of-a-kind M.B.A. program in sustainability, and a president who has pledged to shrink the College’s carbon footprint and integrate sustainability into its curricula. But in many ways, Bard students have taken the lead in sustainability efforts on campus. The 1.5-acre Bard College Farm began as a student initiative and now grows dozens of crops that are used in the College’s dining facilities and sold at local farmers markets. Other initiatives to promote green policies include a bike co-op, biodiesel cooperative, free-use store, Bard bartering community, an eco-box drive for electronics, food drives, energy challenges, recycling contests, and BardEats, a collaborative effort to promote local and sustainable food options on campus. Chartwell’s, the College food service, purchases 40,000 pounds of produce a season from the Bard College Farm, and met the College’s goal for providing “real” food (local, ecological, humane) five years ahead of schedule.

Bard has completed a comprehensive inventory of its annual greenhouse gas emissions on all College-owned properties; that study led to Bard’s climate action plan, through the Bard Office of Sustainability (BOS), to reach carbon neutrality by 2035. Some key achievements en route to that goal include: • High-efficiency geothermal and energy-saving systems in The Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation and more than 25 other campus facilities • Bard’s selection as the first college in New York State to be designated a Tree Campus USA for its environmental stewardship Saadat Musabaeva PIE ’15 and Aidai Kadyralieva PIE ’15 harvesting mushrooms Photo: Chris Kendall ’82

• The greening of the College’s transportation fleet (including hybrids and electric vehicles), and campus policies that encourage walking, biking, or riding the shuttle as alternatives to driving • Installation of solar panels and campus-wide LED lighting

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Alumni versus students rugby game Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

Engaged Alumni/ae Bard alumni/ae are actively engaged in the life of the College, whether they’ve settled in the Hudson Valley or come back to campus from as far away as Nepal. In addition to helping shape Bard’s future from positions on the Board of Trustees and the Board of Governors of the Bard College Alumni/ae Association, alumni/ae visit campus to participate in reunions, concerts, career panels, exhibitions, lectures, and various games against student teams.

A number of graduates have continued their association with Bard as faculty members or as directors and staff of satellite programs such as the Bard Prison Initiative, International Center of Photography–Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies, Landscape and Arboretum Program, La Voz magazine, Bard Music Festival, and Bard High School Early College.

Hundreds of alumni/ae have signed up through the Office of Alumni/ae Affairs to be available as mentors in their fields. Bard seniors have access to this list, and the Alumni/ae Office will search it on behalf of other Bard students. Specific programs also have mobilized mentors. These include the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program and Bard Works, a career-oriented professional development workshop for juniors and seniors.

After graduation, Bard alumni/ae often stay closely connected to the friends and professors they had in college. There is a strong bond between all Bardians, as well as a recognition that Bard is a unique school, one that values not only the individual but also the social, political, and physical world beyond the Annandale campus. Bard alumni/ae take great pride in their alma mater and are happy to support the College, practically and financially, to make sure the tradition of excellence Patrick Vaill ’07 (center) in Oklahoma! at the LUMA Theater Photo: Cory Weaver

and innovation continues. The new Anne Cox Chambers Alumni/ae Center is a testament to that tradition.

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Bard students have more positive energy in the classroom than any other students I've taught. It still amazes me how each new group comes together in a spirit of camaraderie. It's a buoyant and ebullient kind of momentum that leads to heightened concentration and better learning. I'm not sure how it gets started—it has very little to do with me—but once it does, it's irresistible.

—James Romm, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics

James Romm and his class discuss Alexander the Great.

Photo: Scott Barrow

The Common Curriculum Bard students are held to the highest possible standard of intellectual achievement. They are challenged and encouraged to take risks. They are exposed to some of the finest minds in every field and discipline, and to the newest developments and ideas in their areas of study. They acquire their Bard education actively—the enthusiasm, hard work, and high level of engagement with which they obtain that education stand them in excellent stead for the rest of their lives. At Bard it’s understood that education, like life itself, is a continuous process of growth and effort.

Academic guidance begins from the student’s first days at Bard. An academic adviser meets with the student at strategic points in every semester. Academic advisers help in deciding on individual courses, majors and their course sequences, and meeting collegewide curricular requirements.

Language and Thinking Program First-year students arrive in August to immerse themselves in this intensive introduction to the liberal arts and sciences. They spend three weeks reading extensively in several genres, concentrating on different writing projects. Working in small, dynamic discussion groups, and in individual conferences with faculty, students learn to read and listen more thoughtfully, articulate ideas more clearly, and review their own work critically.

First-Year Seminar: Studies in Human Experience This two-semester course presents seminal intellectual, cultural, and artistic ideas in historical context, through extraordinary works of literature, philosophy, politics, religion, science, and the arts. Class discussions and frequent writing assignments develop precise, analytical thinking. Ideas are debated in an intimate seminar format.

Core texts address a specific theme for the year, such as “What Is Enlightenment? The Science, Culture, and Politics of Reason.”

Citizen Science First-year students return to Bard in January for a first-of-its-kind course focusing on a specific scientific issue—infectious disease, for example—and look at it from different methodological and conceptual approaches. This technique leads to an understanding of the impact of science and mathematics on everyday life and how Bard students, regardless of major, can become constructive participants in the debate over, and the solutions to, such crucial global problems as climate change and disease control.

Moderation Moderation is the process by which Bard students declare a major and move into the Upper College (typically junior and senior years). Usually during their second semester, sophomores write two Moderation papers: one that assesses their curricula, performance, and experience during their first two years, and one that identifies goals and a study plan for their final two years. These papers are presented to, and discussed with, a review board of three faculty members—an unusual and valuable experience at this level of education.

Senior Project The capstone of the Bard education is the Senior Project, an original, focused work that reflects a student’s cumulative academic experience. Students have great flexibility in choosing the form of their project. A science major might design an experiment or analyze published research findings. A psychology major might report on fieldwork or individual research. An arts major might create a portfolio, composition, or performance; a written arts major might create original fiction.

Students work to describe features of bacterial isolates during Citizen Science.

Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

Research is closely guided all senior year, through intensive weekly one-on-one meetings with a Senior Project adviser. Preparation begins in the junior year, when students pursue course work, tutorials, and seminars directed toward selecting a Senior Project topic.

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I am reminded what a privilege it is to work on ideas that matter together with vibrant young people engaged in a four-year process of discovering who they are and creating what they will become. —Garry L. Hagberg, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy

Thurman Barker, Music (left) Photo: Jacques Luiggi

Academics at Bard Bard students choose from among 35 stand-alone programs and 12 concentrations in four academic divisions—Arts; Languages and Literature; Science, Mathematics, and Computing; and Social Studies —as well as in Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations, in which students pursue a multidisciplinary course of study. Students may major in more than one program. Joint majors offer students an exciting opportunity to work on projects that cut across disciplines, while double majors allow students to focus in depth on more than one subject, culminating in two Senior Projects. Distribution requirements offer breadth of knowledge, exposure to a variety of intellectual and artistic experiences, and the chance to work with faculty members trained in a broad range of disciplines.

Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations is home to 23 interdisciplinary fields: 11 are offered as majors, 12 as concentrations (minors). A major in literature might also choose a concentration in Victorian studies, or a human rights major a concentration in Latin American and Iberian studies.

Several 3+2 programs enable students to combine undergraduate and graduate degrees while collaborating with experts in their chosen fields. After three years, qualified students may enroll in the Levy Economics Institute Master of Science in Economic Theory and Policy, or the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, and receive a B.A. and an M.S. degree in five years, or the Bard Master of Arts in Teaching Program for a B.A. and M.A.T. degree in five years. Other participating programs include the engineering schools at Columbia University and Dartmouth College and degree programs in forestry and environmental management at Duke University. Bard also offers two fiveyear, dual-degree bachelor’s programs. The Program in Economics and Finance, which grants a B.S. in economics and finance and a B.A. in a field other than economics, is for students who want a broad education in the liberal arts and sciences as they prepare for careers in the financial world, Lisa Sanditz, Studio Arts (center) Photo: Scott Barrow

or students pursuing other professions who seek deeper fiscal knowledge. A description of the fiveyear dual degree with the Bard College Conservatory of Music is found on page 41.

