Bard College Viewbook

africana studies american studies anthropology art history asian studies biology chemistry classical studies cognitive science computer science dance economics economics and finance environmental and urban studies film and electronic arts foreign languages, cultures, and literatures french studies gender and sexuality studies german studies global and international studies historical studies human rights irish and celtic studies italian studies jewish studies latin american and iberian studies literature mathematics medieval studies middle eastern studies music philosophy photography physics political studies psychology religion russian and eurasian studies science, technology, and society social policy sociology spanish studies studio arts theater theology victorian studies written arts

Bard A

P L A C E

T O

T H I N K

Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

you are about to embark on an extraordinary journey.

Construct your own educational program with faculty who are at the top of their fields Engage in both traditional and interdisciplinary academic endeavors, such as our groundbreaking Human Rights Program, the first in the nation Explore opportunities to take advantage of unique dual-degree programs that combine a liberal arts B.A. with degrees in economics and finance, environmental policy, climate science and policy, or music; study-abroad programs; and career-oriented internships Join a collaborative community of passionate students from all over the world whose international perspectives expand every aspect of campus life Connect with the world through civic engagement, Bard’s commitment to projects that help change society

The parliament of reality is a permanent outdoor installation by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, conceived specifically for the Bard campus.

Bard has allowed me to take courses I wouldn’t have ordinarily taken. I have taken history, literature, and dance classes alongside my mathematics and computer science courses. The interdisciplinary focus allows students to become strong writers and analytical thinkers. I have worked at our Laboratory for Algebraic and Symbolic Computation, part of the Bard Summer Research Initiative, and studied the computational complexity of finite quandles, a type of nonassociative algebras arising from knot theory.

—Bella Manoim ’11, Millburn, New Jersey, computer science 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

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

Photo: ©Peter 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, Birmingham, Alabama, dual degree in music composition and philosophy through The Bard College Conservatory of Music

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

Photo: ©Peter Aaron ’68/Esto

Students of The Bard College Conservatory of Music Orchestra rehearse, with Bard President Leon Botstein conducting, in the Sosnoff Theater of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts.

We have had the wonderful opportunity to create, right here, a world-class conservatory within a distinguished liberal arts college, with a supportive president who makes it possible.

Students in the Conservatory Orchestra and chamber groups perform on campus and at venues around the world, ranging from Alice Tully Hall to the Shanghai World Expo. We are very proud that members of recent classes have been accepted for graduate studies in music performance at the Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, Yale School of Music, New England Conservatory, and Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. —Robert Martin, Vice President for Academic Affairs; Director, The Bard College Conservatory of Music; Professor of Philosophy and Music

A rugby game on Seth Goldfine Memorial Field in front of the Stevenson Library complex Photo: ŠPeter Aaron ’68/Esto

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.

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.

The Love of Learning 13

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 in 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.

14 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 15

Nowhere have I found students as energized by their intellectual inquiries as they are at Bard. I teach because there is no greater feeling than seeing a student inspired by ideas. At other schools, that’s a rare experience; at Bard, it is what I’ve come to expect.

Bard is an ambitious environment that rewards passionate students. Bard students are individuals, people who choose the College because they want to be at a unique school that aspires to be different.

—Roger Berkowitz, Associate Professor of Political Studies and Human Rights; Academic Director, Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities

the bard education 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 they bring to obtaining it 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 several times 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 curriculuar requirements, such as distribution.

Language and Thinking Program

First-year students arrive in August. They spend three weeks

reading extensively in several genres, working on different writing projects, and meeting in small, dynamic discussion groups with the aim of learning to read and listen more thoughtfully, articulate ideas more clearly, and review their own work critically.

16 The Bard Education

Conducting lab work during Citizen Science

First-Year Seminar

This two-semester course presents seminal intellectual, cultural, and artistic

ideas in the context of a historical tradition. 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. Recent themes include “Quaestio mihi factus sum: Self and Society in the Liberal Arts” and “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 that

focuses on a specific scientific issue—infectious disease, for example—and looks 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 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.

Senior Project One course in each semester of the senior year is devoted to the Senior Project, an original work that reflects a student’s cumulative academic experience. A science major might design an experiment or analyze published research findings. A psychology major might report on fieldwork. A literature student might write a close textual analysis of a novel; an arts major might create a photographic portfolio. Each Senior Project is considered by a review board of three professors.

The Common Curriculum 17

Academics at Bard Bard students choose from among nearly 50 programs in four academic divisions—Arts; Languages and Literature; Science, Mathematics, and Computing; and Social Studies—as well as Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations, which enable students to pursue a multidisciplinary course of study or 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). Students who take a concentration combine that subject with a major program in one of the divisions. For example, a major in literature might pair it with a concentration in Victorian studies, or political studies with a concentration in global and international studies, or human rights with a concentration in Latin American and Iberian studies. The variety of possible combinations illustrates the richness of study at Bard.

Bard also offers two five-year, dual-degree programs. The Program in Economics and Finance, which grants a bachelor of science in economics and finance and a bachelor of arts in a field other than economics, meets the needs of students who want a broad education in the liberal arts and sciences as they prepare for careers in the financial world, or students pursuing other professions who seek fiscal savvy. A five-year dual degree with The Bard College Conservatory of Music is explored later.

Inspired Faculty Bard’s extraordinary faculty are dedicated to the philosophy of teaching. Today and throughout Bard’s history, members of the faculty have effected change in medicine, the arts and letters, international affairs, journalism, scientific research, and education, among other endeavors. These distinguished scholars are advisers as well as instructors: Bard has no graduate teaching assistants.

And the average class size of 17 allows for intimate discussions and one-on-one interaction. We are 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, Richard H. Davis, Larry Fink, Kenji Fujita, Peter Hutton, Paul La Farge, Ann Lauterbach, An-My Lˆe, Medrie MacPhee, Norman Manea, Daniel Mendelsohn, Bradford Morrow, Jacob Neusner, Lothar Osterburg, Gilles Peress, Judy Pfaff, Francine Prose, Kelly Reichardt, James Romm, Lisa Sanditz, Luc Sante, Joseph Santore, Stephen Shore, Lisa Sigal, Mona Simpson, Richard Teitelbaum, Joan Tower, George Tsontakis Kennedy Center Honors: Bill T. Jones MacArthur Foundation Fellowships: John Ashbery (emeritus), Mark Danner, Bill T. Jones, Ann Lauterbach, Norman Manea, Judy Pfaff, Dawn Upshaw National Book Award: William Weaver (emeritus) National Science Foundation Grants: Sven Anderson, James M. Belk, Ethan D. Bloch, Michèle D. Dominy, Yuval Elmelech, John B. Ferguson, Mark D. Halsey, Samuel K. Hsiao, Felicia Keesing, Gregory Landweber, Alice Stroup, S. Rebecca Thomas, Michael Tibbetts, Hap Tivey Past Nobel laureate faculty: Saul Bellow, Orhan Pamuk, José Saramago, Isaac Bashevis Singer Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants: Ken Buhler, Kenji Fujita, Gilles Peress, Matt Phillips (emeritus) Prix Médicis e´ tranger: Norman Manea, Daniel Mendelsohn Pulitzer Prize: Elizabeth Frank Royal Society of Literature: Norman Manea Tony Award: Bill T. Jones

18 Academics at Bard

Theater Program students rehearse backstage at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts.

Division of the Arts Art History, Dance, Film and Electronic Arts, Music, Photography, Studio Arts, Theater At Bard, students get the best of both worlds: a traditional liberal arts college and an arts school.

The liberal arts program helps students to be better artists, since it deepens knowledge outside of the arts and gives a young artist 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 Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, filmmakers Kelly Reichardt and Peter Hutton, director JoAnne Akalaitis, playwright Chiori Miyagawa, sculptor and multimedia artist Judy Pfaff, or photographers Stephen Shore, An-My Lê, and Tim Davis ’91, just several 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. 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 both 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 may be a critical monograph, collection of short stories or photographs, exhibition of original works, performances, or the creation of a screenplay or short film.

