News & Events

What are Bardians doing over the summer? Lauren Blaxter '13, a human rights major, is working with the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, where she will use her language skills to work on research projects, conferences, and events. Blaxter says, "Dialogue and discourse aid the peace process by facilitating understanding in a conflict where political rhetoric commonly stops dialogue rather than creating it." Learn more about our Community Action Award winners on the Civic Engagement blog:
http://blogs.bard.edu/civicengagement/

Aung San Suu Kyi accepted her Nobel Peace Prize this weekend, 21 years after it was awarded. For over two decades since her landslide victory in what was then Burma and is now Myanmar, Suu Kyi has stood fast in her opposition to the military junta ruling her country. The junta has sought to make her disappear, suppress any mention of her, and violently repress all protest and dissent.
http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=6268

Bard student John Hu teams up for 10,000-mile trek to raise money for Children's Hospital of Orange County.
http://www.konnectmagazine.com/2012/06/the-mongol-ralley-charity-our-10000-mile-journey-from-london-england-to-mongolia/#.T9tfwb_gLJw

This is an exciting week at the Hannah Arendt Center, which is in the middle of its first annual Arendt Center Working Group Conference. The gathering was conceived to bring together humanities scholars from around the world to read, discuss, and think about one particular book in detail. This year's volume is the recently published Denktagebuch (or "book of thoughts") by Hannah Arendt.
http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=6211

Professor Jain will receive $35,000 supporting his research on new ways to fight bacterial infections. Bard students Coral Liu, Sheneil Black, and Weiqing Wang work with Jain on this project.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2309

This week we shine our summer project spotlight on Katherine Kenney '13. This Asian studies major is returning home to Connecticut to work with the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness (CCEH). She will conduct research and develop advocacy materials on homelessness for both the state government and the public. Read more about our summer Community Action Award Winners on the Civic Engagement blog.
http://blogs.bard.edu/civicengagement/

"With greater knowledge, an individual will have greater opportunities to live and lead a better life. I now know I have responsibilities in my community," says one BPI grad. "I must stay focused and persevere because I'm needed out there to help steer our young away from a life of crime, drug use, gang banging, and waking up in jail." Read the full article in the Bardian:
http://issuu.com/ktrabucco/docs/2012_spring_bardian?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222

Bard CEP student Sonia Slavinski works with farmers in Ghana to establish village savings and loans groups.
http://www.bard.edu/cep/blog/?p=2250

The New Yorker staff writer and author of the award-winning book Denialism will be teaching the course "Global Politics of Food" in the fall.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2308

This summer, Martha Orlet '15 and Cassandra Settman '13 are both interning with Independent Thought and Social Action in India (ITSA), an organization started by a BHSEC-Manhattan alumna. ITSA participants run writing workshops for teens. Orlet says "I believe I will gain very unique and precious insight into teaching . . . while gaining knowledge of Indian culture and experience . . . new ways of living, socializing, and learning."
http://blogs.bard.edu/civicengagement/2012/05/14/community-action-award-winners/

The Bard Prison Initiative celebrated its ninth commencement on June 3 at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, where President Botstein conferred AA degrees to 18 graduating students. Congratulations, everyone! For more news visit the BPI website.
http://bpi.bard.edu/

What if filmmakers all over the planet documented the same day? Follow the link below to view a trailer for the film One Day on Earth, coproduced by Daniel Lichtblau '03, opening today in New York City.
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/onedayonearth/

Bard CEP student John Rohrback CEP/MI '13 blogs on bringing electricity to Ñaupe, Perú as a Peace Corps volunteer.
http://www.bard.edu/cep/blog/?p=2295

What are Bard students up to this summer? Our Community Action Award winners are making a difference with internships and research projects. Leela Khanna '15, a political studies and human rights major, is interning at the Center for Social Research (CSR), a women's rights NGO in New Delhi. "Just knowing that my work has a potential to impact many lives and help [people] make important decisions will be a really rewarding experience," she says.
http://blogs.bard.edu/civicengagement/

What would it take to make faster computers and more efficient solar panels? Jesse Kohl '07 is looking for answers at the crossroads of nanotechnology and clean energy.
http://posterhall.org/igert2012/posters/286

These Bard alumni created a film that "stands on its own as a meditation on the uncomfortable truths, and unexpected joys, of creative collaboration." The comedy troupe Olde English—comprised of Caleb Bark '12, Raphael Bob-Waksburg '06, Joel Clark '05, Adam Conover '04, Ben Popik '05, and Dave Segal '05—premiered their collaborative film The Exquisite Corpse at the Dances With Films Festival in Hollywood.
http://turnstylenews.com/2012/05/30/comedians-olde-english-take-surreal-challenge-in-the-exquisite-corpse-project/

The college has been awarded $800,000 from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for science education, building on the success of the Citizen Science Program.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2305

Bard won the food composting division of the national Recyclemania contest, beating Middlebury and Princeton. The college has also signed a contract to eliminate most delivered water bottles on campus and replace them with inline filtration.

