the dimensional application

A BEN NINGTON APPLI CATI ON

OF ALL DIMENSIONS

BE N N I N G TO N

A DIMENSIONAL APPLICATION demonstrates your readiness to meet the demands of a Bennington education, including:

Inventiveness The capacity to design an inquiry, to create and revise work to find, analyze, and use resources to apply your understanding to new situations and connect your work to broader contexts

And we look forward to receiving it.

Dexterity with words and with numbers, so as to communicate your ideas and to take in others’ Intrinsic motivation The wherewithal to continue when things are hard, when they don’t make any sense A tolerance for ambiguity A facility for collaboration Aesthetic sensibility and cultural sensitivity Self-direction, self-reflection, self-restraint From person to person, and throughout one’s lifetime, these capacities are on a continuum of development. They may be demonstrated in any number of ways—which is precisely the opportunity this application presents. We invite you to share with us a collection of your work that speaks to these capacities and creates a portrait of what you bring to the Bennington community. We invite you to be deeply thoughtful. We invite you to be bold. We invite you to bring your own dimension to the college application.

GUIDELINES Start your application by ((will there be a special Slate form for them where they can upload their materials and indicate whether they would like to be considered Early Action, Early Decision II, or Regular Decision?)).

While the choice of what to include in your application

By DECEMBER 1 (Early Action) or JANUARY 15 (Early Decision II/Regular

is yours, consider how you wish to demonstrate

Decision), upload your materials to ______________________________ or mail

your academic achievement over time, your writing

Bennington, VT 05201. Application fee: $60.

ability, your contribution to your classrooms and your community, and your capacity to make and revise work.

Portfolios, reflective and analytical writing, transcripts, letters of recommendation are all welcome.

them to Bennington College, Office of Admissions, One College Drive,

Candidates using this application will be invited to interview with a member of the admissions committee as a final step in the admissions process.

Applications will be assessed on the quality of the materials submitted; the caliber of thinking behind them; evidence of your readiness to advance a range of work at Bennington; and markers of the your capacity to contribute to the Bennington community in multiple dimensions.

Please contact your guidance counselor or a Bennington College admissions counselor at admissions@bennington.edu with questions or for more information.

THE REVIEW COMMITTEE An important facet of a Bennington education is how rigorously a student’s work is considered—in the

TRACY KATSKY BOOMER ’91 has served as executive producer for

classroom, as well as outside of the classroom. For

Deedle Dee Productions, senior vice president of development and original

Bennington, that is a distinctive mission. We are the only institution in the country that, since its founding,

programming for Nickelodeon, senior vice president of development for HBO Independent Productions, and senior vice president of comedy for Fox Broadcasting. She studied drama at Bennington. ((confirmed))

requires every student, every winter to complete

DEBORAH BORDA ’71 is president and chief executive officer of the Los

an internship or work experience as part of its

Angeles Philharmonic Association. In this role she oversaw the construction and

requirements for graduation. By putting a student’s

opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Frank Gehry. Prior to that,

work in front of faculty and alumni making work in the

in recent history to manage a major American symphony orchestra. She led

world, we are from the moment of application asking students to reflect on how their work can be relevant in broader contexts. Our reviewers include author and

she served as executive director of the New York Philharmonic, the first woman the planning for the orchestra’s 150th anniversary celebration, instituted live national radio broadcasts, and was one of the pioneers in establishing its own successful record label. ((confirmed)) BARRIE CASSILETH ’59 is founder and chief of the Integrative Medicine

MacArthur Genius Jonathan Lethem ’86, president of

Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York where she

the Los Angeles Philharmonic Deborah Borda ’71, and

holds the Laurance S. Rockefeller Chair in Integrative Medicine. She is the

neuroscientist and stem cell researcher Amar Sahay

author of numerous books on complementary therapies in cancer treatment.

’97. Please visit www.bennington.edu/________ for a

a doctorate in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.

complete list.

She earned a master’s degree in psychology from Albert Einstein University and

JUDITH DIMAIO ’72 is an architect and the dean of the school of architecture at New York Institute of Technology. In 2013 she was elected to the College of Fellows of the the American Institute of Architects; she has won the Rome Prize in Architecture and was awarded a Fulbright-Hayes Scholarship. DiMaio’s work addresses interdisciplinary collaboration in building design, technology, and history. She holds a master of architecture degree from Harvard University, a bachelor of architecture degree from Cornell University, and a bachelor of arts degree from Bennington College.