Division of the Arts 19

Daniel Mendelsohn, Literature

Division of Languages and Literature Literature; Written Arts; Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures A penchant for language and an integrated approach to the teaching of 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. Bard’s “lang & lit” 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. 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, Hebrew, Italian, Greek, Latin, Japanese, 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.

Bard is proud of our 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— Verlyn Klinkenborg, Ann Lauterbach, Francine Prose, and Luc Sante, to name a few—who teach what they love. Students in the Written Arts Program take workshops and tutorials in prose fiction or poetry and study a foreign language, in addition to completing the same course requirements as literature majors. Senior Projects may take the form of a novel, poem sequence, play, short stories, translations, or original work in critical theory.

20 Division of Languages and Literature

Felicia Keesing, Biology

Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics 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 cognitive science; environmental and urban studies; and science, technology, and society are offered through Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations and are designed to meet the needs, interests, and backgrounds of Bard students.

From Pizza on the Pod and Bio Seminar Series to the Math Teas and Study Room, students and faculty come together to assist and learn from one another.

The pursuit of a degree in the Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing provides majors with the foundation necessary for advanced, independent, and original work in graduate or professional schools, or in technical professions. In all courses, including the Citizen Science common course for first-year students, 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. Exciting research possibilities include numerous opportunities on campus, such as the Bard Summer Research Institute, and at affiliated institutions, such as the Rockefeller University laboratories in New York City. Senior Projects in the division usually consist of original experimental or theoretical research. Students exercising the dual-degree option in 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.

Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing 21

Tabetha Ewing ’89, Historical Studies

Division of Social Studies Anthropology, Economics, Economics and Finance, Historical Studies, Philosophy, Political Studies, Psychology, Religion, Sociology The Division of Social Studies houses nine major disciplines (above) and is the locus for many interdivisional programs, from Human Rights to Social Policy. (See Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations 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 such as British history and literature professor Richard Aldous and Bard chaplain and religion professor Bruce Chilton ’71 introduce students to a variety of methodological perspectives and encourage students 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 in order to develop a comprehensive perspective on humanity in contemporary and historical contexts. By applying what they have learned—both of general philosophical, historical, and scientific methods and of particular research techniques and interpretations—students are able to focus on aspects of the diversity of human cultures and civilizations, institutions, values, and beliefs.

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 be original research, critical reviews of literature, close textual analysis, or series of related essays.

22 Division of Social Studies

Joseph Luzzi, Italian Studies

Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations At Bard, students and faculty rethink the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines. The areas of study are interdisciplinary in nature, and draw on the faculty, courses, and resources of the four academic divisions. In interdivisional American studies, the faculty includes jazz musician Thurman Barker, art and photography historian Laurie Dahlberg, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Elizabeth Frank, and Roger Berkowitz, who directs Bard’s Hannah Arendt Center. Author Ian Buruma belongs to the Asian Studies Program faculty. Biology faculty member 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.

Many of the interdivisional fields are stand-alone majors: American Studies; Asian Studies; Classical Studies; Environmental and Urban Studies; French Studies; German Studies; Human Rights; Italian Studies; Russian and Eurasian Studies; Science, Technology, and Society; Spanish Studies Other interdivisional endeavors are considered concentrations: Africana Studies; Cognitive Science; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Global and International Studies; Irish and Celtic Studies; Jewish Studies; Latin American and Iberian Studies; Medieval Studies; Middle Eastern Studies; Social Policy; Theology; Victorian Studies Students who choose a concentration also moderate into a primary divisional program. The Senior Project combines the interdisciplinary nature of both areas of study.

Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations 23

The Bard College Conservatory of Music Orchestra

The Bard College Conservatory of Music Music, like all art, engages the mind, heart, and body, redefines boundaries, and questions limits, to make meaningful statements about the human condition. The education of the mind is, therefore, as important as the education of the fingers. 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. So The Bard College Conservatory of Music, 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.

Conservatory students 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 Bard College Conservatory offers unparalleled musical opportunities.

Concerto competition winners perform with the American Symphony Orchestra; students appear alongside faculty in chamber music concerts at Bard and elsewhere; and students perform at the Bard Music Festival. Conservatory students and faculty have performed together in professional engagements throughout the United States and abroad. The Conservatory Orchestra made its New York City debut at Alice Tully Hall in a concert conducted by Leon Botstein and featuring faculty Melvin Chen and Dawn Upshaw as soloists. The orchestra also performs regularly at the Eastern NY Correctional Facility as part of the Bard Prison Initiative.

24 The Bard College Conservatory of Music

Center for Curatorial Studies exhibition, in the CCS Hessel Museum of Art

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.

• Bard College Conservatory of Music Master of music degrees in vocal performance, through the Graduate Vocal Arts Program designed by soprano Dawn Upshaw, and in conducting, through the Graduate Orchestral and Choral Conducting Program.

• 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 curate exhibitions at the CCS Galleries and elsewhere.

• Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program

Master of arts degree and teaching certificate for

grades 7–12 in literature, mathematics, biology, or history. MAT’s Preparation Program allows Bard undergraduates to complete a five-year, 4+1 program that confers B.A. and M.A.T. degrees.

• 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.

In Manhattan • 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.

• 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.

Graduate Programs 25

Hannah Arendt Center conference “Human Being in an Inhuman Age” in Olin Hall

More to Explore: Beyond the Classroom Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists

Visiting writers, artists, and scholars take

part in readings, discussions, and performances at the Achebe Center, which honors the legacy of Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor Emeritus of Languages and Literature, who taught at Bard from 1990 to 2009. The Achebe Center's director, Binyavanga Wainaina, is a Kenyan writer and journalist who received the prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing.

Archaeology Field School Students spend a summer month learning excavating techniques and laboratory analysis. Projects have included a dig at a prehistoric campsite on the shores of the Hudson River and another at a site in nearby Hyde Park that was once home to a large community of freed slaves.

The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities

Intellectuals and scholars meet at

Bard to consider current issues with the same kind of insight and independence of mind that political philosopher Hannah Arendt—who came to Bard in the 1940s and left her private papers to the College—brought to bear on such themes as anti-Semitism, totalitarianism, and consumerism.

The Arendt Center houses a digitized archive and library. Bard students serve as research assistants, participate in lectures and workshops, contribute to the Archive website, and assist at conferences.

The Center sponsors lectures, lunchtime discussions, roundtables, and conferences. Recent conferences, such as “Lying in Politics” and “Human Being in an Inhuman Age,” included artificial intelligence guru and futurist Ray Kurzweil and MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle, who examines human relationships with computers, among the speakers.

26 More to Explore: Beyond the Classroom

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 for readings and discussions in an intimate setting.

Bard College Field Station and Hudsonia Ltd.

Bard students, faculty, and members of Hudsonia,

a nonprofit institute for environmental exploration and education, conduct research at the unique Bard College Field Station on the Hudson River, which offers access to freshwater tidal marshes, swamps and shallows, perennial and intermittent streams, and other habitats. Laboratories, a herbarium, and other facilities are available to undergraduate and graduate students.

Bard Fiction Prize

Awarded to a promising young writer each year, the Bard Fiction Prize brings

the recipient to Bard for one semester as writer in residence. In addition to meeting with students, the author gives public readings.

John Cage Trust

Bard College is the proud home of the John Cage Trust, which maintains and

nurtures the artistic legacy of composer, philosopher, poet, and visual artist John Cage (1912–92).

The trust offers access to extensive and expanding research archives, workshops, concerts, and educational symposia.

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies Courses, lectures, and research are opportunities provided by Bard’s partnership with the Cary Institute, a premier research institution in nearby Millbrook, New York, that focuses on applying ecosystem analysis to policy changes.

Contemporary Masters

Led by Norman Manea, writer in residence and MacArthur Fellow, this

workshop offers the opportunity to discuss writing with some of the world’s greatest authors, such as Nobel laureates José Saramago, Orhan Pamuk, and Mario Vargas Llosa. In addition to debating literary issues, the authors give public presentations.

