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• Computer Scientist Valerie Barr Quoted in the Atlantic
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  Computer Scientist Valerie Barr Quoted in the Atlantic

  

  Valerie Barr, Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science.
  

  Valerie Barr, Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Bard College, was quoted in an Atlantic article about the importance of studying computer science in the age of AI. The article examines how AI may be changing the landscape of coding, but does not negate the need for computer scientists—in fact, the proliferation of AI code may require more professionals who have a deep understanding of computer systems. “I’m back to how I taught in the 1980s, when we didn’t have laptops and there was one computer lab for the whole campus,” said Barr. She told the Atlantic that she now assigns coursework largely on paper in her introductory class, and believes that students who learn coding fundamentals the old fashioned way will come out ahead. “You cannot make effective use of AI tools if you don’t know something about what you’re asking the tools to do.”
  
  The Computer Science Program at Bard focuses on the fundamental ideas of computer science and introduces students to multiple programming languages and paradigms, covering theoretical, applied, and systems-oriented topics. Most courses include hands-on projects so that students can learn by building, and by participating in research projects in laboratories devoted to cognition, computational biology, robotics, and symbolic computation.
  

  Read More in the Atlantic
  

  
  Post Date: 06-09-2026
  
• Bard College Professor Jenny Xie Selected for 2026 Howard Foundation Fellowship
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  Bard College Professor Jenny Xie Selected for 2026 Howard Foundation Fellowship

  

  Jenny Xie, assistant professor of written arts.
  

  Jenny Xie, assistant professor of written arts at Bard College, has been announced as a recipient of a Howard Foundation Fellowship for 2026-27. Xie’s fellowship in the category of Poetry, conferred by the George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation, is one of 14 fellowships awarded by the foundation this year, which support independent creative and scholarly work on major projects by early mid-career individuals who have demonstrated potential to be future leaders in their fields.
  
  During her fellowship, Xie will receive $40,000 in unrestricted funds to devote her time to researching, developing, and writing her third poetry collection, Dead Time, which delves into forms of directionless time, or time untroubled by plot and by imperatives of action. Xie is the author of two other collections of poetry. Eye Level (2018) was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the recipient of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets and the Holmes National Poetry Prize from Princeton University. The Rupture Tense (2022) was a finalist for the National Book Award and the CLMP Firecracker Award, and a recipient of the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Xie has also been supported by fellowships and grants from Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Kundiman, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Vilcek Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation.
  
  The Howard Foundation is an independent agency administered at Brown University. Established in 1954, it awards annual, unrestricted fellowships to promising individuals in selected artistic and academic fields. Past fellows have authored bestsellers, directed Oscar nominated feature-length films, and earned some of the world’s most prestigious honors including Pulitzer Prizes, the Rome Prize, and the Whiting Award. For more information, visit howard-foundation.brown.edu.
  
  Post Date: 06-04-2026
  
• President Botstein Awarded Honorary Degree and Bard Medal
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  President Botstein Awarded Honorary Degree and Bard Medal

  

  President Leon Botstein at Bard College’s 166th Commencement. Photo by Samuel Stuart Hollenshead
  

  At Bard College’s 166th Commencement, President Leon Botstein, who became the College’s 14th president in 1975, was awarded an honorary degree and Bard Medal. Botstein received an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law in recognition of his 51 years of transformative leadership. Botstein was also presented with the Bard Medal, which honors individuals whose efforts on behalf of Bard and whose achievements have significantly advanced the welfare of the College. 
  
  The numerous Bard College initiatives designed and founded under his leadership encompass a wide range of educational work ranging from local community programs to international efforts with global impact. Bard High School Early Colleges have enlarged the opportunities available to talented high school students in under-resourced communities across the country. The Bard Prison Initiative has made a liberal arts education available to incarcerated learners hungry for meaning and hope in their lives. Bard’s renowned music programs, its internationally recognized Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, and its Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture offer unparalleled interdisciplinary education in the arts. Bard College Berlin, Al-Quds Bard College, and Bard’s other international programs offer an education across the world to students from places where access to a liberal arts education is otherwise unavailable or suppressed.
  