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Daniel Mendelsohn, Literature (right) Photo: Scott Barrow

Inspired Faculty Bard’s extraordinary faculty are dedicated to teaching. Today and throughout Bard’s history, members of the faculty have effected change in medicine, the arts and letters, international affairs, scientific research, and education, among other endeavors. Professors in different fields join in multidisciplinary teaching. Our distinguished scholars are advisers as well as instructors: Bard has no graduate teaching assistants. And the average class size of 20 allows for intimate discussions and one-on-one interaction that lead to a more focused education. We are enormously proud of our faculty’s accomplishments, recognition for which includes this sampling: French Legion of Honor: John Ashbery (emeritus), Norman Manea Grammy Awards: Luc Sante, Joan Tower, Dawn Upshaw Grawemeyer Awards: Joan Tower, George Tsontakis Guggenheim Fellowships: Peggy Ahwesh, JoAnne Akalaitis (emeritus), Richard H. Davis, Ellen Driscoll, Larry Fink, Kenji Fujita, Peter Hutton, Ann Lauterbach, An-My Lê, Medrie MacPhee, Norman Manea, Daniel Mendelsohn, Bradford Morrow, Jacob Neusner (emeritus), Lothar Osterburg, Gilles Peress, Judy Pfaff, Francine Prose, Kelly Reichardt, James Romm, Lisa Sanditz, Luc Sante, Joseph Santore, Stephen Shore, Mona Simpson, Karen Sullivan, Richard Teitelbaum, Joan Tower, George Tsontakis MacArthur Foundation Fellowships: John Ashbery (emeritus), Mark Danner, Jeremy Denk, Ann Lauterbach, An-My Lê, Norman Manea, Judy Pfaff, Dawn Upshaw National Science Foundation Grants: Craig Anderson, Sven Anderson, James M. Belk, Ethan D. Bloch, Michèle D. Dominy, Yuval Elmelech, John B. Ferguson (emeritus), Mark D. Halsey, Felicia Keesing, Keith O’Hara, Susan Fox Rogers, Lauren Rose, Alice Stroup, S. Rebecca Thomas, Michael Tibbetts Newbery Medal: Neil Gaiman Past Nobel laureates: Saul Bellow, Orhan Pamuk, José Saramago, Isaac Bashevis Singer Obie Award: John Kelly, David Levine, Nilaja Sun Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants: Ken Buhler, Kenji Fujita, Gilles Peress, Matt Phillips (emeritus) Prix Médicis étranger: Norman Manea, Daniel Mendelsohn Pulitzer Prize: Elizabeth Frank Rufus Müller, Music (right) Photo: Scott Barrow

Rome Prize: Mary Caponegro ’78, Tim Davis ’91, Diana H. DePardo-Minsky, John Kelly, Stephen Shore Rhodes Scholarship: Maria Sachiko Cecire Royal Society of Literature: Norman Manea

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The Senior Project gives me the opportunity and luxury to do my own work, and my Senior Project adviser is quick to engage in my interests in a nonjudgmental way and dive in to my level. The sense of community with my peers is astronomical. I came back from a semester abroad because I wanted to be part of that collaborative experience. And our facilities—to have our own individual studios and the UBS exhibition space is an amazing privilege.

—Serena Caffrey ’16, studio arts major

Kenji Fujita, Studio Arts (right) Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

Division of the Arts Art History, Dance, Film and Electronic Arts, Music, Photography, Studio Arts, Theater and Performance At Bard, students get the best of both worlds: an excellent liberal arts education and one of the finest arts schools in the country. The liberal arts program helps students to be better practitioners of their chosen discipline, since it deepens their knowledge and gives young artists something to make art about. Students in the arts also develop aesthetic criteria that they can apply to other areas of learning.

Arts students study and work with active, distinguished professionals in their fields. The campus is not a provincial atmosphere, especially given Bard’s proximity to New York City, one of the world’s greatest centers for the arts. Students study with members of the Trisha Brown Dance Company, filmmakers Kelly Reichardt and Peter Hutton, dramaturg Gideon Lester, playwright Chiori Miyagawa, sculptor and multimedia artist Judy Pfaff, or photographers Stephen Shore, An-My Lê, and Tim Davis ’91, just some of the many faculty who bring their passion for their art to the classroom.

All of the arts programs unite a study of craft with history, theory, and criticism; theoretical understanding and practical skills are developed through production and performance in all disciplines.

The work of Moderation and for the concluding Senior Project are particularly valuable moments for an aspiring artist, since he or she has created a substantial body of work that goes on public display (or culminates in a public performance) with many in attendance from inside and outside the Bard community. At both of these junctures the student also faces a valuable critique board of three professors who devote focused attention to helping develop the student’s work. Tutorials, conferences with faculty advisers, and independent work prepare students for the Senior Project, which Senior Project exhibition Photo: Roman Hrab

may be a critical monograph, collection of photographs, an exhibition of original works, performances, or the creation of a screenplay, short film, or composition.

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Teju Cole, Literature (right), talks with a student after reading from his latest novel.

Photo: Karl Rabe

Division of Languages and Literature Literature; Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures; Written Arts A devotion to language and an integrated approach to teaching literature, language, and the written arts open up myriad possibilities in the Division of Languages and Literature, where the written arts are in constant conversation with literary studies. The programs maintain fluidity between writing and the students’ development of historical/critical awareness of the contexts within which writing practices develop. The growing fields of world literature and translation studies are coming increasingly into play, as are the ways that languages, culture, and literature mutually inform one another. Comparative studies of literature, other arts, and theories of literature are a regular part of course offerings. Majors are encouraged to study a language other than English and to consider literary texts across disciplinary boundaries, such as in medieval studies or gender and sexuality studies. Languages include Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Russian, Sanskrit, and Spanish. Those who choose a foreign language major can explore a range of interests and develop courses of study that bring together investigations into culture, history, and other fields. Panels, symposia, and lectures take place frequently and are available to all, and there is often opportunity for one-on-one discussions after the events.

Bard abounds with world-class fiction writers, literary critics, scholars, and poets; the division offers the Written Arts Program, a writing program in fiction and poetry led by professional writers— Neil Gaiman, Robert Kelly, Ann Lauterbach, Francine Prose, and Luc Sante, among others—who teach what they love and offer a supportive environment for students’ written works that respects each individual’s uniqueness. Students in the Written Arts Program may take workshops and tutorials offered at several levels in prose fiction, poetry, or nonfiction. Written arts majors complete the same Cole Heinowitz, Literature (left) Photo: Scott Barrow

course requirements as literature majors. Senior Projects may take the form of a novel, poem sequence, play, short stories, or translations.

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Felicia Keesing, Biology (center) Photo: Don Hamerman

Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology A curriculum that is both progressive and classical leads to an active understanding of the concepts, methods, and contexts of the scientific, mathematical, and computational disciplines studied.

Introductory courses address the history of science and other science-related topics for majors and nonmajors alike. Courses in interdisciplinary fields, such as mind, brain, and behavior; environmental and urban studies; and science, technology, and society are offered through Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations and are designed to meet the needs and interests of Bard students. Faculty and students come together to assist and learn from one another: psychologist Kristin Lane, for example, received a multiyear National Institutes of Health grant to research, with undergraduate collaboration, gender stereotyping in science.