Distinguished Scientist Lecture Series This series offers an opportunity for firsthand contact with the men and women who are shaping modern science, and to observe how they think, work, view their own achievements, and assess the challenges that they and other scientists face. Since the series began, audiences have heard more than one hundred scientists, including 45 Nobel laureates and four Fields medalists. Recent speakers have included S. James Gates Jr., Colin Adams, and Deborah Tannen.

Levy Economics Institute of Bard College A nonprofit public policy research organization, the Levy Institute invites prominent economists to attend conferences and serve on its staff. The annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the U.S. and World Economies, held in New York City under the auspices of the Ford Foundation, draws international economic experts and media. The Levy Institute offers several annual scholarships to economics majors, and through an affiliation with Cambridge University, selected undergraduates may spend their junior year at Christ’s College.

Woods Hole Students from select colleges, including Bard, spend a semester in environmental science study at the Ecosystems Center of the world-renowned Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Students receive a semester’s academic credit for the experience, which includes courses in environmental science and science writing, and an independent research project.

More to Explore: Beyond the Classroom 27

Senior Projects and Student Profiles This list is a representative sample of Senior Project titles from recent graduating classes. (Some Senior Projects signify double majors.) The name of the faculty adviser(s) follows the project title and/or description.

Division of the Arts Sofia Pia Belenky, Cabot, Vermont / Studio Arts: “-I/I/I\/X,” / Julianne Swartz Jesse Alexander Brown, North Canton, Ohio / Music: “When We Dead Awaken: A Chamber Opera in Two Acts,” adaptation of the play by Henrik Ibsen, translated by William Archer / Kyle Gann Mae Colburn, Cedar Falls, Iowa / Art History: “Sight / Site: Three Photographic Views of the White House Ruins at Canyon de Chelly” / Laurie Dahlberg Stephanie Stillman Eiss, Arlington, Virginia / Theater: “Theater at Its Essence: The History and Evolution of Collaborative Theater in the Western World” / Jean Ruth Wagner Safi Simone Harriott, Kingston, Jamaica / Dance: “Blahburry Pooncaks,”“Your House,” and “Descending the First Staircase,” dance explorations, varying in theme and method, with unexpected results / Jean Churchill Anthropology: “Performing Ideals: Reading Femininity and Sexuality in Dance Competition Videos,” an exploration of the content of, and comments on, competition videos on YouTube / Diana De G. Brown Dare Lael Oseas, Nashville, Tennessee / Studio Arts: “A Brief Portrait of Median in 2008,” a collection of 2D collage and cut paper / Hap Tivey William Bradley Rennekamp, Crestwood, Kentucky / Film and Electronic Arts: “Big Head Mode,” a video game installation with sculptures, games, balls, cheats, play / Ed Halter Kazio Pavel Sosnowski, Gardiner, New York / Photography: "The Barrytown Archive" / An-My Leˆ

Division of Languages and Literature Matthew Andrews Christian, North Bennington, Vermont / Literature: “Poor Old Horse: Tragicomedy and The Good Soldier,” a critique of Ford Madox Ford’s 1915 novel / Deirdre d’Albertis William Ballou Cranshaw, Fort Collins, Colorado / Literature: “Postmodern but Not Postmoral: Locating the Affirmative in the Fiction of Gaddis, Pynchon, and Barthelme” / Elizabeth T. Antrim Dylan Francis Fettig, Orleans, Massachusetts / Written Arts: “Adoration of the Towering Weed,” poems / Michael Ives Antonia Elizabeth Keller, Logan, Utah / Arabic and Human Rights and Middle Eastern Studies: “Deconstructing the Icon: Gender, Nationalism, and Resistance in the Novels of Sahar Khalifeh” / Thomas Keenan Christian Gerhard Lehmann, Vermillion, South Dakota / Literature: “In the Hands of Achilles,” a philological and metapoetic study of the scepter, lyre, cup, and sword in Homer’s Iliad / Benjamin Stevens

28 Senior Projects

Sofia Belenky ’11, a studio arts major, hails from Cabot, Vermont. Her Senior Project was an architectural sculpture, to be used as a surface for an installation of video and sound that creates an intermediate space between private and public, or interior and exterior.

I looked at many colleges during my search. Nothing clicked until I visited Bard. The location is ideal—in the country, with farms close by, but also close to New York City. I went to the city once a week, where I did CD design, and set and film design.

Bard students are eager to explore. I had attended a precollege course at an arts school, but I missed the philosophy and the human rights aspect of education there. At Bard, you fulfill the distribution requirements without even realizing it. Every subject, every course, starts to connect— there are no borders. For example, I took field studies with biology professor William Maple. We would hike for four or five hours at a time, exploring different areas, making a connection to the physical campus. I created an illustrated guide of the area, and I wrote about the walks in English professor Peter Sourian’s creative writing class. That experience led me to take a playwriting class with theater professor JoAnne Akalaitis.

To fulfill my math distribution requirement, I took a course in interactive computing. That led me to take a course in video installation taught by film professor Les LeVeque. And that led to my work in sculpture.

Bard has been a real home to me, with an amazing supportive network.

There are no cliques, but a lot of community. This can be a difficult time in your life, with the stress of course work. But at Bard the challenges make the life worthwhile and exciting.

Matthew Christian ’11 transferred to Bard from Bard College at Simon’s Rock: The Early College in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He was a literature major and a musician; concertmaster of the orchestra at Simon’s Rock, he played fiddle for student-run contra dances at Bard.

When I compared my campus visits, Bard students were engaged and intellectually avant-garde to a degree I found nowhere else.

The most important thing an institution can give you is the opportunity to meet the people who stand out in your field. Bard is an incredibly dynamic intellectual community, where you’re able to meet those “academic rock stars” every day. At guest lectures, academic conferences, and program dinner parties, I got to know, not only professors, but also internationally acclaimed intellectuals and artists who came to campus.

I’m interested in criticism as an artistic venture in the Continental theory tradition—particularly writers like Benjamin, Bataille, and Derrida. My Senior Project put that into practice through focus on critical writing about a Modernist novel, The Good Soldier. I focused on the connection between the writer’s prose style and the theme of soldiers in modern life, as in Shakespeare’s famous line, “You say you are a better soldier: / . . . For mine own part, / I shall be glad to learn of nobler men.”

Student Profiles 29

Caitlyn Elizabeth McClure, Washington, D.C. / Literature: “‘To the Horizon and Back’: Liminality in Three African American Migration Narratives” / Charles A. Walls Benjamin Paul Seligman, Silver Spring, Maryland / Literature: “‘Footless in the Void’: Landscape and Identity in the Desert West,” a study of The Prairie, Moby-Dick, and Blood Meridian / Deirdre d’Albertis Anne Franklin Sinsabaugh, New York, New York / Literature and Written Arts: “2010,” a romp through pop culture / Luc Sante

Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing Oni Xiomara Banks, Brooklyn, New York / Biology: “The presence of relapsing fever group Borrelia in Dutchess County, New York” / Felicia Keesing Derek Hernandez, Los Angeles, California / Physics: Combined plan (3-2) dual-degree program at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science / Burton Brody Paul Campion Jordan, Billings, Montana / Biology and Chemistry: “Investigations of the protein interactions of a potentially antitumor ruthenium(III)-platinum(II) complex,” a spectroscopic and chromatographic analysis of the structural effects of, and interactions between, a mixed-metal complex and serum proteins / Craig Anderson and Michael Tibbetts Robert Clardy McNevin, New Providence, New Jersey / Computer Science: “Using Visual Sensors for Bayesian Robot Localization” / Keith O’Hara Samantha Alison Mutter, Arlington, Virginia / Mathematics: “Happy Numbers: An Exploration of an Iterated Function in Different Bases” / John Cullinan Hannah McRae Quay-de la Vallee, Santa Fe, New Mexico / Computer Science and Mathematics: “An Introduction to Quay Theory,” a search for a term-rewriting system for an idempotent, pseudo-selfdistributive theory and its relation to de la Vallee semigroups / Robert W. McGrail Regina Vaicˇekonyte·, Panevzˇys, Lithuania / Biology: "The effects of the removal of garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) on the abundance of entomopathogenic fungi" / Felicia Keesing

Division of Social Studies Timothy Luke Azarchs, Briarcliff Manor, New York / Economics: “The Curse of Resources: An Empirical and Theoretical Discussion of the Link between Natural Resources and Growth” / Tamar Khitarishvili Nina Bektic, Athens, Greece / Political Studies and Global and International Studies: “Analysis of the ‘First Phase’ of the International Community’s Mission in Kosovo and Metohija” / Jonathan Becker Anna Katsman, Staten Island, New York / Philosophy: “The Freedom of Love: The Possibility of Collective Self-Realization through Enduring Forms of Mutual Recognition” / Adam Rosen Psychology: “Embodied Empathy: The Possibility of Difference” / Barbara Luka

30 Senior Projects

Rachit Neupane ’13, from Kathmandu, Nepal, is a biology and chemistry major. He received University of New South Wales gold medals in science and mathematics while in high school, and completed a summer internship at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as part of a project to make a library of 8,000 compounds.