  “Starting decades ago, with limited resources, President Botstein led Bard toward all these achievements,” states the citation for Botstein’s Doctor of Civil Law honorary degree. “Recently, aided by a generous match from the Open Society Foundations, he completed a boldly ambitious endowment campaign that goes a long way toward securing Bard’s future.” The citation for Botstein’s Bard College Award stated: “Over fifty-one years as president, Botstein has transformed Bard College into the extraordinary institution that it is today, and his work and leadership have defined Bard’s distinct and important mission.”
  
  Post Date: 06-02-2026
  
• Bard Musician Franz Nicolay Testifies in Congress
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  Bard Musician Franz Nicolay Testifies in Congress

  

  Franz Nicolay, visiting instructor of music.
  

  Franz Nicolay, visiting instructor of music at Bard College, spoke at a Congressional hearing about a Live Nation/Ticketmaster antitrust case, reported Chronogram. The case concerned the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster which has resulted in a monopoly on event ticket sales in the United States. “Live music hasn’t been a healthy competitive market,” said Nicolay during the hearing. “Instead, a vertically integrated corporation that controls venues and tour promotion and ticketing and artist management, to the almost total control of many music markets, is, to a comical degree, the epitome of the kind of monopolistic power that antitrust law was created to address.”
  
  “We, as artists, simply don’t have the range of city-to-city, venue-to-venue choices that would constitute a healthy ecosystem,” Nicolay continued. “It’s a problem of affordability, in an economic climate which, through drastically increasing gas prices, airfare, postage and international shipping fees for merchandise, and hardening borders, is making the touring on which our livings depend increasingly unaffordable for musicians. And that increased overhead… has a corresponding effect on affordability and access for fans.”
  
  The Music Program, one of the largest programs on Bard’s campus, provides a wide range of musical concentrations, from classical composition and performance to jazz, electronic music, musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory. 
  
  Read more in Chronogram
  
  Further Reading in Rural Intelligence
   
  

  Watch the Congressional Hearing
  

  
  Post Date: 06-02-2026
  
• Bard Artist in Residence Jonathan VanDyke MFA ’05 Awarded a Grant from the Gottlieb Foundation
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  Bard Artist in Residence Jonathan VanDyke MFA ’05 Awarded a Grant from the Gottlieb Foundation

  

  Jonathan VanDyke MFA ’05, artist in residence. Photo by Shawn Poynter
  

  Jonathan VanDyke MFA ’05, artist in residence at Bard College, was awarded a Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant, a competitive arts grant for artists who have worked in their field for at least 20 years. The grant, which aims to “recognize and support the serious, fully-committed artist,” gives individuals $25,000 to fund their creative projects. VanDyke’s portfolio began in 2005, while he was pursuing an MFA at Bard focusing on painting and sculpture. He has presented major projects at The Museum of Art of Ravenna, The Columbus Museum, The Power Plant, The AKG Buffalo Art Museum, and many other institutions worldwide. “This award is especially meaningful for me in relation to Bard: to apply for this award you must submit 20 years of studio work, and so the first images in my portfolio came from my Bard MFA thesis exhibition, while the last images documented work I’ve made since joining the Bard faculty a few years ago,” VanDyke said.
  
  VanDyke teaches in the Studio Arts Program at Bard, which provides a breadth of expanded offerings while retaining a strong core of courses that provide a firm grounding in basic techniques and principles, in an era when much contemporary art cannot be contained within the traditional categories and technology is transforming the production
  
  Post Date: 06-01-2026
  
• Hal Haggard's Research on Black Holes Featured on PBS Space Time
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  Hal Haggard's Research on Black Holes Featured on PBS Space Time

  

  Hal Haggard, associate professor of physics.
  

  Research by Associate Professor of Physics Hal Haggard was featured on Matt O’Dowd’s PBS Space Time, an informational show that introduces viewers to concepts in astrophysics. The episode focused on an idea Haggard helped pioneer about black holes: that instead of becoming singularities at the end of their lifetime, as was previously thought, they may instead lead into cores of energy, also known as “white holes.” Haggard’s research on these structures, also known as Planck stars, and black-to-white hole tunneling was discussed in the context of physicists’ anxieties around black holes and how the perception of them has changed in previous decades. The Planck star’s existence is “one of our final hopes,” O’Dowd says. “Let’s hope they’re real, for physics’ sake.”
  
  Haggard teaches in Bard’s Physics Program, which is dedicated to helping students at all levels gain a better understanding of the universe and how it works.
  

  Watch the Episode
  

  
  Post Date: 06-01-2026