Smolny Commencement The Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences of St. Petersburg State University (Smolny College) conferred 61 dual B.A. degrees from Bard and St. Petersburg State University during its 2013 commencement, as well as 34 M.A. degrees. Speakers at the June 22 ceremony, held in the recently restored Bobrinskiy Palace, where Smolny’s offices and classrooms are housed, included historian Patricia Graham, former dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and former director of the National Institute of Education; Bard President Leon Botstein; Bard Vice President and Dean for International Affairs and Civic Engagement Jonathan Becker; Aleksei Kudrin, dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University; and Susan Gillespie, Bard’s vice president for special global initiatives. After commencement, members of the administration and faculty traveled to Malye Karely, a village outside of Arkhangelsk in Northwest Russia, for a faculty retreat. Sessions featured a talk by Kudrin, former finance minister of the Russian Federation, on the Russian economy.
Smolny College 2013 commencement. photo Courtesy of Smolny College
AUCA Awards Degrees at New Building
Ben Bernanke. photo Lisa Vollmer
Bernanke Addresses Simon’s Rock Graduates Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, commencement speaker at Bard College at Simon’s Rock: The Early College, told his audience of 124 graduates that during their working lives, they would have to reinvent themselves many times. “Success and satisfaction will not come from mastering a fixed body of knowledge, but from constant adaptation and creativity in a rapidly changing world,” he said. “Engaging with and applying new technologies will be a crucial part of that adaptation.” Pessimists forecasting that the economy would not reap sizable benefits from the computer revolution were likely to be proven wrong, he said. The Fed chairman told the new graduates at the May 18 ceremony that the best way to succeed is to keep learning. Bernanke has strong ties to education and to Simon’s Rock. He is the father of Joel Bernanke ’06, fatherin-law of Elise Kent ’04, and husband of Anna Bernanke, a member of the Simon’s Rock Board of Overseers. The graduating class included 52 B.A. and 72 associate in arts degree recipients. The ceremony also included the presentation of an honorary bachelor’s degree to Emily H. Fisher, who had served since 1992 as chairman of Simon’s Rock’s Board of Overseers and stepped down this year. The tribute constituted only the second honorary degree in the school’s almost 60-year history. Fisher continues as vice chair of the Bard College Board of Trustees.
The American University of Central Asia (AUCA) in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, conferred a total of 230 degrees at a ceremony held in the shell of its new main academic building—the first private structure in Central Asia to utilize geothermal heating and cooling. Keynote speaker at the June 1 event was William H. Newton-Smith, chair of the AUCA board of trustees, chair of the board of the Open Society Foundation–London, and a former professor of philosophy at Balliol College, University of Oxford. Other speakers included Pamela L. Spratlen, U.S. ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic, and AUCA President Andrew B. Wachtel. Of the graduates, 153 received dual degrees—a B.A. from Bard and diploma from the Kyrgyz Ministry of Information—and 77 received Kyrgyz diplomas. Students were awarded degrees in American studies, anthropology, economics, European studies, international and comparative politics, journalism and mass communications, psychology, sociology, and software engineering. The new building is designed to save the university 90 percent of its estimated energy use, and create a model for other ecological construction projects in the region. Along with another new structure, the size of the current campus will almost triple, allowing AUCA to offer initiatives such as the Environmental Management and Sustainable Development Program, scheduled to open in 2014, and benefit from a new science laboratory, sponsored by Kumtor Operating Company, a gold and silver mining company, being built for 2014–15.
AUCA commencement. photo Mujdat Karadayi
32 on and off campus