"Throughout history, humankind has made things—for survival and daily life, for celebration and ritual. Things of beauty, and things of power. These objects speak to us of creativity and ingenuity, needs and concerns, values and tastes. At the Bard Graduate Center, this evidence of human effort to give shape and meaning to the world provides a lens through which we can view larger cultural and historical questions, to better understand and appreciate our shared heritage."
http://vimeo.com/42559186

Opus 40, the six-acre environmental sculpture park of the late Bard professor and alum Harvey Fite '30, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the central monolith sculpture tomorrow.
http://www.hudsonvalleyalmanacweekly.com/2012/05/17/opus-40-celebrates-monoliths-50th-anniversary-this-saturday/

Bard College junior Perry Scheetz capped an amazing spring with a fourth-place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the ECAC Championships on Thursday. It marked the fourth time this spring that Scheetz broke her own school record in the event. She also broke the school record in the 5,000 meters this spring.
http://www.bardathletics.com/news/2012/5/18/WTRACK_0518120624.aspx

Hazel Gurland '99 made her debut as a television producer with two episodes of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., featuring John Legend and Michelle Rodriguez.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/video/

The Emmy Award–winning actor Peter Dinklage of HBO's Game of Thrones will play Toinette in Bard SummerScape's The Imaginary Invalid, as part of an all-male cast directed by Erica Schmidt.
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Peter-Dinklage-to-Appear-as-Toinette-in-The-Imaginary-Invalid.html?soid=1107007864236&aid=slx97CIu7mU

"Bard is one of the few places where you can really see that level of commitment. The amount of rehearsal time and resources that are dedicated to the chorus is really special and unique and certainly keeps me coming back for more." —Thaddeus Strassberger
http://fishercenter.bard.edu/summerscape/2012/opera/videos/

Bard Math Circle's last event of the year took place last weekend, and found Bard math students and local schoolchildren drawing tessellations with sidewalk chalk at the Kingston Library.
http://bardmathcircle.blogspot.com/2012/05/chalk-walk-and-tessellations-at.html

Nearly 40 students will receive Bard's Community Action Awards for internships, community projects, and research. The newly created awards fund student efforts to engage with communities locally, nationally, and internationally.
http://blogs.bard.edu/civicengagement/2012/05/14/community-action-award-winners/

Mesmerists and hoarders. Conspiracy theorists and martyrs. Fetishists and addicts. Saints and sinners. Riveted explores the idea of obsession, the world of fixation, the idée fixe.
http://www.conjunctions.com/addit.htm

Students received awards in categories ranging from sportsmanship and civic engagement to achievement as scholars and team leaders.
http://www.bardathletics.com/news/2012/5/9/GEN_0509125214.aspx

Bard College has been awarded an exploration grant of $50,000 from the Henry Luce Foundation through the Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE) for the project Slow Water: Rivers and Community in Asia.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2292

This season, as part of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company Residency, Company members will teach students in the Bard Dance Program and perform with them in new and developing works.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2291

Steven Tatum's Senior Project explores the crisis in education, in the spirit of Hannah Arendt. "I did research in [Arendt's] personal library, read her letters, spoke with people who knew her, and sat by her grave. ... These experiences have done more than add personal touches to my research; they resonate with the content of this project in the sense that they have lead me to a deeper awareness of and appreciation for the world that I am entering."
http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=5575

Bard alumnus Adam Yauch '86 has passed away at the age of 47 after a battle with cancer. The Bard community mourns this loss. We are proud to have honored Adam last year at Commencement with the Kellogg Award in the arts.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/beastie-boys-co-founder-adam-yauch-dead-at-48-20120504

Reviving important but neglected operas is one of the ways the Bard SummerScape festival paints a faithfully-nuanced portrait of each past age, and this year’s exploration of “Saint-Saëns and His World” is no exception.
http://www.21cmediagroup.com/mediacenter/newsitem.php?i=936

