Bard, A Place to Think - Master of Arts in Teaching
Bard: Rethinking School
Bard continues to build upon its pioneering origins to broaden and deepen its strengths across all academic disciplines. A highly selective liberal arts college, Bard has grown considerably in recent years while maintaining the essential elements of small classes and close interaction between students and faculty.
Bard College has a longstanding interest in initiating and supporting programs that encourage teachers and students to think about education in new ways, offering various innovative educational initiatives in effort to impact social change.
BPI runs college inside two long-term, maximum-security prisons and two transitional medium-security prisons. Between these four prison campuses the Initiative now enrolls over 100 incarcerated students, women and men, fulltime in a rigorous and diverse liberal arts curriculum, offering both associate and bachelor degrees.The existence of the Bard Prison Initiative also has a profound effect on the intellectual life of the Bard College campus. Each week, roughly forty campus students visit regional prisons as volunteers. They facilitate a wide variety of pre-college opportunities from GED mentoring to courses in theology and workshops in the arts. These on-campus students now enroll in a range of classes related to their experiences with BPI. A number of Bard/BPI alumni have gone on to organize similar volunteer programs across the country. The Initiative draws on increasing student volunteerism and integrates it with the study of America's social and civic institutions. More Info
Founded at Bard in 1982, the nationally recognized Institute for Writing and Thinking (IWT) is based on an approach to learning that recognizes the role of language in the development of thinking. Modeled on the successful Workshop in Language and Thinking, which is attended by all of Bard's entering undergraduate students, the IWT offers training for teachers of all grade levels. It also consults with public and private secondary schools. Thousands of teachers have participated in IWT workshops and conferences that focus on how writing, as an educational technology, facilitates individual learning in the classroom and challenges conventional ideas about learning and teaching.More Info
In 2000 Bard College and The Rockefeller University in New York City established a collaborative program in science education. Rockefeller offers Bard students a course on human disease each fall semester and reserves places for them in its Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows program, which allows college students to work in Rockefeller research laboratories. Bard faculty may obtain adjunct status at Rockefeller, which enables them to participate in research projects in the university's laboratories. More Info
Established in 1966 and a unit of Bard College since 1979, Simon's Rock is the nation's only four-year college of the liberal arts and sciences that is designed to serve younger students. It was founded on the idea that many bright, highly motivated people are ready to undertake serious college work at the age of 15 or 16. Most students enter Simon's Rock after completing the 10th or 11th grade and pursue a program of study leading to the associate of arts (A.A.) degree in two years and the bachelor of arts (B.A.) degree in four. More Info
In 2001 Bard College and the New York City Board of Education created Bard High School Early College. This alternative to traditional public high school offers motivated young people an opportunity to embark on serious college work at age 16. Admission is based on a transcript review, teacher recommendation, writing and mathematics assessment, and interview. After four years BHSEC students progress from ninth grade through the first two years of college, graduating with an associate in arts (A.A.) degree. The school, which is located in Manhattan, is open to all New York City residents. It offers a core curriculum in general education, supplemented by electives. After successful completion of the four-year program, students are eligible to transfer as juniors to colleges and universities. More Info
Bard's New Orleans Initiative offers two unique academic programs: Bard Urban Studies and Bard Early College in New Orleans. Bard Urban Studies is a rigorous and highly-selective summer program pairing coursework in urban policy and geography with internships in a range of neighborhood-based recovery organizations. Through the Bard Early College in New Orleans program, students in under-resourced New Orleans public schools have an opportunity to participate in credit-bearing courses in the sciences and humanities, building bridges to all forms of higher education. More Info
Smolny College is a joint enterprise of Bard College and St. Petersburg State University and is Russia's first liberal arts college. Founded in 1997, it is a young college created by two institutions that have long and venerable histories. Smolny College seeks to contribute to the democratization of Russian higher education and, in doing so, to serve as a model for a new kind of international education. More Info
The Clemente Course provides college level instruction in the humanities, with the award of college credits, to economically and educationally disadvantaged individuals at no cost and in an accessible and welcoming community setting. Participants study four disciplines: literature, art history, moral philosophy, and American history. Like their more affluent contemporaries, students explore great works of fiction, poetry, drama, painting, sculpture, architecture, and philosophy, while learning also about the events and ideals that define America as a nation. The course also offers instruction in writing and critical thinking, while the seminar style of the classes and dialectical investigation encourage an appreciation for reasoned dialogue. More Info