Pursuing a degree in the Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing provides majors with the foundation necessary for advanced, independent work in graduate or professional schools, or in technical professions. In all courses, students learn by posing and solving problems. Students acquire knowledge in a field, as well as habits of critical and creative thinking that are necessary components in all scientific activity. The Mathematics Program, for instance, provides physical science and social science majors with the necessary mathematical tools for work in their respective disciplines. Exciting research possibilities include numerous opportunities on campus, such as the Bard Summer Research Institute and the Bard College Field Station, and at affiliated institutions, such as the Rockefeller University laboratories in New York City. Senior Projects usually consist of original experimental or theoretical research. Students exercising the dual-degree option in First-year students in Citizen Science plate bacteria as they prepare to investigate bacteriophages.

Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

engineering (with Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science or Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering) or environmental policy or climate science and policy (with the Bard Center for Environmental Policy) usually moderate into the division.

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I love that our students are not just bright passengers, but also that they ride so closely alongside us [instructors]. A course syllabus is a kind of road map, ideally reflecting familiar terrain to us, the drivers, but the students are excellent copilots—suggesting alternative routes by their questions and reflections, recording those twists and turns along the way which they will need to duplicate, and ultimately making each trip something of a discovery. The learning is mutual. —Myra Young Armstead, Lyford Paterson Edwards and Helen Gray Edwards Professor of Historical Studies

Nuruddin Farah, Literature (left) and Mark Danner, Human Rights (right) discuss writing, art, memory, and political exigencies in a discussion open to all students.

Photo: Karl Rabe

Division of Social Studies Anthropology, Economics, Economics and Finance, Historical Studies, Philosophy, Political Studies, Religion, Sociology The Division of Social Studies houses eight major disciplines and is the locus for many interdivisional programs, from human rights to global and international studies. (See Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations, page 39, for more options.) The division’s most recent program, Economics and Finance, is designed for students who wish to achieve a broad education in the liberal arts and sciences as they prepare for careers in the financial world. Faculty in the division, such as British history and literature professor Richard Aldous and foreign affairs and humanities professor Mark Danner, introduce students to a variety of methodological perspectives and encourage them to examine fields of study through the prism of other disciplines.

Students are advised to take courses from a range of fields in the division to develop a comprehensive perspective on humanity in contemporary and historical contexts. By applying what they have learned—about general philosophical, historical, and scientific methods and of particular research techniques and interpretations—students focus on aspects of the diversity of human cultures and civilizations, institutions, values, and beliefs. Students are encouraged to design courses of study to satisfy personal curiosity and interests. Events that may contribute to primary research range from a lecture on the impacts of climate policy to a symposium on aesthetics and philosophy.

Most Upper College courses in social studies are seminars in which students participate actively.

Conferences with advisers, tutorials, fieldwork, and independent research constitute preparation for the Senior Project, which may take any form appropriate to the student’s area of interest, subject, Myra Young Armstead, Historical Studies (right) Photo: Scott Barrow

and methodology. Most are original research, but a Senior Project might consist of critical reviews of literature, close textual analysis, a series of related essays, or even a translation.

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A roundtable discussion open to all students. Ian Buruma, Human Rights and Journalism (left); Tom Keenan, Human Rights Project director and Comparative Literature (center); and Jonathan Becker, vice president for academic affairs and Center for Civic Engagement director (right).

Photo: Karl Rabe

Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations At Bard, students and faculty rethink the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines. The areas of study are interdisciplinary, drawing on the faculty and resources of the four academic divisions.

In interdivisional American studies, for example, the faculty includes jazz musician Thurman Barker, historian Myra Young Armstead, environmentalist and writer Susan Fox Rogers, and archaeologist Christopher Lindner. Ian Buruma—former cultural editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review and recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award, bestowed by Stanford and Harvard Universities— belongs to the Asian Studies Program faculty. Biology professor Felicia Keesing also teaches in the Global and International Studies Program. Science, Technology, and Society Program faculty include Robert Bielecki of the Music Program, an audio engineer specializing in the creative use of technology in the electronic arts. The Human Rights major, the first such stand-alone major in the country, includes faculty in medieval studies, photography, and art history, among others.

Many of the interdivisional fields are stand-alone majors: American Studies; Asian Studies; Classical Studies; Environmental and Urban Studies; French Studies; German Studies; Global and International Studies; Human Rights; Italian Studies; Russian and Eurasian Studies; Spanish Studies Other interdivisional endeavors are considered concentrations: Africana Studies; Experimental Humanities; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Irish and Celtic Studies; Jewish Studies; Latin American and Iberian Studies; Medieval Studies; Middle Eastern Studies; Mind, Brain, and Behavior; Science, Technology, and Society; Theology; Victorian Studies Students who choose one of these concentrations also moderate into a primary program. For Miles Rodríguez, Historical Studies and Latin American and Iberian Studies Photo: Scott Barrow

instance, students may expand their horizons by analyzing works of literature, or psychology, through the prism of gender theory or other interdivisional areas. The Senior Project combines the interdisciplinary nature of both areas of study.

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For the curious, the musical, the intellectual, it’s a great choice, as the message here—both by intent and example—is that there are no boundaries between art and academics, and that the study of both may bring the fullest potential to each.

—Marc Goldberg, bassoon faculty

James Bagwell, Conducting (left) Photo: János Sutyák ’13

The Bard College Conservatory of Music Music, like all art, engages the mind, heart, and body, redefines boundaries, and questions limits.

The mission of the Bard College Conservatory of Music is to provide the best possible preparation for a person dedicated to a life immersed in the creation and performance of music. The goal is a unified learning environment, in which the serious study of music goes hand in hand with the education of the whole person. The Conservatory, in a thoroughly integrated program, confers two undergraduate degrees: a bachelor of music and a bachelor of arts in a field other than music.

Promising young musicians—students of composition and some 15 instruments—pursue all of their interests at one institution. The Conservatory’s faculty members are renowned performing musicians whose artistry has been featured in the world’s great concert halls. They are on campus weekly to give lessons, coach chamber ensembles, offer master and studio classes, and lead sectional rehearsals of the Conservatory Orchestra.

Students at the Conservatory live, eat, and attend most classes with non-Conservatory students.

The requirements for the bachelor of arts degree are the same as for all Bard undergraduates. In the innovative bachelor of music curriculum, performance majors study composition, and the Conservatory Seminar integrates music theory and music history, with special emphasis on their relation to performance. The Conservatory offers unparalleled musical opportunities. Concerto competition winners perform with the American Symphony Orchestra, Conservatory Orchestra, or The Orchestra Now; and students perform at the Bard Music Festival. Conservatory students and faculty have performed together in professional engagements throughout the United States and abroad—including a tour of China and Taiwan. The Conservatory Orchestra made its New York City debut at Alice Tully Hall in a concert conducted by Leon Botstein and featuring faculty soloists such Conservatory students rehearse.

Photo: Karl Rabe

as Dawn Upshaw. The orchestra also performs regularly at the Eastern NY Correctional Facility as part of the Bard Prison Initiative.

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I came to Bard to develop my interpretive voice and discovered a free space to explore, experiment, reflect, and ultimately, play.

Bard provides a landscape for the imagination—an expansive environment in the literal and figurative sense.

—Julia Bullock, M.Music ’11 in vocal arts

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at the Levy Economics Institute’s 24th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference, which is open to all students Photo: Nathan Mitchell

Graduate Programs and Dual-Degree Opportunities Bard Center for Environmental Policy (Bard CEP) Master of science degrees in environmental policy and in climate science and policy with an integrated approach to topics. A 3+2 option allows Bard undergraduates to proceed to the graduate program after three years of study; other dual-degree opportunities include Bard CEP partnerships with the Peace Corps, Bard MAT Program, MBA in Sustainability, and Pace Law School.