Medicine and the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, ANNA GASKELL’S ’92 photographs have been exhibited in museums and

Harvard Medical School. He is also principal faculty of the Harvard Stem Cell

galleries around the world including: Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami;

Institute of Harvard University. Through his research, he hopes to develop new

Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Castello di Rivoli, Italy; Burden Gallery,

therapeutic strategies for treating cognitive and mood impairments seen in

New York; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; Art Unlimited, Basel; Brooklyn

psychiatric disorders such as depression, post-traumatic disorder, and during

Museum. After Bennington, she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and

normal aging. He earned his doctorate in neuroscience from the Johns Hopkins

earned a master’s degree from Yale University.

University School of Medicine.

ALAN KORNBERG ’74 is a partner in the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton

BENJAMIN ANASTAS is the author of the novels An Underachiever’s Diary, The

& Garrison in New York, where he chairs the Bankruptcy and Corporate

Faithful Narrative of a Pastor’s Disappearance (FSG), which was a New York Times

Reorganization Department. After Bennington he studied at Brandeis University

notable book. His memoir Too Good to Be True was published in October of

and holds a JD from NYU Law School. He is chairman of the Bennington College

2012. Other work has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s, The New York Times

Board of Trustees.

Magazine, Bookforum, The Yale Review and The Best American Essays 2012. He teaches undergraduate literature at Bennington College and is also on the core

JESS KUTCH ’03 is a digital strategist and co-founder of Coworker.org, an

faculty of Bennington’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing program.

online platform for workers’ rights. Previously, she served as organizing director at Change.org, where she helped inspire thousands of people to launch and

ANDREW CENCINI has been a member of the development teams for Bing,

lead their own campaigns. She is a 2014 Echoing Green Fellow and a former

Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Exchange hosted services. He has consulted

Senior Fellow for the New Organizing Institute, where she regularly trains and

with and developed software for Rackable Systems (now SGI), ZT Systems,

coaches the next generation of digital strategists and changemakers.

Verdiem, and most recently, cloud computing startup Nebula. Cencini has filed several patent applications related to his work, written and delivered numerous

JONATHAN LETHEM ’86 is the author of seven novels including Fortress

technical articles and presentations, and released NChord, an open-source C#

of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, which was named Novel of the Year by

implementation of MIT’s Chord distributed hash table. Cencini is a co-founder

Esquire and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Salon Book

and board member of Technology for Public Good (t4pg), which provides

Award, as well as the Macallan Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger. He has

technology assistance to non-profit organizations. He is a computing faculty

also written two short story collections, a novella, and a collection of essays;

member at Bennington College.

edited The Vintage Book of Amnesia; guest-edited The Year’s Best Music Writing

NOAH COBURN is a socio-cultural anthropologist focusing on political

2002,;and was the founding fiction editor of Fence magazine. His writings have

structures and violence in the Middle East and Central Asia. He has published

appeared in the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, McSweeney’s, and many others. Lethem

two books, Bazaar Politics: Power and Pottery in an Afghan Market Town, which

is the Roy Edward Disney Professor in Creative Writing at Pomona College. He is

explains how various lineages of potters and other craftspeople in town

one of four Bennington alumni who have won the MacArthur Genius Prize.

worked together to maintain peace even while the insurgency grew rapidly

MIKE RUGNETTA ’06 is a Brooklyn-based composer, programmer, and

in neighboring districts and a book with Anna Larson Derailing Democracy in

performer. He is one third of the live, lecture-based performance-art trio

Afghanistan: Elections in an Unstable Political Landscape, which looks at how

MemeFactory; the writer and host of the Webby Award–winning online PBS

elections actually undermined democratic values in the country after the initial

series Idea Channel; a former host and producer for Know Your Meme; and

US invasion. Coburn has been a member of the Bennington College faculty

board member of AvantMedia, an arts organization that helps to realize

since 2012.

collaborative multimedia works.

LIZ DESCHENES is an artist and curator dedicated to expanding the dialogue AMAR SAHAY ’97 is assistant professor at the Center for Regenerative

around the medium of photography and its relationship to other artistic

practices. Her work has been included in the Whitney Biennial and a twoperson exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. She recently completed a new body of work for a solo exhibition at the Walker Art Center. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the University of Manchester, England, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Walker Art Center, the Hirschhorn, and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. She was a recent recipient of an Anonymous was a Woman award, the Rappaport Prize, and has been a recipient of an Aaron Siskind Foundation grant. Her work has been published in both Rethinking Photography and Concrete Photography. Deschenes has been a member of the Bennington College since 2006.

