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Curriculum

Photo by China Jorrin ’86
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Structure of the Curriculum
Photo by Chris Kayden

Structure of the Curriculum

The undergraduate curriculum creates a flexible system of courses that gives coherence, breadth, and depth to the four years of study and helps students become knowledgeable across academic boundaries and able to think critically within a discipline or mode of thought.

The pillars of the Bard education:

  • Language and Thinking Program
  • First-Year Seminar
  • Citizen Science
  • Moderation
  • Senior Project

Structure of the First Year

 
Language and Thinking Program. Photo by Chris Kayden

All first-year students participate in a common curriculum—the Language and Thinking Program, First-Year Seminar, Citizen Science—and take elective courses. All first-year students are assigned an academic adviser, with whom they meet at strategic points during each semester. Electives allow students to explore fields in which they know they are interested and to experiment with unfamiliar areas of study.

First-Year Curriculum

Program and Concentration Approach to Study
Photo by Sarah Wallock '19

Program and Concentration Approach to Study

A liberal arts education offers students both breadth and depth of learning. At Bard, the primary sources of breadth are the First-Year Seminar and the distribution requirements. The primary source of depth is the requirement that each student major in a stand-alone academic program, possibly in conjunction with a non-stand-alone­ field of study, or concentration, or with another program in a joint major.

Programs and Concentrations

Distribution Requirements
Photo by Pete Mauney ’93 MFA ’00

Distribution Requirements

The distribution requirements at Bard are a formal statement of the College's desire to achieve an equilibrium between breadth and depth, between communication across disciplinary boundaries and rigor within a mode of thought. Distribution introduces the student to a variety of intellectual and artistic experiences and fosters encounters with faculty members trained in a broad range of disciplines.

Distribution Requirements

The distribution requirements at Bard are a formal statement of the College’s desire to achieve an equilibrium between breadth and depth, between communication across disciplinary boundaries and rigor within a mode of thought. Distribution introduces the student to a variety of intellectual and artistic experiences and fosters encounters with faculty members trained in a broad range of disciplines.

Each student is required to take one course in each of the 10 categories listed below. Difference and Justice is the only category that can pair with another distribution requirement, making it possible for the 10 requirements to be fulfilled by completing nine courses. For example, some courses fulfill both the Historical Analysis and Difference and Justice requirements. So too, students have the option of fulfilling two distribution requirements with one Common Course. High school Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses may not be used to satisfy the requirements. Non-native speakers of English are exempted from the Foreign Languages and Literatures requirement.

Practicing Arts (PA): The Practicing Arts requirement emphasizes making or performing as an educational process. Courses develop students’ creative and imaginative faculties by focusing on a set of artistic skills or working methods. Fields of study include dance, theater, music performance and composition, film production, creative writing, and the visual arts. Students learn through experiential practices in order to cultivate the self as a primary agent of expression, cultural reflection, and creativity.

Analysis of Art (AA): The Analysis of Art requirement teaches students to interpret both the form and content of creative works, including visual and performing arts. The requirement further aims to help students understand how works of visual art, music, film, theater, and dance shape, or are shaped by, social, political, and historical circumstances and contexts.

Meaning, Being, and Value (MBV): This distribution area addresses how humans conceptualize the nature of knowledge and belief, construct systems of value, and interpret the nature of what is real. Such courses may also focus on questions pertaining to the human moral condition, human society and culture, and humanity’s place in the cosmos, or on the ways in which civilizations have dealt with those questions. All MBV courses pay special attention to analysis and interpretation of texts and practices, and seek to cultivate skills of argument development and the open-minded consideration of counterargument.

Historical Analysis (HA): A course focused on analysis of change over time in society or the distinctiveness of a past era, using written or physical evidence. The course should alert students to the differences and similarities between contemporary experience and past modes of life, and suggest that present categories of experience are shaped historically and can be analyzed by imaginatively investigating past institutions, texts, and worldviews.