Bard College Conservatory of Music Master of music degrees in vocal performance through the Graduate Vocal Arts Program, designed and led by soprano Dawn Upshaw, artistic director; and in conducting, through the Graduate Conducting Program (orchestral and choral), designed and directed by Harold Farberman, founder and director of the Conductors Institute at Bard; James Bagwell, academic director of The Orchestra Now and principal guest conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra; and Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, music director of the American Symphony Orchestra, and conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.

Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard) and Hessel Museum of Art Master of arts degree with practical training and experience in a museum setting. Graduate students take interdisciplinary courses in the history of contemporary visual arts, institutions and methods of exhibition-making, and art theory and criticism since the 1960s. Students curate exhibitions at the CCS Bard Galleries and elsewhere.

Levy Economics Institute Master of Science in Economic Theory and Policy Master of science degree Julia Bullock ’11 performs in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortiléges in the Sosnoff Theater.

Photo: Karl Rabe

program emphasizing theoretical and empirical aspects of policy analysis through specialization in one of four Levy Institute research areas. A 3+2 option allows qualified undergraduates to earn the B.A. and M.S. in five years.

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Hunter Lovins, MBA in Sustainability Photo: Karl Rabe

Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program Master of arts degree and teaching certificate for grades 7–12 in literature/English, mathematics, biology/general science, or history/social science. MAT’s 3+2 program allows Bard undergraduates to complete B.A. and M.A.T. degrees in five years.

Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts Three intensive summer sessions on campus alternate with independent study sessions, leading to a master of fine arts degree in film/video, music/sound, painting, photography, sculpture, or writing. Artspace describes the Bard course of study as one of “the 10 most influential MFA programs in the world.” ¯ N) A unique training orchestra and master of music degree program in The Orchestra Now (TO curatorial, critical, and performance studies. Bringing together extraordinary musicians from around ¯ N reimagines traditional concert formats to make the experience of the performers a the world, TO part of the listeners’ experience.

In New York City Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture Master of arts, master of philosophy, and doctor of philosophy degree programs offer an encyclopedic approach to the study of the material world.

Bard MBA in Sustainability One of the few programs in the world offering a master of business administration degree that focuses on the business case for sustainability International Center of Photography–Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies Master of fine arts degree in photography, awarded in collaboration with the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts Studio arts major Lauren Barnes ’15 uses a bench grinder in the MFA metal shop, where she was supervisor.

Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

In Cambridge, Massachusetts Longy School of Music of Bard College Master of music degree programs in composition, vocal and operatic performance, performance of various instruments, and modern American and early music performance, led by faculty who are leaders in the world of music The Bard Education 45

Bard's location on tidal wetlands of the Hudson River, the extensive property with varied habitats, and a diverse biota offer many fascinating observations and investigations in field biology and conservation science. —Erik Kiviat ’76, Executive Director of Hudsonia Ltd. and certified wetland scientist

Beyond the Classroom Chinua Achebe Center Visiting writers, artists, and scholars take part in readings and discussions.

The Achebe Center honors the late Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, at Bard from 1990 to 2009.

Archaeology Field School Students spend a summer month learning excavating techniques and laboratory analysis by participating at digs on campus and in the Mid-Hudson region.

Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities Scholars meet to consider current issues with the same kind of insight that Hannah Arendt, who came to Bard in the 1940s, brought to politics and philosophy. Students serve as research assistants and help at conferences.

John Ashbery Poetry Series Named for Bard’s distinguished Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor Emeritus of Languages and Literature, this series brings leading contemporary poets to campus.

Bard College Field Station and Hudsonia Ltd. Bard students, faculty, and members of Hudsonia, a nonprofit institute for environmental exploration and education, conduct research on stream and other habitats at the Bard College Field Station on the Hudson River.

Bard Fiction Prize Awarded to a promising young writer each year, the Bard Fiction Prize brings the recipient to Bard as writer in residence, to meet with students and give public readings.

John Cage Trust Bard College is the home of the trust, which maintains the artistic legacy of composer, philosopher, poet, and visual artist John Cage (1912–92). The trust offers access to extensive archives, workshops, concerts, and symposia.

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies Research opportunities are highlights of Bard’s association with the Cary Institute, a premier research institution in nearby Millbrook, New York, that focuses on applying ecosystem analysis to policy change.

Center for the Study of the Drone This interdisciplinary research, education, and arts community— founded by Arthur Holland Michel ’13, Dan Gettinger ’13, and Bard faculty—brings together diverse perspectives and informs the public debate on drones.

Contemporary Masters Led by Norman Manea, writer in residence and MacArthur Fellow, this workshop lets students discuss writing in a conversational setting with some of the world’s greatest authors, such as Nobel laureates José Saramago, Orhan Pamuk, and Mario Vargas Llosa.

Distinguished Scientist Lecture Series This series offers an opportunity for firsthand contact with men and women shaping modern science, letting students observe how they think and work.

Levy Economics Institute of Bard College A nonprofit public policy research organization, the Levy Institute invites prominent economists to serve as visiting scholars. The annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the U.S. and World Economies draws international experts in economics.

Rift Valley Institute (RVI) A nonprofit research and training organization with offices in Kenya and at Bard, RVI works with communities and institutions in Eastern Africa. Students assist in the Sudan Open Archive, a database of historical and contemporary documents about the region, and conduct research into human rights.

Erik Kiviat ’76 leads a field trip through Tivoli Bays, a wildlife area adjacent to Bard.

Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

Woods Hole Students from select colleges, including Bard, have the opportunity to attend the Semester in Environmental Science at the Ecosystems Center of the world-renowned Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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Bard envisions a unique role for colleges and universities at the nexus between educational institutions and civil society. Civic engagement is at the core of the College’s identity. In its educational endeavors in the United States and abroad, Bard demonstrates a commitment to innovation, a willingness to take risks, and a fundamental belief that institutions of higher education should operate for the greater good—thereby redefining the role of the university in society.

Bard uses its campus and resources to develop robust and sustainable partnerships with institutions, organizations, and communities around the world in an attempt to address social problems in practical ways, reach underserved and unserved populations, and tackle critical issues of education and public policy. Few other higher education institutions have comparable track records of successful innovation in the public sphere; Bard serves as a model for other colleges and universities as a private institution mobilizing in the public interest.

The Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) supports, coordinates, and promotes the wide array of institutional and student initiatives—from international dual-degree partnerships with universities in Kyrgyzstan and Russia, to the public high school early college movement in the United States, to degree-granting programs in prisons. Student efforts include long-standing projects in places like Nicaragua and the West Bank, as well as English-language instruction and mentorship in communities surrounding the Annandale campus. While the academic endeavors and community projects differ greatly in scale and scope, each exemplifies the mission of Bard and its students to reach out into the world and effect change.

Five years ago, in recognition of the College’s important and groundbreaking work, George Soros, chair of the Open Society Foundations, created a $60 million challenge grant for the Center for Civic Engagement. This challenge grant aims to strengthen Bard’s innovative worldwide network of projects linking the liberal arts and the life of the mind with actions that tackle a variety of global social concerns.

Bard’s institutional initiatives are categorized into four main areas: international partnerships, particularly undergraduate and graduate dual-degree programs in the liberal arts; educational reform, with an emphasis on secondary and postsecondary education as exemplified by Bard’s early colleges; prison education through the Bard Prison Initiative; and innovations in science and sustainability, ranging from Bard’s innovative Citizen Science program to its MBA in Sustainability.

AGEMENT Biology major Raed Al-Abbasee ’13 demonstrates an experiment through Bard Science Outreach.