When I arrived at Bard, the first thing I noticed was the beauty of the campus. This boosts my spirits even in bad weather. As an international student who couldn’t visit colleges ahead of time, I was also pleased with the Reem and Kayden Center, which shows that Bard is dedicated to science, alongside the arts. It has been my dream from childhood to become a scientist.

I was also encouraged by the opportunities to engage in club activities and the Trustee Leader Scholar (TLS) Program. If you have ideas, Bard gives you a place in which to implement them. I’m involved in the Bard Leprosy Relief Project, a TLS effort that increases awareness about the disease and raises funds for an eco-friendly leprosy village in Kathmandu. I’m also a Peer Counselor, which offers another huge opportunity for personal growth. First-year students really do look up to their Peer Counselor, and in return I have to develop leadership skills.

Jananie Ravi ’12 is a dual major in biology and religion, a trained member of Bard Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and a Peer Counselor (PC). She spent a summer in the Bard Summer Research Institute, investigating hair-cell regeneration in the lateral line of zebrafish. A native of Colombo, Sri Lanka, she interned before college in the Colombo office of the Fulbright Commission, advising Sri Lankan students on applying to colleges and universities in the United States.

I come from a big city, so I was attracted to Bard by its small size and because it’s not in a city. Your community, the kind of life you have on campus, depends on the people you hang out with. I have many different circles of friends at Bard because there are all kinds of people here. If you go to things you’re interested in, you’ll make friends.

I really enjoy my science classes; I like learning science. But I’m even more pleased by the whole liberal arts aspect of Bard. All my life I’ve had to study religion—it’s a required course in Sri Lankan schools—and had to memorize huge chunks of text. Here, I’ve taken Kristin Scheible’s course on Buddhism, and then a philosophy and an anthropology course, and I discovered a side of academia that I had never explored. It’s mindboggling because it’s very different from the way science works and the way I’ve been taught all my life.

I became an emergency medical technician because I wanted to be involved on campus. And I’m a Peer Counselor because I am concerned about people. PCs support new and returning students; organize social, educational, and cultural events; and serve as liaisons between students and the faculty and administration. As a PC, you get to know the Bard community in a different way—you make dinner together.

Student Profiles 31

Aram Paul Kolesar, Indiana, Pennsylvania / Philosophy: “Terrorism and the Invisible Remainder: The Foreclosure of the Political in Consensus-Based Liberal Systems and Its Violent Return” / Daniel Berthold Anneka Teresse Olson, Seattle, Washington / Historical Studies: “Modern City / Authentic City / Entrepreneurial City: An Archaeology of Revitalization and the Public Sphere, Kingston, New York, 1960–1990,” an analysis of ideological approaches to urban change in a small, postindustrial city / Gregory B. Moynahan Tracy Brianne Potter-Fins, Moscow, Idaho / Religion: “Telling the Hive: An Exploration of HumanNature Relationships through Honeybee Narratives” / Richard H. Davis and Kristin Scheible Jonathan Raye, Canton, Connecticut / Psychology: “The N2pc Component as an Index of Covert Visual Attention to Objects and Spatial Locations,” an ERP study of human visual system performance at small-time scales / Barbara Luka

Interdivisional James Alexandre Bricmont, Altadena, California / Human Rights: “The Vilest Sort: The Banishment, Confinement, and Isolation of Sex Offenders in America,” an investigation of the community regulation of offenders and failure to protect the dangerous / Thomas Keenan Sarah Rose Leonard, Seattle, Washington / Spanish Studies: “The Devil Knows My Name: Translation of Jacinta Escudos’s El Diablo sabe mi nombre” / Nicole Caso Elizabeth Anne Mantynband, Highland Park, Illinois / Spanish Studies: “Adventuring in the New World: The Role of Travel Literature in the Discourse of the Americas” / Nicole Caso Laura Jane O’Gorman, Short Hills, New Jersey / Asian Studies and Global and International Studies: “All Consumed, All Consuming: A History of the Unmarried Woman’s Representation in Japanese Visual Media from 1910 to the Present and How That Depiction Contributed to Japan’s Current Population Crisis” / Hoyt J. Long Molly Elizabeth Hazard Peters, Belmont, Massachusetts / Italian Studies: “Alberto Savinio’s Il Signor Dido and the Mythology of Self,” a translation of Savinio’s collection of fantastic short stories / Joseph Luzzi Photography: “The New Familiar” / Larry Fink and Stephen Shore Thea Joanne Piltzecker, Demarest, New Jersey / Literature and Human Rights: “‘Go Now and Tell Them': Bulgarian Folksongs and Political Resistance to the ‘Turkish Yoke’” / Elizabeth Frank Alexandru Tiroch, Lugoj, Romania / German Studies: “Short Stories as Witnesses of the German Postwar Period: An Analysis of German War Guilt” / Franz R. Kempf Economics and Finance (B.S.): / “An Analysis of the Monday Effect: A Short-Seller’s Perspective on Real Economic Data” / Dimitri B. Papadimitriou Gabriel Yassky, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania / American Studies: “Confederate Remembrance: A Social Ill in Disguise,” a documentary examining the morals and motives of Confederate Civil War reenactors / Mark Lytle

32 Senior Projects

Kyle Gipson ’13, a native of Austin, Texas, is a sociology major and student assistant to the associate dean of student affairs/director of multicultural affairs. In his first year, he was a founder of the Multiracial Students Colloquium, which focuses on biracial and related issues. He also is part of the Neighborhood for Social Activism in the Village residence halls, which brings in speakers on various topics, and part of the campus-wide Media and Difference Project.

What drew me to Bard was that it’s academically rigorous and socially liberal. It’s very gay friendly, very open-minded, which is important to me.

It’s unusual to find a campus as tolerant as Bard, but with such high intellectual standards. That’s a good combination.

First-Year Seminar helped me find my academic interest. I had planned to be a literature major, but in First-Year Seminar I noticed I was drawn to readings in the social sciences, and that I was extrapolating sociological themes from the readings.

Since this is a small college, it’s easy to develop leadership skills because it’s not overwhelming to try to initiate something, like a new club.

Another advantage of Bard’s size is that you get a lot more one-on-one time with professors. You get the chance to be influenced and guided.

That helps you to shine and make your intellectual adventure your own.

Thea Piltzecker ’11 majored in literature with a concentration in human rights. She came to Bard thinking she would study creative writing and international relations or Latin American studies.

“I didn’t have the vocabulary for human rights,” she says. “I discovered it here. At Bard literature can be a path to human rights, and human rights can be a way of framing literature.”

At Bard there’s a joint focus on academic and artistic pursuits. Students and faculty are committed to both, which makes for fascinating people, conversations, and classes. My human rights concentration has led to a lot of interesting courses—on immigration, for example. I did an internship with the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation in New York City, and a summer grant allowed me to go to the mountains of Bulgaria to study folk songs as a means of cultural resistance to the Turks.