She's getting faster. For the fourth consecutive weekend, Bard junior Perry Scheetz broke a school track and field record. Four weeks ago, it was in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Millersville Metrics. Three weeks ago it was in the 5,000 meters at Vassar's Spring Invitational. Last week it was again in the steeplechase, as she ran away with the Liberty League Championship in the event.
http://www.bardathletics.com/news/2012/4/28/GEN_0428124631.aspx

Evan Spigelman '09 took home the Big Easy Award for Best Actor in a Musical for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Anna Henschel '09 was nominated for Best Director for the production at the Bard Alumni/ae-run Skin Horse Theater.
http://louisianaentertainment.gov/index.php/live/news/latest-news/the-big-easy-theater-awards/

"I always find it momentarily surprising that literary nonfiction is treated as something new and strange. I guess I tend to imagine fiction and nonfiction as fraternal twins, born almost at the same instant, apparently distinct but each unimaginable without the other. They perform complementary functions, and fact and invention each require the existence of the other, perhaps off to the side and perhaps not, to achieve their particular credibility."
http://www.bard.edu/iwt/conferences/descriptions/?listing_id=4284007

Professor Julia Rosenbaum has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute Fellowship to study the visual culture of the American Civil War. The NEH Institute takes place this summer in New York City and involves work with a team of scholars, study of materials at significant museum and archival collections, and new media lab workshops.
http://networkedblogs.com/wT2CM

An excerpt from faculty member and author Norman Manea's novel The Black Envelope is now available on the Yale Books blog.
http://yalebooks.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/bucharest-spring-extract-from-the-black-envelope-by-norman-manea-part-1/

The Bard College Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) hosted a Special Olympics day on Sunday, with guests from Astor Services for Children & Families in Rhinebeck and the Anderson Center for Autism in Staatsburg.
http://www.bardathletics.com/news/2012/4/22/GEN_0422123412.aspx?path=general

Sophomores Lee Gensler and Armaan Alkazi of the Bard Debate Union cleared as the 29th seed out of over 150 teams at the prestigious United States Universities National Championships at Willamette University in Oregon. The team faced the top teams from all over the country, and they ended the tournament tied for 17th place and in the top 20 percent in the nation. Lee and Armaan are the first Bard debaters to progress to finals at a Nationals tournament in Worlds British Parliamentary style debate. Congratulations to Lee and Armaan for making Bard history!
http://debate.bard.edu/?page_id=459

Some of the world’s most accomplished leaders from academia, business, public affairs, the humanities, and the arts have been elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among those elected this year is Daniel Mendelsohn, author, critic, and the Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2280

We have more exciting postgraduate fellowship news: Seniors Sadaf Hasan and Rachel Van Horn, and alums Duron Jackson MFA '11 and Maya Perlmann '11 have all been awarded Fulbright Fellowships. Congratulations!

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges will explore the Occupy movement and the future of acts of resistance within the larger context of his most recent book, The Death of the Liberal Class.
http://www.bard.edu/news/calendar/popup.php?eid=116164&date=1334203200

Congratulations to Sculpture cochair Kenji Fujita, recipient of a 2012 Individual Support Grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation!

The Hannah Arendt Center and the Written Arts Program at Bard College present a one-day conference exploring the state of the individual in the landscape of Cuba and its diaspora on Wednesday, April 18, from 12 to 8 p.m. All events take place in the Bertelsmann Campus Center and are open to the public; no reservations are necessary.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2267

New partnership will change landscape of music education and performance in the United States.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2275

Bard College junior Perry Scheetz shattered her own school record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase on Saturday when she ran away from the field at the Millersville Metrics, hosted by Millersville University.
http://www.bardathletics.com/news/2012/4/8/WTRACK_0408123809.aspx

The Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College hosts a three-day conference that explores the question: Can War Be Just? The event aims to compare and contrast not only positions on the theory of the “just war,” but also to explore different methods of learning and thinking across disciplines.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2262

On March 29, 2012, the Bard Graduate Center received a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Start-Up program in Digital Humanities. One of 22 grants awarded nationally, the funding will initiate development of an annotated digital edition of Franz Boas's 1897 text, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians.
http://www.bgc.bard.edu/about/bgc-press-room/bgc-receives-neh.html

Four policy debaters (John Jeworski, Sam Jaffe-Goldstein, Anna Daniszewski, and Max Taylor-Milner) traveled with coach Ruth Zisman and student coach Michael Luxemburg to CEDA Nationals in Norman, Oklahoma this past weekend. The Bard Debate Union had an excellent showing for its first tournament back on the national policy debate circuit. Congratulations to the entire Bard policy debate team for getting policy debate started at Bard again this year after a three-year hiatus.
http://debate.bard.edu/?p=1296