Photo: Courtesy of TLS

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Brian Mateo, assistant dean of civic engagement (left) Photo: Scott Barrow

CCE strives to inspire undergraduates to take action, develop a sense of agency, encourage creative application of language, arts, and sciences in public life, and become involved in Bard’s vast network, where they make lasting connections and become active global citizens. Student-led initiatives supported by the College’s Trustee Leader Scholar Program (TLS) create collaborations on the regional, national, and international levels, including the West Bank, Colombia, and Nicaragua, while local engagement includes partnerships with town and city governments, school districts, and social service organizations close to campus. TLS students design and implement their own civic engagement projects and receive stipends, leadership training, and administrative support. Most TLS students remain active in the program throughout their time at Bard. TLS projects include, among others, Astor Services for Children and Families, Brothers at Bard, Sounds of Social Change, and Child to Child Nepal, as well as the following: The Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative runs summer camps and cultural exchange programs in a small village called Mas’ha. Students raise money for and help with a variety of educational and building projects, including the first children’s library in the West Bank and a playground. The initiative has received multiple Davis Projects for Peace grants.

The Nicaragua Education Initiative focuses on educational projects that empower youth and community members in the town of Chacraseca, in western Nicaragua. Students launched the project in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch, and through it they have raised money to build houses and provided stipends for children to attend school. Since then, Bard students have returned to Chacraseca annually during the January intersession.

Bard Food Initiative is a campus-wide food service reform that includes outreach programs emphasizing local food and community-based agriculture. It helps support the Bard College Farm, which began as a student-led initiative and is now a primary local food source for Chartwell’s, Bard’s oncampus food service.

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Tara Canney ’14 teaching English in Nicaragua Photo: Courtesy of TLS

TLS projects may run for multiple years. Several have grown into full-time, College-sponsored, nationally recognized initiatives that welcome undergraduate volunteers, such as: Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), the largest degree-granting, college-in-prison program in the country. It brings higher education to multiple prison campuses in New York State. Fifty-one BPI students received Bard degrees in the past year; more than half of those completed bachelor’s degrees in math. Senior Projects ranged from the development of a new method for sifting prime numbers, to an application of game theory, to an examination of the health care market.

To date, more than 350 incarcerated students have received A.A. or B.A. degrees and more than 700 students are enrolled annually. BPI was the brainchild of Max Kenner ’01, vice president for institutional initiatives and BPI’s executive director. The program has gained national attention, including a two-part PBS series and a profile on CBS’s 60 Minutes along with numerous articles in publications ranging from Newsweek to Smithsonian magazine. Kenner received a prestigious American Ingenuity Award in education from Smithsonian for his work with BPI. La Voz, a free, 20-page monthly publication in Spanish that serves the Hispanic community of the Mid-Hudson Valley. Since its inception in 2004, it has grown to a circulation of 5,000 and an estimated readership of 20,000. La Voz empowers its readers with information on legal rights, particularly labor rights; personal finance; health education; and English-language learning. Articles are written by Bard students and faculty as well as community members. Its cofounder and managing editor is Mariel Fiori ’05.

Bard Early College in New Orleans (BECNO), which presents a high-quality, liberal arts curriculum through free, college credit–bearing courses in public high schools. Begun by Stephen Tremaine ’07, BECNO works with more than 85 percent of New Orleans’ public high schools; BECNO students, all high school juniors and seniors, spend half of every school day as Bard undergraduates. Over 98 percent of BECNO graduates have been accepted to colleges and universities around the country.

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Biology major Erin Smith ’13 with local elementary students conducting experiments during Civic Engagement Day, part of Martin Luther King Jr. Day Photo: Erika Nelson

CCE sponsors various opportunities for students to gain critical skills through workplace internship opportunities, conferences, and workshops. Annually, CCE sponsors close to 50 student internships through Community Action Awards that provide funding for students to work with local, national, and international communities to address issues affecting people around the world. Internship placements include community organizations; government agencies and offices; international governmental and nongovernmental organizations; media, public policy, and not-for-profit groups; and educational projects or programs.

Bard Works is a highly effective, career-oriented program to prepare Upper College students for life after Bard. The weeklong series of workshops brings alumni/ae, Bard parents, and others to campus to give advice on careers ranging from entrepreneurship to publishing to government service.

The key is individualized attention from mentors who meet with students, conduct resume reviews, connect students with others in the field, and help them procure internships. Support comes from the Office of Student Affairs, Bard College Alumni/ae Association, and Career Development Office.

“Get Engaged” Student Action and Youth Leadership: Civic Engagement, Social Entrepreneurship, and the Liberal Arts is an annual conference that brings student leaders from the Bard network of international partner campuses together to collaborate and gain critical workplace skills. The most recent conference, also part of the HESP (Higher Education Support Program of the Open Society Foundations) Network, took place over five days in Istanbul. Students who attended are engaged in community projects or organizing, activism, journalism, Model UN, campus leadership, and socially based internships or government work. Students refined and presented proposals for new community projects during the conference.

Internships are offered through the Center for Civic Engagement on and off campus, locally and abroad. From the Street Law Project in Johannesburg, South Africa, to the Student World Assembly in New York, to the White House, interns gain valuable experience in social action, science, justice, and the arts.

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A student from Sounds of Social Change (left) teaching in Cali, Colombia Photo: Maureen A. Whiteman, mother of Daniel Zlatkin ’16, project leader

Other civic engagement activities involve students both on and off campus, and include: • elections@bard, a student-led initiative for registering Bard students to vote, hosts forums in which candidates and students can meet, and strives to protect students’ right to vote.

• Bard Debate Union members compete in parliamentary and policy debates all over the country and sponsor public debates for the Bard community. The Debate Union also hosts collegiate, middle and high school debate tournaments on the Bard campus and intercollegiate debates with students from the Bard Prison Initiative at Eastern NY Correctional Facility.

• Bard Model UN includes course work and competitive simulations and tournaments for the College’s nationally ranked team. The Bard Model UN Initiative is an umbrella organization that aids in establishing Model UN teams at local high schools and internationally, helping students write position papers, conduct research, and become confident public speakers.

• West Point–Bard Exchange provides both classroom and informal interactions between students and faculty at Bard and the United States Military Academy. Bard students and West Point cadets take part in joint seminars on international relations and in mixed-team debates on a variety of issues, from drones to “just war.” Faculty give special lectures and seminars at each institution and participate in conferences and joint publications.

CCE launched the Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences in 2015 to connect students’ classroom experiences with community needs that enhance student learning and promote active citizenship.

CCE supports faculty efforts to design and enhance courses containing an element of communitybased learning and/or research that benefits communities in the Hudson Valley and beyond. Topics range in scope and include environmental, social, and cultural concerns. Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences–based learning encourages students to play an active role in identifying creative approaches to social issues by applying academic practices.

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NETWORK A Global Outlook Bard College is particularly adept at providing an education without borders. From its welcome of European intellectuals fleeing war in the 1940s to its establishment of the Al-Quds Bard Partnership, Bard has been immersed in international affairs. Global initiatives come under the auspices of Bard’s Center for Civic Engagement and Institute for International Liberal Education, leaders in joint ventures with universities abroad.

Bard offers dual degrees at sites in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. On the Annandale campus, students attend virtual classes with students in other countries. They pursue research, internships, and collaborations with other students and with scientists, artists, educators, and diplomats abroad, or— through teleconferencing and shared programs—on the Annandale campus. Approximately half of Bard’s students spend time learning abroad. Currently, students come to study at Bard from more than 60 countries.

Bard Abroad semester- and year-abroad opportunities are open to all moderated Bard students with a 3.0 GPA or better and the support of their academic advisers. Students may study at one of Bard’s five partner campuses (below) or tuition-exchange programs—in Berlin, Cairo, Kyoto, Middelburg (Netherlands), Paris, and Seoul—that allow students at the partner universities to “change places” while paying tuition at their home institutions. But the sky’s the limit: students may petition to attend a wide range of study abroad programs sponsored by other academically rigorous institutions. Bard Abroad programs also host ambitious and creative students from colleges and universities throughout North America.