People here are engaged, and you can find engagement in whatever interests you. I became part of the Trustee Leader Scholar Program from my first week, and this shaped my experience at Bard. It’s more than community service; it’s leadership, which prepares you for life after Bard.

I was also a Peer Counselor for three years. And I was a student representative on the College’s Educational Policies Committee, which oversees the tenure process. At Bard, student opinions are part of faculty committee procedure.

Student Profiles 33

Bard students are distinguished by their innovative approach to topics, their commitment to service, and their interest in the wider world. They combine various disciplines in unique ways to produce new ideas. The College’s enterprises reflect our institutional principles: innovation, ambition, risk taking, and an explicit link between liberal education and democracy.

—Jonathan Becker, Associate Professor of Political Studies; Vice President and Dean for International Affairs and Civic Engagement

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 recent establishment of the Al-Quds Bard Partnership, Bard has been immersed in international affairs. Global initiatives come under the auspices of Bard’s Institute for International Liberal Education, an established leader in joint ventures with universities abroad.

Bard students study in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. On campus, they attend virtual classes with students in other countries. They pursue research, internships, and collaborations with students, scientists, artists, educators, and diplomats abroad, or—through teleconferencing and shared programs—on the Annandale campus. About half of Bard’s students spend time studying abroad. About 20 percent come from other countries, which puts Bard in the top ranks of colleges for international student diversity. Currently, students come from more than 50 countries.

Students can take advantage of language-intensive study programs in China, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, or Russia. They can examine emerging democracies firsthand at Central European University in Budapest. And they can get to know PIE (Program in International Education) students, who come to Bard for a year from southern Africa, central Asia, and countries in the former Soviet bloc.

Semester- and year-abroad opportunities include: American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece; American University, Cairo, Egypt; Central European University, Budapest, Hungary; Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany; Kyoto Seika University, Kyoto, Japan; Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, Karlsruhe, Germany; University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

34 A Global Outlook

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

The Al-Quds Bard Partnership, the first such collaboration between U.S. and Palestinian institutions of higher education, offers a semester or year abroad and a videoconference course, Exile: Internal and External, that connects students in Annandale and the West Bank. The partnership also offers a dual-degree B.A. at the Honors College for Liberal Arts and Sciences, a Master of Arts in Teaching Program, and a Model School for younger students, all on the Al-Quds campus in East Jerusalem.

A dual-degree program between Bard and the American University of Central Asia 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.

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 Smolny offer a dual B.A. degree. Bard students study alongside Russians in rigorous, seminar-style classes, and take internships in an NGO or a media, business, or arts organization.

The International Human Rights Exchange (IHRE) offers a semester of study in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the University of the Witwatersrand (“Wits”), with focus on a critical understanding of human rights. Scholarly work is combined with a substantial internship in a local NGO or other human rights organization.

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

A Global Outlook 35

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, Director, Trustee Leader Scholar Program; Associate Dean of Student Affairs

civic engagement

Bard envisions a unique role for colleges and universities as the nexus of education 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 in the public interest.

Bard uses its campus and resources to develop robust and sustainable projects that address social problems in practical ways, reach underserved and unserved populations, and tackle critical issues of education and public policy. With social consciousness and entrepreneurial spirit, Bard shapes policies, implements programs, and demonstrates public leadership. Few other higher educational institutions have comparable track records of successful innovation in the public sphere; Bard serves as a model for other colleges and universities.

The Center for Civic Engagement supports, coordinates, and promotes the wide array of initiatives that define the College as a private institution in the public interest. Bard supports many aspects of civic engagement, from degree-granting programs in the United States and abroad to volunteer efforts by students. While the academic endeavors and community projects differ greatly in scale and scope, each exemplifies the mission of Bard to reach out into the world and effect change.

Projects may be as close to home as the New York State prison system or as far away as an East Jerusalem summer camp for Palestinian youths. In addition to encouraging active participation in public life, the Center promotes such critical civic skills as active listening, collaboration, leadership, creative problem solving, and ethical decision making.

In recognition of the College’s important and groundbreaking work, George Soros, chairman of the Open Society Foundations, has given Bard a $60 million challenge grant for the Center for Civic Engagement. The gift will allow us to strengthen our worldwide network of projects, from assisting

36 Civic Engagement

Max Kenner ’01 at the Bard Prison Initiative Commencement. Kenner began BPI as a student in the TLS Program and is now vice president for institutional initiatives at Bard and BPI’s executive director.

low-income students in struggling high schools in New Orleans (the New Orleans Initiative) to partnering with the first liberal-arts institution of higher education in Russia (Smolny College).

From their first weeks on campus, Bard undergraduates are encouraged to participate in an everexpanding variety of projects that help prepare them to be responsible and active global citizens, including many that they initiate themselves. Many of the Center’s enterprises occur outside of Bard’s main campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, but most involve Bard students, faculty, and administrators, as well as those of Bard’s partner campuses. The Center’s core activities focus on education reform, with an emphasis on secondary and postsecondary education; prison education through the Bard Prison Initiative; international partnerships, particularly undergraduate and graduate dualdegree programs in the liberal arts; and innovations in science and sustainability, ranging from Bard’s innovative Citizen Science Program to the nationwide Campus to Congress (C2C) climate initiative. Student-led initiatives engage regional, national, and international communities, and local engagement includes work with governments, schools, and social service organizations close to Bard. The Center also coordinates programs that provide direct opportunities for students through community-based learning and internships.

The Bard Center for Environmental Policy (Bard CEP) conducts the Masters International Program with the Peace Corps and the Peace Corps Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program. Through these innovative ventures, Bard graduate students are offered the opportunity to incorporate hands-on Peace Corps experience into the Bard CEP master’s degree programs, and returning Peace Corps volunteers have the opportunity to earn, with financial support, a master of science degree in environmental policy or in climate science and policy.

Civic Engagement 37

David Martin ’08 in Kenya, teaching two young Sudanese refugees how to use recording equipment. Martin recorded native Sudanese songs as a fund-raiser for the refugees.

The Bard Globalization and International Affairs (BGIA) Program is a melting pot for students from around the world who study with experts in international affairs. Students spend a semester or a year in New York City as part of BGIA. In addition to course work in human rights, science, international law, political economy, global public health, and ethics, students meet prominent figures who discuss issues of global concern in BGIA’s James Chace Speaker Series. Internships—a prominent piece of education at BGIA—are with leading private, public, or nonprofit entities, from the New York Times to the Council on Foreign Relations. This hands-on experience, supervised by a staff mentor, puts classroom theory into real-world practice along with career opportunities in the international realm. BGIA is open to students from other institutions.

Bard educational initiatives include Bard High School Early College campuses in New York City (Manhattan and Queens) and Newark, New Jersey, where high school–age students, through rigorous study, earn a high school diploma and an A.A. degree in four years. Besides the New Orleans initiatives, Bard programs that integrate college education into secondary school settings or promote innovative pedagogy, often in underserved or underrepresented student communities, include Paramount Bard Academy in Central Valley, California, and International Community High School in the Bronx, in conjunction with the Bard MAT Program.

Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) is the largest degree-granting, college-in-prison program in the country.

It brings higher education to five prison campuses in New York State. Close to 200 incarcerated students have received A.A. or B.A. degrees. Undergraduates join Bard faculty as volunteers in the prison programs; Bard also offers classes related to students’ experiences with BPI. Recent courses include Foundations of the Law and Anthropology of Mass Incarceration. The initiative 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.

38 Civic Engagement

Bard-Rockefeller Program participant Trilly Gregg ’10 is now in the biophysics Ph.D. program at the University of Wisconsin.

The collaborative Bard-Rockefeller Program gives Bard science students rich opportunities.

Rockefeller faculty offer Bard students courses that explore the cutting edge of biology and medicine. Rockefeller reserves places for Bard students in its Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows Program. In the Bard-Rockefeller Semester in Science, selected Upper College science students spend a semester in New York City working in the lab with Rockefeller faculty and taking specially designed classes at Rockefeller and in the BGIA. Qualified students spend eight weeks living on campus and working on an original research project, in either the social or natural sciences, through the Bard Summer Research Institute. Student researchers receive a stipend and work with a faculty mentor. Projects have ranged from construction of an atomic emission photometer to determine the amount of sodium in Gatorade to use of a blue laser diode to solidify liquid samples at the focal point of a microscope lens.

