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