Students may take advantage of language-intensive study programs, accompanied by Bard language faculty, in China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, or the West Bank; the intensive format allows students to complete two years’ worth of language study in a few months. And Bard undergraduates develop friendships with PIE (Program in International Education) students who come to Bard from central Asia, eastern and central Europe, and countries in the former Soviet bloc.

The Al-Quds Bard Partnership, the first such collaboration between U.S. and Palestinian institutions of higher education, offers a semester or year abroad. The partnership also offers dual B.A. and M.A.T. degrees at the Al-Quds Bard College for Arts and Sciences. Study at Al-Quds Bard includes optional Bard College Berlin professor Aya Soika talks about the life of Frederick II during a tour of Potsdam.

Photo: Irina Stelea

Arabic language classes; courses in human rights, urban studies, media studies, and international relations; Palestinian homestay accommodation; and a cultural program. Students may also pursue intensive Arabic study through a summer language and culture program.

The Bard Network 55

Courtesy of astronaut Commander Mark Kelly, Bard memorabilia journeyed into outer space on Endeavour’s final mission.

Photo: Mark Kelly

A dual-degree program between Bard and the American University of Central Asia (AUCA) in Bishkek, capital of the Kyrgyz Republic, offers a multidisciplinary, international learning community that aims to develop leaders for the democratic transformation of Central Asia. Majors consist of anthropology, economics, and international and comparative politics, among other offerings. The AUCA-Bard Study Abroad Program offers Bard and other North American students the chance to study, in English, at the region’s most prestigious university. The program includes the Development, Sustainability, and Conflict: Contemporary Issues in Central Asia summer internship as well as summer language courses.

Bard students can examine emerging democracies firsthand at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary. This internationally recognized institution of postgraduate education in the social sciences and humanities focuses on the development of open societies and the responsibilities of a global citizenry. Undergraduates earn credit for graduate-level work in seminars and other small classes and have access to CEU’s specialized research centers. The language of instruction is English, but students may take classes in languages ranging from Hungarian to Arabic.

Bard College Berlin: A Liberal Arts University (BCB) began as one of Europe’s earliest liberal arts programs. At BCB, students from more than 30 countries work with an international faculty in small classes. The lively, international city of Berlin is an ideal setting for the BCB curriculum; many classes take place in museums or at historical monuments. The language of instruction is English and German language study is available. Students may attend for a semester or year under Bard in Berlin, or Begin in Berlin for first-year students. Some students may be eligible for a dual degree from Bard and BCB. Internships, paired with a credit-bearing course, provide work experience that prepares students for a global society. The semester-long Arts and Society in Berlin combines handson arts practices with critical theory through studio work, courses, and visits to cultural and historical sites throughout the city. Summer programs include an intensive theater program and German-language immersion.

56 The Bard Network

Swapan Jain, Chemistry (left), with visiting Bard High School Early College and Japanese students Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University, Russia (Smolny College), is the first liberal arts college in the former Soviet Union. Bard and St. Petersburg State offer a dual B.A. degree. Each student creates an individual plan of study, supported by faculty who encourage creative thinking. Languages of instruction are Russian and English. Bard students work alongside Russians in rigorous, seminar-style classes in a curriculum similar to Bard’s, and choose internships in a nongovernmental organization or a media, business, or arts setting. Students from Bard and other American institutions can earn a semester or year of Russian language credit through the summer language program in St. Petersburg.

Initiatives at Home Bard College at Simon’s Rock: The Early College is the nation’s only four-year residential college specifically designed to provide students with a college education after the 10th or 11th grade.

Simon’s Rock, located in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, awards A.A. and B.A. degrees. Bard Academy at Simon’s Rock is a residential and day school for ninth- and 10th-grade students.

Bard College Clemente Course in the Humanities offers college-level instruction, for credit, to economically disadvantaged individuals ages 17 and older. Books, travel expenses, and child care are provided. President Obama awarded the course a National Humanities Medal in September 2015.

Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) campuses in New York City, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Newark, New Jersey, award high school–age students a high school diploma and an A.A. degree, tuition free, in four years of intensive study that integrates college education into secondary school settings. BHSEC was singled out by President Obama in a speech to the NAACP as an example of the kind of education reform needed to raise academic achievement.

The Bard Network 57

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Frank Gehry, with the Sosnoff Theater, LUMA Theater, Stewart and Lynda Resnick Theater Studio, and Felicitas S. Thorne Dance Studio, is home to the Theater & Performance and Dance Programs and is the main venue for SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival.

Photo: ŠPeter Aaron ’68/Esto

What brought me to Bard, in a word, was the faculty. To work with Joan Tower, George Tsontakis, and James Bagwell was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. I had long followed and admired their work, and then I found out that each of them taught here.

It’s easy for musicians to focus only on music, whereas I wanted to have a broader education that would prepare me for a world that requires a more well-rounded base of knowledge and experience.

—David Bloom ’13, dual degree in music composition (Bard College Conservatory of Music) and philosophy, and M. Music ’15 in conducting

Our son has thrived at Bard College. He’s found a challenging academic environment with small classes and professors who truly know him. He’s been very happy and graduation in May will be bittersweet. But Bard’s influence will continue; it was through a Bard contact that Michael got an internship between his junior and senior year, and this resulted in a postgraduation job offer!

—Karen Diaz and Joe Johnson, parents of Michael Johnson ’16

László Z. Bitó ’60 Conservatory Building Photo: Karl Rabe

The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Center contains the Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center, housing the Film and Electronic Arts Program; Center for Moving Image Arts; and Edith C. Blum Institute, home to the Music Program and offices of the Bard College Conservatory of Music, with practice spaces, a listening library, recording and editing studios, and specialized studios for computer music, jazz, and percussion. The Film Center boasts a shooting studio, darkroom, editing suites, computer lab, film archive, and media laboratory. Seminar rooms and a 110-seat theater are equipped with 16mm and 35mm film and video projection.

Bard Hall, erected in 1852, is the College’s original academic building. The intimate space is used by the Music Program and others for lectures, readings, panels, classes, rehearsals, performances, and symposia.

The Heinz O. and Elizabeth C. “Lilo” Bertelsmann Campus Center, a central meeting place, contains the bookstore; post office; Down the Road Café; Weis Cinema; computer lab; gallery; Career Development, student government, club, and TLS offices; game room; and second-floor deck.

The László Z. Bitó ’60 Conservatory Building expands the facilities of the Conservatory and provides additional performance space as well as a student lounge, offices, and classrooms and other facilities used by a variety of College programs.

Blithewood, home of the Levy Economics Institute, consists of a mansion, built in 1900, and formal Italianate gardens, from which students can enjoy the spectacular view overlooking the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains. The building is used for conferences and M.S. in Economic Theory and Policy classes. The wide lawns nearby are ideal Ultimate Frisbee practice areas.

The Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture is an exhibition, education, and research center for the study of art and curatorial practices from the 1960s to the present. The First-year arrival day at the Bertelsmann Campus Center Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

Marieluise Hessel Collection contains more than 2,000 contemporary works, an extensive library, and curatorial archives. The Hessel Museum and CCS Bard Galleries present exhibitions year-round.

The Bard Campus 61

Robbins House (residence hall, Student Health and Counseling Services) Photo: ©Peter Aaron ’68/Esto

Chapel of the Holy Innocents, built in 1857 with oak and quarried stone from local sources, was a gift to the local parish school from John Bard, who later founded the institution that became Bard College. It is a place for peaceful reflection as well as the site of services for the campus and local communities.