Bard’s Human Rights major, the first in the nation, is a transdisciplinary program across the arts, social sciences, and literature. Faculty include author and MacArthur Fellow Mark Danner, photographer Gilles Peress, and John Ryle, who chairs the Rift Valley Institute, an association based at Bard and in Kenya that promotes human rights. Students are encouraged to treat human rights as an intellectual question, challenge the new human rights orthodoxy, and think critically about human rights as a discourse, rather than merely training for it as a profession.

The Human Rights Project (HRP) encourages students to learn about—and engage in—the contemporary human rights movement through internships and volunteer opportunities. Bard students have traveled to Guatemala to help with election monitoring and worked with the International Center for Transitional Justice to create an online video archive of the trial proceedings of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Miloˇsevi´c.

Civic Engagement 39

Stephen Tremaine ’07, director of the Bard Early College in New Orleans, which he began as a TLS project, with students surveying the Broadmoor neighborhood of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

La Voz is a free, 20-page monthly publication in Spanish that serves the burgeoning Hispanic community of the Mid Hudson Valley. Since its inception in 2004, La Voz has grown to a circulation of 4,000 and an estimated readership of 12,000. La Voz empowers its readers with information on legal rights, particularly labor rights; personal finance; health education; and English learning. It also provides local news, resource guides, and a diverse selection of fiction and journalism written

by Bard students and faculty as well as by community members.

The New Orleans Initiative consists of two academic programs: Bard Urban Studies and Bard Early College. The Urban Studies summer program pairs rigorous course work in urban geography and public policy with intensive internships in neighborhood-based recovery organizations. Students from colleges and universities around the world apply critical and analytical skills in community development and urban revitalization. The Early College in New Orleans program is a series of free, college credit–bearing courses in local high schools. It offers students at low-performing schools a high-quality liberal arts curriculum as well as tools for accessing higher education. About 10 percent of all juniors and seniors in the New Orleans public schools participate in the Bard program.

Other civic engagement activities involve students both on and off campus, such as: • election.bard.edu, registering Bard students to vote • Bard Debate, which competes in parliamentary and policy debates all over the country, as well as public debates for the Bard community • West Point–Bard Exchange, which provides both classroom and informal interactions between students and faculty at Bard and the United States Military Academy • Raptor Program, in which varsity team members conduct community service projects each year • community partnerships such as Red Hook Together • Rhinebeck Youth Program: A tutoring program for immigrant children in Rhinebeck, New York

40 Civic Engagement

Paige Milligan ’11 with a Palestinian woman in the West Bank village of Mas'ha

Trustee Leader Scholar Program Students in the Trustee Leader Scholar Program (TLS) design and implement their own civic engagement projects based on their own interests; accepted projects receive stipends and other support.

Nearly 20 percent of Bard students participate in TLS, and most TLS students remain active in the program throughout their time at Bard. TLS projects include Astor Home for Children Theater Group, Bard Biodiesel Cooperative, Bard Leprosy Relief, Bard Music Mentoring Program, Germantown Tutoring Program, Grace Smith House (family shelter), International Tuberculosis Relief Project, and Red Hook English as a Second Language Center. TLS projects may run for multiple years; several have grown into full-time, College-sponsored, nationally recognized initiatives that welcome undergraduate volunteers, such as BPI, La Voz, and the New Orleans Initiative. Examples follow of TLS projects.

The Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative runs summer camps each year in a small Palestinian village called Mas’ha. In 2010 students involved in the project also raised money for, and helped build, the first children’s library in the West Bank. In 2011 the initiative received a substantial Davis Projects for Peace grant and is using the funds to build a playground in Mas’ha. The group sponsors cultural exchange trips; it took the first formal group of Palestinians to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. At the student’s instigation Mas’ha has become a sister city to Red Hook, New York.

The Nicaragua Education Initiative focuses on educational projects that empower youth and community members in the town of Chacraseca, a rural community in western Nicaragua. It began when students raised money to build houses and provide stipends for children to attend school after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Since then, Bard students have returned to Chacraseca every winter break, with the goal of empowering the community through education and promoting selfsustainability.

Trustee Leader Scholar Program 41

As an institution, Bard is inspiring—a nimble, smart, and caring place, where the mission, alongside that of giving students a great education, is really to help the world in new and unexpected ways. Things are possible here that would be unimaginable elsewhere. The campus may seem incredibly rural, but dig a little and you find more interesting things to do, see, and hear than you have time for. Life here is always unexpectedly wonderful.

—Melvin Chen, Associate Director, The Bard College Conservatory of Music; Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies

the bard community

Bard’s 540-acre parklike setting is situated on the east shore of the Hudson River. Students stroll or bike to class among stately trees of every size 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 as varied as the flora, from the venerable buildings on Stone Row to cutting-edge architecture by Frank Gehry, Robert Venturi, and Rafael Viñoly, among others.

Plus, the world’s greatest cultural center—New York City—is 90 miles away, easily accessed by car or train. Students can attend a class on visual imagination for the modern stage and that same evening catch a Julie Taymor production on Broadway; or attend a morning seminar in abstract expressionism and pop art and later that day, stand in front of a Krasner or Rosenquist at the Museum of Modern Art. The cultural traffic between Bard and New York City flows both ways: worldclass writers, artists, musicians, and theater and dance companies based in the city continuously come to campus to do what they do best for the benefit of the College and broader communities.

Closer to campus, the communities of Tivoli, Red Hook, Rhinebeck, and Hudson offer eclectic food, historic sites such as the Vanderbilt mansion and the Franklin D. Roosevelt estate, antiques and boutiques, and parks along the scenic Hudson River for bicycling, hiking, and kayaking. Across the river, Kingston, the first capital of New York State, and historic Woodstock beckon with art, cultural activities, various cuisines, and music. Other artistic highlights of the region include the renowned Dia:Beacon, a museum of modern art; Storm King Art Center, a 500-acre sculpture park; the Bardavon 1869 Opera House, the oldest continuously operating theater in New York State; and Olana, artist Frederic Church’s Moorish estate.

The Bard Community 43

Film screening outside the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Center

Campus Life The Bard campus features more than 40 student residences, embracing a wide range of architectural styles and sizes. They have Internet access, social rooms, kitchens, and laundries. Most of them are coed, and roughly one-third of the rooms are singles.

Residence halls are staffed by Peer Counselors. PCs help students navigate campus life and assist in organizing social, cultural, and educational events to foster a peer community as well as an extension of academic life.

Students who live on campus, as most do, take the meal plan, which offers flexible menus (including vegetarian, vegan, and limited kosher and halal selections) and extended meal times in the campus dining commons. The Bard meal card is also legal tender in the two cafés on campus and at the Green Onion, a campus grocery store.

The diverse perspectives of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism are not only studied 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.

Help in writing a paper—or with any academic subject—is found at the Learning Commons. The Learning Commons provides tutoring and other forms of academic assistance to all Bard students.

In addition to offering academic skills workshops, the Commons offers assistance in more than 40 subjects, including writing, Moderation papers, Senior Projects and master’s theses; calculus, pre-

44 The Bard Community

Bard cross-country

calculus, chemistry, economics, biology, physics, and Q-exam preparation; anthropology, art history, psychology, sociology, and philosophy; First-Year Seminar; languages; computer science; political studies; and literature. The Commons offers a credit-bearing course in writing as well as one-on-one tutorials.

The Career Development Office offers more than career counseling. The CDO helps students find internships and jobs, and coaches them through the application process, which includes guidance on writing resumes and cover letters. Informal talks, career-specific panels, and formal symposia take place throughout the academic year that connect students with various professions, alumni/ae, and employers.