SUSIE IBARRA is known for her innovative style and cultural dialogue as a composer, improviser, percussionist, and humanitarian. Ibarra is a Yamaha, Vic Firth and Paiste drum artist and has recorded more than 40 recordings as a leader, collaborator, and soloist, including the works Wadada Leo Smith’s Ten Freedom Summers, John Zorn’s Cobra, Pauline Oliveros’ Dreaming Wide Awake, Dave Douglas and Trisha Brown’s El Trilogy. She was a 2010 TEDFellow, Asia 21 Delegate (2010), and recipient of a 2008 Asian Cultural Council/Rockefeller Fellowship that has supported her work in Philippine indigenous music and ecology and public service projects. In 2009 Ibarra co-founded Song of the Bird King to foster multi-media art and humanitarian and environmental work that contributes to preservation and innovation with indigenous communities and children’s education. Ibarra has been a member of the Bennington College faculty since 2012.

AMIE MCCLELLAN is a cell biologist known for her work on molecular chaperones. She uses the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system to explore questions of cellular protein folding and degradation. She was recently awarded an R15 AREA grant from the National Institutes of Health for her work on Hsp90. Her numerous first-author research and review articles have appeared in the scientific journals Cell, Nature Cell Biology, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Genetics, and Molecular Biology of the Cell, among others.

She is currently a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society for Cell Biology. McClellan joined the Bennington College faculty in 2006.

FAQ

WHY ARE YOU OFFERING AN ALTERNATIVE APPLICATION?

HOW DOES A STUDENT INITIATE AN APPLICATION?

One of the most challenging aspects of a Bennington education is making

((Lauren/Hung: Need an answer for this.))

smart, deliberate choices about how to use the resources available to you—your own included—in worlds where there are no givens. We wanted an application

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE AN APPLICANT SHOULD KEEP IN MIND?

that would mirror that in some way. At Bennington, students are evaluated both

Broadly speaking, the application should demonstrate a student’s readiness to

on the quality of thinking they bring to their choices and on the caliber of work

meet the demands of a Bennington education, including:

they produce. These are rich conditions for an education and we believe they can be powerfully embedded in the college application.

Inventiveness The capacity to design an inquiry, to create and revise work

WHO SHOULD USE THIS APPLICATION?

to find, analyze, and use resources

Bennington’s “Dimensional Application” is for students who want to do more

to apply your understanding to new situations and connect your work to

than respond to a set of given prompts. It is an opportunity for students to

broader contexts

individually curate an application for Bennington, to create a compelling

Dexterity with words and with numbers, so as to communicate your ideas and

portrait of their academic achievement, and to demonstrate, in their own way,

to take in others’

their potential to enrich, and be enriched by, the Bennington community.

Intrinsic motivation The wherewithal to continue when things are hard, when they don’t make any

WHAT SHOULD AN APPLICATION CONTAIN?

sense

Applications should demonstrate a student’s academic achievement over time,

A tolerance for ambiguity

writing ability, contributions to the classroom and community, and the capacity

A facility for collaboration

to make and revise work. While students may choose to do this in very different

Aesthetic sensibility and cultural sensitivity

ways, standard elements of a college application—portfolios, reflective and

Self-direction, self-reflection, self-restraint

analytical writing, transcripts, letters of recommendation—are all acceptable.

HOW CAN I LEARN MORE? HOW WILL AN APPLICATION BE EVALUATED? Applications will be evaluated based on the quality of the materials submitted; the caliber of thinking behind them; evidence of a student’s readiness to advance a range of work at Bennington; and markers of a student’s capacity to contribute to the Bennington community in multiple dimensions.

Candidates being considered for admission using the ‘Dimensional Application’ also will be interviewed by a member of the admissions committee.

CAN A STUDENT APPLY EARLY DECISION OR EARLY ACTION USING THIS APPLICATION? Yes, a student may use the “Dimensional Application” to apply in the following ways.

Early Action (December 1 deadline) Early Decision II (January 15 deadline) Regular Decision (January 15 deadline)

((Lauren/Hung: Where do you want to direct them? Call? Website?))

GETTING HERE How should you submit your application? We leave that entirely up to you.

JUST PRESS SEND

CONNECT IN

LET IT FLY

GENERATE WITH VOLUME

MAKE IT SING

SHOW UP

It was at Bennington in 1932 that the poet e.e. cummings gave his first public reading. The students welcomed cummings onto the stage by all standing and reciting his poem “Buffalo Bill’s” three times. Speechless, the poet produced a handkerchief from his breast pocket and waved it at the crowd. In a subsequent letter to Ezra Pound, cummings wrote of the Bennington students, “Que les demoiselles—of all dimensions and costumes…”

MAKE A POWERPOINT

GIVE DIRECTIONS

FIND A BETTER WAY