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Frank Gehry, hosts celebrated performing artists and critically acclaimed productions, and serves as a state-of-the-art facility for the Theater & Performance and Dance Programs. The Center boasts two performance spaces: the 800seat, acoustically impeccable Sosnoff Theater and the flexible black box LUMA Theater. The Center’s spacious Felicitas S. Thorne Dance Studio and Stewart and Lynda Resnick Theater Studio can be configured as performance space.

The Richard B. Fisher and Emily H. Fisher Studio Arts Building has large studios for painting and drawing, printmaking, cybergraphics, sculpture, and woodworking. It also features a welding shop, individual studios for students’ Senior Project work, and a large exhibition area, as well as classrooms.

Hegeman Hall houses the Mathematics and Physics Programs. The Rose Laboratories provide upto-date electronics and optics equipment, including a scanning electron microscope, for Upper College science classes and research by faculty and students.

Henderson Computer Resources Center is the locus for Bard Information Technology (Bard IT), which provides broadband Internet access and a multigigabit backbone to the Bard community. Support for academic computing includes multimedia classrooms and videoconferencing. Public computing labs, with Macintosh and Windows computers, scanners, and printers, are located around campus, with one lab accessible 24 hours a day. WiFi is in all residence halls, as well as many public areas.

Kline Commons, the main dining facility, contains a large dining area, smaller dining and meeting Chapel of the Holy Innocents Photo: Chris Kendall ’82

rooms, and a faculty dining space. The servery provides multiple stations and a range of cuisines.

Also located in Kline is the Green Onion Grocer, which serves as the campus market.

The Bard Campus 63

Because of Bard’s student-centered curriculum, faculty value working with students on projects that go beyond—and indeed enhance—course work. For example, during the summer, more than 50 students worked with faculty in the Bard Summer Research Institute.

—Mark D. Halsey, Vice President for Institutional Research and Assessment; Associate Professor of Mathematics

Lynda and Stewart Resnick Science Laboratories Photo: Peter Aaron ’68/Esto

The Music Practice Rooms, located near the Avery Arts Center, contains a dozen practice rooms that are available to all students.

The Franklin W. Olin Humanities Building hosts courses in the humanities, literature, and languages.

The building also has a poetry-on-tape library; study and lounge areas; and a 370-seat auditorium that is filled almost daily with concerts, such as Bard Gamelan, lectures, and conferences. The adjacent F. W. Olin Language Center offers tools for foreign-language learning, a writing lab, and multimedia development room.

The Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation houses the Biology, Chemistry, and Computer Science Programs. With the addition of the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Science Laboratories, the building has nearly 17,000 square feet of dedicated laboratory space. Seven smart classrooms are set up for multimedia presentations and videoconferencing.

Events for larger groups take place in the László Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium.

Bard’s residence halls feature a wide range of accommodations for undergraduates. The Alumni Houses are a collection of 11 residence halls in the center of campus. The first five, commonly referred to as “the Toasters,” house mostly first-year students and accommodate 19 students each, except for Honey House, which has space for nine students. The next six, called “the Ravines,” house between 19 and 21 students each, and also are home to first-year students. All Alumni Houses are heated and cooled geothermally. Tewksbury Hall, also centrally located, is a corridor-style residence that houses nearly 100 first-year and Upper College students. The rooms feature wall-to-wall windows, and most doubles have excellent sunset views. Two new halls in Resnick Commons— McCausland and Brown—primarily house first-years as well. Upper College residences include historic Stone Row, part of the original St. Stephen’s College campus; Feitler House, a vegetarianfocused cooperative; Sands House, which centers on health and wellness; Robbins House, which Reem-Kayden Center for Science and Computation Photo: Peter Aaron ’68/Esto

has many LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) features; and Resnick Commons, which consists of 14 environmentally friendly residences, designed with student input.

The Bard Campus 65

Bard College provides a competitive athletics program with highly committed student athletes who gain comprehensive skills beyond the classroom in leadership, discipline, and teamwork. The balance offered through NCAA Division III allows our scholar athletes to become involved in the full spectrum of our community while maintaining their dedication to athletics. —Kris Hall, Director of Athletics

Bard trustees frequently participate in campus activities; here, Trustee James C. Chambers ’81 congratulates Head Baseball Coach Ed Kahovec at the dedication of Honey Field.

Photo: Karl Rabe

The Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Library, Hoffman Library, and Kellogg Library have more than 400,000 volumes and 14,000 journals available in print or online in the complex, as well as in satellite libraries on and off campus such as the Levy Economics Institute, Center for Curatorial Studies, and Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture. The library’s Bard College Archives preserve the history of the College. Among the digital collections are the Bluecher Archive, recorded lectures by renowned philosophy professor Heinrich Bluecher; Poetry at Bard, an audio collection of readings; Digital Commons, scholarly works by the College community; and Bard Makes Noise, the sounds of College musicians. Special collections include Bardiana, consisting of rare books; Arendtiana, materials relating to Hannah Arendt; photography; and Hudson Valley Archives.

The Stevenson Athletic Center contains four state-of-the-art international squash courts. The courts, which were manufactured in Germany, feature sand-filled walls for truer bounce and a picturesque mezzanine viewing area. Other highlights of the athletic complex include a 25-yard, six-lane swimming pool with Olympic timing equipment; 12,500 square feet of gymnasium space for basketball, badminton, volleyball, and fencing; and seating for up to 700 spectators. The fitness facility includes treadmills, elliptical trainers, rowing machines, and weight machines. Instructional rooms are lightfilled and spacious, and there are small conference rooms for meetings.

Outdoor facilities are also excellent. The centerpiece of the Lorenzo Ferrari Field Complex is a sandbased, natural-turf, main field. There are six lighted hard-court tennis courts, a lighted platform tennis court, miles of cross-country running and Nordic skiing trails, the Seth Goldfine Memorial Rugby Field, and multipurpose fields. The newest addition, Honey Field, is a baseball diamond featuring Astroturf, bullpens, bleachers, and dugouts. Seating behind the plate accommodates approximately 230 fans.

Woods Studio houses the classrooms, labs, studios, and exhibition gallery of the Photography Students and staff take a Spinning class in Stevenson Athletic Center.

Photo: Scott Barrow

Program. Facilities include two black-and-white group darkrooms, private darkrooms for seniors, and a mural printing room.

The Bard Campus 67

Athletics helped me find my place at Bard right away. The team was my support group, beginning with the Language and Thinking Program. As soon as one season is finished I look forward to the next. We all come from different majors, and we’re all unique. I never would have met my teammates any other way.

—Brianna Bean ’14, film and electronic arts major, women’s soccer and lacrosse

The Seth Goldfine Memorial Rugby Field in front of the Stevenson Library complex Photo: ©Peter Aaron ’68/Esto

Stone Row, built in the late 1800s as men’s dormitories, retains its function as student residences and also contains office space.

Photo: ©Peter Aaron ’68/Esto

After a while ideas from classes begin to cross-pollinate.

Connections never before imagined become possible. I’ve found that my computer science class helps me analyze four-part harmony; my idea about a phrase in a Bach sonata helps me conceptualize Plato’s Allegory of the Cave; and the logic of a mathematical proof helps me play a musical phrase convincingly.

—Avery Morris ’18, Bard College Conservatory of Music and math major

Playing Frisbee behind Blithewood Photo: ©Peter Aaron ’68/Esto

Blithewood Gardens Photo: ©Peter Aaron ’68/Esto

Founded 1860 Type Independent, nonsectarian, residential, coeducational, four-year, liberal arts and sciences Enrollment profile Approximately 2,000 undergraduates study at the Annandale campus; 55 percent female, 45 percent male, from across the country. Approximately 10 percent of full-time undergraduates are African American, 5 percent Asian, 2 percent Hispanic, 1 percent Native American, and 12 percent international (representing more than 60 countries).

