Christopher Herring '08

Christopher Herring, accepted upon graduation into the prestigious New York City Urban Fellows Program, began Bard thinking that he would focus on film. But he was drawn to examine social problems after spending time in London, where he lived and worked among the homeless. “I participated in a unique communal society in London, called Simon’s Community, that blurs the lines between the volunteers and the people they serve,” he says. “While they were living with us, the homeless members would take part in chores and service work, and make decisions and meals. It was very much a shared social mechanism of help.”

The experience changed him profoundly and led him to major in economics, flavored with a strong slice of sociology.” The drive to take action took him from McLean, Virginia, “the enclave-like suburbia where I grew up,” to New Orleans, where he researched his Senior Project. During his involvement in the city’s post–Katrina recovery, Herring began to examine the economic “mutations” that emerged after the hurricane: it was “a case study in the public financing of recovery aid,” and in how radical free-market theories of public aid are “forming the new geography of New Orleans.” This fellowship entails learning about urban policy planning through hands-on research and training in New York City agencies.

On campus, Herring was involved in the Bard Environmental Resources Department and its organization of the Focus the Nation symposium on global climate solutions. He also served on education policy committees that evaluate tenure for College professors. “I think that’s a really important process, and it’s great that at Bard, students are given such an opportunity to have their word heard,” he says.