Athletics and Recreation Bard’s range of athletic and recreational programs include intercollegiate competition, intramural and club sports, and recreational pursuits. Students keep the Stevenson Gymnasium busy; many also take advantage of Bard’s location in the Hudson River Valley to pursue such interests as biking, hiking, running, skiing, ice skating, rock climbing, and kayaking.

The College offers intercollegiate programs for men and women in basketball, cross-country, lacrosse, soccer, tennis, track and field, and volleyball. Men also compete in squash. The Raptors, Bard’s athletic teams, compete under the auspices of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA Division III). Club sports include baseball, cycling, equestrian, fencing, men’s and women’s rugby, swimming, and Ultimate Frisbee, while intramural programs are offered in basketball, floor hockey, bowling, tennis, table tennis, volleyball, softball, golf, badminton, and squash. Fitness classes are held in aerobics, yoga, Pilates, aquacise, Scottish dance, Zumba, spinning, weight training, and Aikido.

Campus Life 45

Lunch and conversation at the Red Hook Diner

Student Life Student Government and Committees All Bard students belong to the Bard College Student Association, a democratic forum that raises issues and takes or recommends action by the College; provides student representation on administrative and faculty committees; and administers funds for student-run organizations.

Opportunities to serve include the Student Judiciary Committee, which enforces and protects the rights of all Bard students; Student Life Committee, which coordinates with the Dean of Student Affairs and Engagement staff, security personnel, and the food service provider to improve student services and residential life; Educational Policies Committee, which acts as liaison between students and faculty on academic issues; and Planning Committee, which allocates funds to student organizations. Students are represented at Board of Trustees and Board of Governors meetings.

Clubs Students can choose from more than a hundred active student clubs on campus, ranging in subject from astronomy to tango. Any student with an interest can start a club, including first-year students.

A sampling of clubs includes: Asian Student Organization

Kosher/Halal Club

Bard Emergency Medical Services

Latin American Students Organization

Black Students Organization

Model United Nations

Buddhist Meditation Group

Philosophy Discussion Group

Christian Fellowship

Queer Straight Alliance

Darfur Action Campaign

Students for a Free Tibet

Environmental Collective

Vinyl Preservation Society

46 The Bard Community

Browsing the shops in nearby Rhinebeck

Student Media The following examples present reviews, essays, stories, and other forms of writing and art: • Bard Free Press—Published monthly during the academic year, this student-run paper covers local and campus news, culture, and activities.

• Bard Politik—This journal produced by students in the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program includes feature articles, field reports, analysis of foreign policy, and blogs.

• Lux—a semiannual literary journal • Moderator—a magazine dealing with issues of sexuality and body politics • WXBC Radio—free-form, uncensored radio station that provides original broadcasting for 16 hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the academic year Other Activities From garage-band concerts at SMOG, a student-run music venue that was in fact a garage, to language tables, where students share meals and practice Italian, French, German, Japanese, or Hebrew conversation, many activities enrich life on and off campus. Student-generated activities have led to recognition beyond campus: the Root Cellar, a space with a coffeehouse vibe, has been cited for its impressive collection of zines. The Chimeng Quartet, formed by four students at The Bard College Conservatory of Music, received the Senior String Division Silver Medal in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

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

• The Bike Co-op is a free resource for the Bard community’s bicycle-related needs.

• Clothes and other goods are reused and repurposed through the Free Use Program.

• Thursday Night Live consists of acoustic concerts, contests, open mic nights, and more at Down the Road Café.

Student Life 47

The Village Dorms complex contains nine environmentally friendly residence halls, designed with Bard student input. The Village buildings make use of timber from nonvirgin sources, and are heated and cooled using a geothermal heat exchange system.

Green Initiatives Bard’s parklike campus is a vivid green, and so are the College’s policies. President Leon Botstein has signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, pledging Bard to shrink its carbon footprint and integrate sustainability into its curricula. Bard has completed a comprehensive inventory of its annual greenhouse gas emissions on all College-owned properties; that study led to the drafting of Bard’s climate action plan 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 • Creation of Bard Environmental Resource Department (BERD), which involves the College in 350.org and other green enterprises • Bard’s selection as the first college in New York State to be designated a Tree Campus USA for its environmental stewardship • 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 • Reduction of water, paper, and energy consumption on campus, including low-to-no irrigation horticulture, with an emphasis on local and native planting; paperless payroll; and distribution of more than a thousand compact fluorescent light bulbs to students, faculty, and staff in exchange for incandescent bulbs • Introduction of environmental courses into the undergraduate curriculum, such as The Planetary Consequences of Dietary Choices, in which students build an experimental greenhouse designed to sustain hardy local produce year-round with zero carbon emissions.

48 The Bard Community

Pia Carusone ’03, chief of staff to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, receives the John Dewey Award at the President’s Award Ceremony, Commencement 2011. Behind her are Walter Swett ’96, past president of the Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association Board of Governors (left), and Jonathan Becker, associate professor of political studies and vice president and dean for international affairs and civic engagement (right).

Engaged Alumni/ae Bard alumni/ae are actively engaged in the life of the College, whether they’ve settled in the Hudson Valley or returned from homelands 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–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association, alumni/ae visit campus to participate in reunions, concerts, career panels, exhibitions, lectures, and basketball games against the varsity team.

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, New Orleans 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 field. 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 the men’s varsity basketball team, which pairs graduates with current team members to offer guidance on all aspects of college life.

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 that values not only the individual but 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 ensure that the tradition of excellence continues.

Engaged Alunni/ae 49

Blithewood

Facilities • The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Center contains the Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center, home to the Film and Electronic Arts Program, and Edith C. Blum Institute, home to the Music Program and The Bard College Conservatory, with practice spaces, a listening library, recording and editing studios, and specialized studios for computer music, jazz, and percussion. Breaking ground this year is the László Z. Bitó ’60 Conservatory Building, which will further update the Music Program and Conservatory and expand their facilities by 16,500 square feet. 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.

• The Heinz O. and Elizabeth C. Bertelsmann Campus Center, a central meeting place, contains the bookstore, post office, Down the Road Café and Weis Cinema; computer lab; gallery; student club and activities offices, game room; and spacious second-floor deck.

• Blithewood, home of the Levy Economics Institute, consists of a mansion, built in 1900, and formal Italianate gardens. Students can enjoy the view overlooking the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains.

• The Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture is an exhibition, education, and research center dedicated to the study of art and curatorial practices from the 1960s to the present. The Marieluise Hessel Collection contains more than 2,000 contemporary works, an extensive library, and curatorial archives. The Marieluise Hessel Museum and CCS Galleries present exhibitions year-round.

• 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 programs in the Theater, Dance, and Music Programs. The Center boasts two performance spaces: the 900-seat, acoustically impeccable Sosnoff Theater, and the flexible black box of Theater Two. The Center’s spacious rehearsal rooms can be configured as performance space

50 The Bard Community

The Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation

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

• Hegeman Science Hall houses the Mathematics and Physics Programs. The David Rose Science Laboratories provide up-to-date equipment for Upper College science classes and research by faculty and 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 an auditorium filled almost daily with concerts, lectures, and conferences. The Olin Language Center offers tools for foreign-language learning, a writing lab, and multimedia development room.

• The Biology, Chemistry, and Computer Science Programs are based in The Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation. With the addition of the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Science Laboratories, the building has nearly 17,000 square feet of dedicated laboratory space. Five smart classrooms are set up for multimedia presentations, and two others for videoconferencing. Larger presentations take place in the 65-seat László Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium.

The Center features an advanced energy-recovery system that retains about 70 percent of the building’s energy.

• 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 and satellite libraries on and off campus. The library’s Bard College Archives preserve the history of the College and its place in the development of progressive liberal education; among the digital collections are Poetry at Bard, an audio collection of readings, and Bard Makes Noise, the sounds of College musicians.

• Woods Studio houses the classrooms, labs, studios, and exhibition gallery of the Photography Program. Facilities include two black-and-white group darkrooms, private darkrooms for seniors, and a mural printing room.