Undergraduate faculty 278. Approximately 78 percent of classes have 20 students or fewer.

Undergraduate degrees Bard offers B.A. degrees in nearly 35 academic programs in four divisions, and a five-year B.S./B.A. degree in economics and finance. The Bard College Conservatory of Music offers a five-year program in which students pursue a B.Music and a B.A. in a field other than music.

Bard and its affiliated institutions also grant the A.A. degree at the Bard High School Early Colleges, public schools with campuses in New York City, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Newark, New Jersey; and A.A. and B.A. degrees at Bard College at Simon’s Rock: The Early College, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and through the Bard Prison Initiative at six correctional institutions in New York State.

Graduate degrees More than 200 students are seeking graduate degrees: M.A. in curatorial studies, M.Music in vocal arts, in conducting, and in curatorial, critical, and performance studies, and M.S. in environmental policy, climate science and policy, and economic theory and policy at the Annandale campus; M.F.A. and M.A.T. at multiple campuses; M.B.A. in sustainability in New York City; and M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in the decorative arts, design history, and material culture at the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan. M.Music degrees are also offered at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

International degrees Bard confers dual B.A. degrees at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University, Russia (Smolny College), American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, and Bard College Berlin: A Liberal Arts University; and dual B.A. and M.A.T. degrees at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, West Bank.

Undergraduate admission Applicants are encouraged to pursue an appropriately challenging, wellbalanced curriculum, including honors or advanced-level courses if available. The program should include a full four-year sequence in English, social sciences, and mathematics; study of at least one foreign language for three, preferably four, years; and three, preferably four, years of study in the laboratory sciences. The Admission Committee is interested in the entire high school record, references, and resume, with junior- and senior-year courses being especially important.

Financial aid Approximately two-thirds of students receive financial assistance. Financial aid codes: 002671 for FAFSA, 2037 for the College Scholarship Service PROFILE. Contact Office of Admission, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000.

Tours and interviews are by appointment only. Graduate applicants should contact the Graduate Admission Office for details, bard.edu/graduate or 845-758-7481.

Telephone 845-758-7472 (admission); 845-758-6822 (switchboard) Fax 845-758-5208 (admission) Rehearsal under the trees on campus Photo: Scott Barrow

E-mail admission@bard.edu Website bard.edu/admission

Bard at a Glance 77

10 15 14

19

8

32 33 39 63 24 3

26 13

16 11

58

21

4 20

27

34

44

37 52 48

18

57

7

28

51

17 54

2 47 30

53 23 29

55 41

1

22

36 9 56 49

61 60 50 38 12 35

62 46

25 45

42 43

59 31 40

6

80 Map Legend

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 ✶ 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Ottaway Gatehouse for International Study (IILE) parliament of reality by Olafur Eliasson President’s House Preston Hall (classrooms, offices) Reem-Kayden Center for Science and Computation (Resnick Laboratories, Bitó Auditorium) Resnick Commons (residence halls; Center for Spiritual Life) Robbins House (residence hall, Student Health and Counseling Services) Rose Science Laboratories Sands House (residence hall) Seymour: see Warden’s Hall Shafer House (Written Arts Program) Sottery Hall (Center for Student Life and Advising) South Hall (residence hall) Stevenson Athletic Center Stone Row: North Hoffman, South Hoffman, McVickar, Potter (residence halls, BEOP, Learning Commons) Tewksbury Hall (residence hall) Tremblay Hall (residence hall) Ward Manor (residence hall, Manor House Café, Bard Music Festival Office) Ward Manor Gatehouse (Center for Civic Engagement) Warden’s Hall: Fairbairn, Hopson, Seymour (faculty and program offices, residences) Woods Studio (Photography Program)

87

HUDSON RIVER

95

Scranton

84 87

Bard Graduate Center 81

TACONIC PARKWAY

Bard High School Early College

Albany

91

90

Bard College

Boston

MASS. TURNPIKE

Simon’s Rock College

Hartford 95

saw mill river parkway

90 NY STATE THRUWAY

MAP LEGEND 1 Achebe House (Bard Prison Initiative) 2 Albee (classrooms, offices, Difference and Media Project/Multicultural Affairs) 3 Alumni Houses (residence halls): Bluecher, Bourne, Honey, Leonard, Obreshkove, Rovere, Rueger, Shafer, Shelov, Steinway, Wolff 4 Anna Jones Memorial Garden 5 Annandale Hotel (Publications and Public Relations Offices) off map 6 Anne Cox Chambers Alumni/ae Center (Development and Alumni/ae Affairs, Institutional Support) 7 Aspinwall (classrooms and faculty offices) 8 Avery Arts Center: Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center, Center for Moving Image Arts, Edith C. Blum Institute (Film and Electronic Arts and Music Programs, Bard College Conservatory of Music offices) 9 Bard College Farm 10 Bard College Field Station 11 Bard Hall (recital space) 12 Barringer House (Center for Civic Engagement) 13 Bertelsmann Campus Center (bookstore, post office, Down the Road Café, Weis Cinema, and Career Development, Student Activities, and Trustee Leader Scholar Program Offices) 14 Bitó Conservatory Building 15 Blithewood (Levy Economics Institute) 16 Brook House (Residence Life) 17 Buildings and Grounds, Financial Aid Office, Student Accounts 18 Carriage House (Central Services) 19 Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard) and Hessel Museum 20 Chapel of the Holy Innocents 21 Community Garden 22 Cruger Village (residence halls): Bartlett, Cruger, Keen North, Keen South, Maple, Mulberry, Oberholzer, Sawkill, Spruce, Stephens, Sycamore ✶ Fairbairn: see Warden’s Hall 23 Feitler House (residence hall) 24 Fisher Annex (MFA Program offices) 25 Fisher Center for the Performing Arts: Sosnoff Theater, LUMA Theater (Theater and Performance Program, Dance Program) 26 Fisher Studio Arts Building 27 Gahagan (offices) 28 Hegeman (classrooms, faculty offices, Bard Center for Environmental Policy, MBA in Sustainability Office) 29 Henderson Annex 30 Henderson Computer Resources Center 31 Hirsch Hall (residence hall) 32 Honey Field ✶ Hopson: see Warden’s Hall 33 Hopson Cottage (Admission Office) 34 Kline Commons (dining facility, Green Onion Grocer) 35 Libraries (Stevenson, Hoffman, Kellogg) 36 Lorenzo Ferrari Field Complex 37 Ludlow (administrative offices, Registrar’s Office, Institute for Writing and Thinking) 38 McCarthy House (Hannah Arendt Center, Human Rights Project) 39 Music Practice Rooms 40 Nursery School (Abigail Lundquist Botstein Nursery School, Bard Community Children’s Center) 41 Old Gym (Safety and Security Office, student activity spaces) 42 Olin Humanities Building and Auditorium (Olin Hall) 43 Olin Language Center

New York

76

Philadelphia 95

Baltimore

©2015 Bard College. All rights reserved. Published by the Bard College Publications Office. While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained herein is accurate, details are subject to change.

Map Illustration pp. 78–79: Mark Hess Opposite: The parliament of reality, a permanent outdoor installation

by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. Photo: Karl Rabe Printed by: Meridian Printing, East Greenwich, Rhode Island

The first order of business in college is to figure out your place in the world and in your life and career. College life starts with introspection, as opposed to a public, collective impetus. We try to urge students to think about their place in the world and to develop a desire to participate from inside themselves. . . .

We encourage students to identify and pursue their academic interests with care. —Leon Botstein, President, Bard College

Bard College

Nonprofit Organization

PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000

Bard College

U.S. Postage Paid

bard. edu 845-758-7472

admission@bard.edu bard.edu/admission