Social Analysis (SA): Courses in this area approach the study of people and society at a variety of levels of analysis ranging from the individual to large social institutions and structures. Consideration is given to how people relate to and are shaped by social structures, divisions, and groups, such as politics, economics, family, and culture, as well as their past experiences and immediate situations. The goal of this requirement is to understand one’s own or others’ place within a wider social world, and thus these courses are central to discussions about citizenship, ethics, and the possibilities and limits of social change.

Laboratory Science (LS): In courses satisfying the LS requirement, students actively participate in data collection and analysis using technology and methodology appropriate to the particular field of study. Students develop analytical, modeling, and quantitative skills in the process of comparing theory and data, as well as an understanding of statistical and other uncertainties in the process of constructing and interpreting scientific evidence.

Mathematics and Computing (MC): Courses satisfying this requirement challenge students to model and reason about the world logically and quantitatively, explicitly grappling with ambiguity and precision. Students learn and practice discipline-specific techniques and, in doing so, represent and communicate ideas through mathematical arguments, computer programs, or data analysis.

Foreign Languages and Literatures (FL): The study of another language involves not just the process of internalizing new linguistic forms but also paying attention to the various cultural manifestations of that language. The goal of this requirement is to gain a critical appreciation of non-Anglophone languages and to question the assumption of an underlying uniformity across cultures and literary traditions. To satisfy this requirement, students may take any course in a foreign language (including American Sign Language), in a foreign literature, or in the theory and practice of translation.

Literary Analysis in English (LA): What distinguishes poetry, fiction, or drama from other kinds of discourse? These courses investigate the relationship between form and content, inviting students to explore not only the “what” or “why” of literary representation but also the “how.” The goal is to engage critically the multiple ways in which language shapes thought and makes meaning by considering the cultural, historical, and formal dimensions of literary texts.

Difference and Justice (DJ): Courses fulfilling this requirement have a primary focus on the study of difference in the context of larger social dynamics such as globalization, nationalism, and social justice. They address differences that may include but are not limited to ability/disability, age, body size, citizenship status, class, color, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, geography, nationality, political affiliation, religion, race, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background, and engage critically with issues of difference, diversity, inequality, and inclusivity.

Moderation

Moderation is undertaken in the second semester of the sophomore year.
Through this process students make the transition from the Lower College to the Upper College and establish their major in a program. Transfer students entering with the equivalent of two full years of credit (64 credits maximum) have two semesters in which to complete Moderation.

Moderation Requirements

Each student prepares two Moderation papers, the first assessing his or her curriculum, performance, and experience in the first two years, and the second identifying his or her goals and proposed study plan for the final two years. The student also submits a sample of work he or she has done in the program—for example, a long paper written for a course. The work is reviewed by a board of three faculty members, who evaluate the student's past performance, commitment, and preparedness in the field; make suggestions for the transition from the Lower to the Upper College; and approve, deny, or defer promotion of the student to the Upper College.

Moderation Guidelines

Senior Project

    
Senior Dance Concert.

   

The Senior Project is an original, individual, focused project growing out of the student's cumulative academic experiences. Students have great flexibility in choosing the form of their project. For example, a social studies project might be a research project, a close textual analysis, a report of findings from fieldwork, or a photographic essay, while a science project might be a report on original experiments, an analysis of published research findings, or a contribution to theory.

How the Senior Project Works

Preparation for the Senior Project begins in the junior year. Students consult with advisers, and pursue course work, tutorials, and seminars directed toward selecting a topic, choosing the form of the project, and becoming competent in the analytical and research methods required by the topic and form. Students in some programs design a Major Conference during their junior year, which may take the form of a seminar, tutorial, studio work, or field or laboratory work. One course each semester of the student’s final year is devoted to completing the Senior Project. The student submits the completed project to a board of three professors, who conduct a Senior Project Review. Written projects are filed in the library’s archives; select papers are available at Digital Commons, a collection of scholarly work generated by the Bard community.

Senior Project Guidelines

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