Facilities 51

bard at a glance Founded 1860 Type Independent, nonsectarian, residential, coeducational, four-year, liberal arts and sciences Enrollment profile Approximately 1,900 undergraduates study at the Annandale campus; 57 percent female, 43 percent male, from across the country. Three percent of students are African American, 3 percent Asian, 3 percent Hispanic, and 12 percent international (representing more than 50 countries).

Undergraduate faculty 241. The student-to-faculty ratio is 9:1.

Undergraduate degrees Bard offers B. A. degrees in nearly 50 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 (Manhattan and Queens) 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 five penal 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 and in conducting, and M.S. in environmental policy and in climate science and policy at the Annandale campus; M.F.A. and M.A.T. at multiple campuses; and M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in the decorative arts, design history, and material culture at the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan.

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

Undergraduate admission Applicants are encouraged to pursue an appropriately challenging, well-balanced curriculum, including honors or advanced-level courses. 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 resumĂŠ, 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 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, www.bard.edu/graduate or 845-758-7481.

Telephone 845-758-7472 (admission); 845-758-6822 (switchboard) | Fax 845-758-5208 (admission) E-mail admission@bard.edu | Website www.bard.edu/admission For more information about Bard College, visit www.bard.edu.

Bard at a Glance 53

New graduates are showered with confetti at the end of Commencement ceremonies.

When I visited Bard, I fell in love with the campus, both its natural beauty and the culture of intense intellectual discussion among students on anything from philosophy and art to the general meaning of life. An open and accepting community, Bard felt like the place for me. At Bard, I learned to engage, to embody different modes of thought and perspectives. This allows me to formulate more powerful arguments by having a well-rounded picture, a broader context.

—Andrew Buchanan ’11, Kalamazoo, Michigan, anthropology major with concentration in Middle Eastern studies

Following Commencement exercises, alumni/ae, new graduates, students, and their families watch the setting sun as they sit on the lawn beside the Blithewood gardens overlooking the Hudson River. To come are the festive fireworks that cap off Commencement.

Photo: Peter Mauney ’93, MFA ’00

Chapel of the Holy Innocents (left) and Bard Hall Photo: ŠPeter Aaron ’68/Esto

Aspinwall Hall, a classroom and faculty office building constructed in 1861, is flanked (right) by Ludlow-Willink Hall (1864), which houses the College’s administrative offices, and Stone Row (left).

MAP LEGEN D 1 Achebe House (Bard Prison Initiative) 2 Albee (offices and classrooms) 3 Alumni Houses (residence halls): Bluecher, Bourne, Honey, Leonard, Obreshkove, Rovere, Rueger, Shafer, Shelov, Steinway, Wolff 4 Anna Jones Memorial Garden

45 Reem and Kayden Center for Science and Computation (Resnick Laboratories, Bitó Auditorium) 46 Robbins House (residence hall, Student Health and Counseling Services) 47 Rose Science Laboratories 48 Sands House (residence hall)

5 Annandale Hotel (Publications/Public Relations Offices) (off map)

✶ Seymour: see Warden’s Hall

6 Annandale House (Residential Life, Multicultural Affairs )

49 Shafer House (Written Arts Program)

7 Aspinwall (classrooms and faculty offices)

50 Sottery Hall (BRAVE, Institute for Writing and Thinking, Office of

8 Avery Arts Center (Music, Film and Electronic Arts Programs, Conservatory, Ottaway Film Center, Blum Institute) 9 Bard College Field Station 10 Bard Hall (recital space) 11 Barringer House (Center for Civic Engagement) 12 Bertelsmann Campus Center (bookstore, café, post office,

Program Development) 51 South Hall (residence hall) 52 Stevenson Gymnasium 53 Stone Row (Learning Commons, BEOP, residence halls): North Hoffman, South Hoffman, McVickar, Potter 54 Tewksbury Hall (residence hall)

Weis Cinema, and Career Development, Student Activities, and

55 Tremblay Hall (residence hall)

Trustee Leader Scholar Program Offices)

56 Village Dormitories

13 Blithewood (Levy Economics Institute) 14 Brook House (International Affairs, International Student Services)

57 Ward Manor (residence hall, Manor House Café, Bard Music Festival Office)

15 Buildings and Grounds, Financial Aid Office, and Student Accounts

58 Ward Manor Gatehouse (Graduate Vocal Arts Program)

16 Carriage House (Central Services)

59 Warden’s Hall (faculty and program offices, residences): Fairbairn,

17 Center for Curatorial Studies and Hessel Museum of Art

Hopson, Seymour* 60 HUDSON RIVER

18 Chapel of the Holy Innocents 19 Community Garden 20 Cruger Village (residence halls): Bartlett, Cruger, Keen North,

87

Woods Studio

(Photography Program) 95

Keen South, Maple, Mulberry, Oberholzer, Sawkill, Spruce,

22 Fisher Annex (MFA Program offices) 23 Fisher Center for the Performing Arts (Theater and Dance Programs,

Scranton

Albany TACONIC PARKWAY

Bard High School Early College

21 Feitler House (residence hall)

NY STATE THRUWAY

90

84 87

Sosnoff Theater) Bard Graduate Center

24 Fisher Studio Arts Building 25 Gahagan (Blind Spot magazine office) 81

26 Hegeman (classrooms, faculty offices, Bard Center for

91

90

Bard College

Boston

MASS. TURNPIKE

Simon’s Rock College

Hartford 95

saw mill river parkway

Stephens, Sycamore ✶ Fairbairn (faculty offices, residence): see Warden’s Hall

New York

Environmental Policy) 27 Henderson Computer Resources Center

76

28 Henderson Technology Laboratories

Philadelphia

29 Hirsch Hall (residence hall) 30 Hopson Cottage (Admission Office)

95

Baltimore

✶ Hopson (faculty offices, residence): see Warden’s Hall 31 Keane House (Bill T. Jones Dance Company) 32 Kline Commons (dining facility)

©2011 Bard College. All rights reserved.

33 Libraries (Stevenson, Hoffman, Kellogg)

Published by the Bard College Publications Office. While every effort has been

34 Lorenzo Ferrari Soccer Complex 35 Ludlow (administrative offices)

made to ensure that the information contained herein is accurate, details are subject to change.

Map Illustration: Mark Hess

36 McCarthy House (Hannah Arendt Center, Human Rights Project)

Photography: ©Peter Aaron ’68/Esto: 48, 50, 51; Scott Barrow: 12, 17, 20, 22,

37 Nursery School (Abigail Lundquist Botstein Nursery School,

42, 52, 54–55; ©Larry Evans/Black Star: 39; Don Hamerman: 21, 60–61;

Bard Community Children’s Center) 38 Old Gym (Safety and Security Office, student activity spaces) 39 Olin Humanities Building and Auditorium 40 Olin Language Center 41 Ottaway Gatehouse for International Study (Institute for International Liberal Education Offices) 42 the parliament of reality by Olafur Eliasson 43 President’s House 44 Preston Hall (classrooms, Language and Thinking Program)

64 Map Legend

©Jackson Hill/Black Star: 40; Mark Kelly: 35; Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00: 23, 44,

46, 47; Karl Rabe: inside front cover, 8–9, 19, 24, 25, 26, 37, 49, inside back cover; Richard Renaldi: 29, 31, 33, ©Stockton Photo, Inc: 45; TLS Program: 38, 41 Printed by Meridian Printing, Rhode Island.

Printed on Mohawk Via, a 100 percent postconsumer recycled paper, with linseed oil ink using renewable wind energy. 100 percent recyclable.

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

africana studies american studies anthropology art history asian studies biology chemistry classical studies cognitive science computer science dance economics economics and finance environmental and urban studies film and electronic arts foreign, languages, cultures, and literatures french studies gender and sexuality studies german studies global and international studies historical studies www.bard.edu human rights irish and celtic studies italian studies jewish studies latin, american and iberian studies literature mathematics medieval studies middle eastern studies music photography physics philosophy political studies psychology religion russian and eurasian studies science, technology, and society sociology social policy spanish studies studio arts theater theology written arts victorian studies