Bard Faculty

Recent News and Notes

• Professor Norman Manea Survived Nazis and Communists and Lived to Write About It
  
  

  04-07-2014: Norman Manea survived a Nazi concentration camp in Ukraine and a communist dictatorship in his native Romania. Through his experiences, he learned a language of subversion that sets apart his impressive body of work. (Daily Beast)
  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/05/norman-manea-survived-the-nazis-and-the-communists-and-lived-to-write-about-it.html
  
• Pomona College and Bard College Presidents Convene for Online Conversation on Liberal Arts
  
  

  04-01-2014: Bard College President Leon Botstein and Pomona College President David Oxtoby will discuss “The Future of Liberal Arts” in a live and interactive global conversation on Google+ Hangout, on Thursday, April 3, from 6:30 to 7 p.m. EST. Presidents Botstein and Oxtoby and will address the impacts of technology and globalization on higher education and dispel some of the myths about career opportunities for liberal arts students. Participants may submit questions in advance or during the conversation by joining the Google+ Hangout or via email. Use the hashtag #futureofliberalarts on Google+ and Twitter to join the conversation.
  http://www.pomona.edu/news/2014/03/26-oxtoby-botstein-conversation.aspx
  
• Bard Professor Daniel Mendelsohn Wins 2014 American Academy of Arts and Letters Literary Award
  
  

  03-10-2014: Daniel Mendelsohn, celebrated author, critic, and Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College since 2006, is one of 20 writers to receive a 2014 American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature. Mendelsohn has won the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award of $20,000, given to a writer whose work merits recognition for the quality of its prose style.
  http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2538
  

  Photo by Matt Mendelsohn
• Film Cocreated by Professor Ann Seaton to Appear in Whitney Biennial
  

  03-07-2014: Professor Ann Seaton, director of the Difference and Media Project and Multicultural Affairs at Bard, will appear in the Whitney Biennial as a member of the How Do You Say Yam in African Collective. The collective has produced the 53-minute digital film Good Stock on the Dimension Floor: An Opera, about how race haunts black identity, which will be screened at the Biennial in March and May. Professor Seaton's contribution to the film includes writing and conceptualizing. The collective consists of writers, artists, dancers, theorists, architects, painters, filmmakers, actors, and poets. Many members of the collective have visited Bard's Difference and Media Project and participated in campus events. Visit the collective's website or read about the project in the New York Times.
  
• Bard President Leon Botstein: SAT Is Part Hoax, Part Fraud
  
  

  03-07-2014: President Botstein says that the recent updates to the SAT are too little, too late. The changes announced by the College Board reflect its competition with the ACT, he adds, rather than a thoughtful attempt at reform. "The SAT needs to be abandoned and replaced," he writes. "The SAT has a status as a reliable measure of college readiness it does not deserve. ... The nation actually needs fewer such exam schemes; they damage the high school curriculum and terrify both students and parents." (Time)
  http://time.com/15199/college-president-sat-is-part-hoax-and-part-fraud/
  

  Photo by Steve J. Sherman
• Biologist Bruce Robertson's Research Shows There's More to Biofuel Production Than Yield
  
  

  01-13-2014: Biology faculty member Bruce Robertson has coauthored a paper showing that perennial grasses can effectively be used as biomass crops while preserving species and ecosystem services. While corn leads biomass crops by yield, that high production comes at a high price for the environment. This research is part of Professor Robertson's ongoing collaboration with the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at Michigan State University.
  
  Read the article in PNAS.
  
  Learn more about the story from the National Science Foundation.
  
• Interview: Bard President Leon Botstein on the New Bard Entrance Examination
  

  11-17-2013: President Botstein talks about Bard's fresh look at college admissions, the evolving job market, and the future of higher education in this Huffington Post interview. "Learning, like love, death and eating, are fundamental human activities," says President Botstein. "It's at the core of human existence and its character has a resilience of continuity that is part of what makes up human nature."
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/c-m-rubin/leon-botstein_b_4289107.html
  

  Photo by Steve J. Sherman