Bard’s extraordinary faculty are dedicated to the philosophy of teaching. Today and throughout Bard’s history, members of the faculty have effected change in medicine, the arts and letters, international affairs, journalism, scientific research, and education, among other endeavors. These distinguished scholars are advisers as well as instructors: Bard has no graduate teaching assistants. And the average class size of 16 in the Lower College and 12 in the Upper College allows for intimate discussions and one-on-one interaction.
David Bloom ’13 MM ’15. Photo by Bruce Kung
“What brought me to Bard, in a word, was the faculty.”
“To work with Joan Tower, George Tsontakis, and James Bagwell was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. I had long followed and admired their work, and then I found out that each of them taught here. It’s easy for musicians to focus only on music, whereas I wanted to have a broader education that would prepare me for a world that requires a more well-rounded base of knowledge and experience.”
—David Bloom ’13 MM ’15
—David Bloom ’13 MM ’15
Faculty News
Bard Acting President Jonathan Becker Speaks About Student Voting Rights on the SpeechMatters Podcast
"I think if you believe in civic participation, then you believe in young people voting.”
Bard Acting President Jonathan Becker Speaks About Student Voting Rights on the SpeechMatters Podcast
Bard College Acting President Jonathan Becker argues that institutions of higher learning should explicitly support youth voting.
Becker, who coedited a recent book about youth voting rights, also spoke of his volunteer teaching experience in Kiev, Ukraine, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, and his dismay upon returning to New York's Hudson Valley to discover efforts by local officials to limit youth voting. “Having promoted democracy abroad, I discovered that our students here were systematically denied the right to vote locally,” he said. “As someone who spent half of their life abroad, the idea that we should be promoting democracy abroad, and coming home and some local official in Dutchess county is systematically denying students the right to vote is…outrageous.”
Post Date: 08-27-2026
Professor James Romm’s Translation of Greek Fragments Reviewed in the Epoch Times
Romm’s book is the first time the fragments, from a fifth-century collection by Stobaeus, have been translated into English.
Professor James Romm’s Translation of Greek Fragments Reviewed in the Epoch Times
James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics James Romm and his book Since You're Mortal …: Life Lessons From the Lost Greek Plays.
Romm, whose previous books have been reviewed in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, also recently reviewed Alexander: God, King, Man by Edmund Richardson for the Times Literary Supplement. He teaches in Bard’s Classical Studies Program, which seeks to understand the languages, literatures, histories, and visual and material cultures of the premodern Mediterranean world. The program approaches these ancient societies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including linguistics, art history, archaeology, anthropology, and philosophy, while also considering the long and complex legacies of ancient Greece and Rome in art, language, politics, and culture from antiquity to the present day.
Post Date: 08-26-2026
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Bard Rated Among Top Five Colleges Where “Professors Get High Marks” in Princeton Review College Rankings
Bard Rated Among Top Five Colleges Where “Professors Get High Marks” in Princeton Review College Rankings
Bard College has been ranked in the top five of the Princeton Review’s 2026 list of colleges and universities for positive student sentiment about faculty. The “Professors Get High Marks” ranking is based on how strongly students at a school agree or disagree with the statement, "Professors are interesting and bring their material to life." Members of the Bard faculty include Guggenheim, Pulitzer, and McArthur Genius Grant award winners. They have written critically acclaimed novels and plays, and effected change in medicine, the arts and letters, international affairs, journalism, scientific research, education, and more. Bard has no graduate teaching assistants, and the average class sizes of 16 in the Lower College and 12 in the Upper College allows for intimate discussions and one-on-one interaction between faculty and students.Bard's campus in the fall.
Post Date: 08-26-2026
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Bard College’s Leadership on Student Voting Rights Featured on MS NOW’s Deadline: White House and Way Too Early
Bard College’s Leadership on Student Voting Rights Featured on MS NOW’s Deadline: White House and Way Too Early
MS NOW ran a segment on Bard’s history of student voting advocacy. MS NOW's chief political reporter Chris Jansing came to campus to speak with current students and Acting President Jonathan Becker for Deadline: White House. Becker discussed increasing restrictions on student voting including the proposed SAVE act, which would require voters to present a birth certificate or passport at the polls, and recent efforts to restrict mail-in ballots. “Restrictions on student voters aren’t simply happening, they’re growing. We’ve seen recent cases in Indiana, for example, where a law which bans college issued IDs from counting as identification for voting purposes will impact between 30,000 and 80,000 voters,” Becker said.A Bard student holding an "I Voted" sticker. Photo by Joseph Nartey ’26
“I’m grateful that I’m at a college where [voting] is more accessible, but it does worry me because if you’re at a place where it’s not accessible students are going to be more likely to not vote,” one Bard student told Jansing. Students, faculty, and staff at Bard have worked to secure voting rights on campus for over two decades, and secured a polling place on campus in 2022.
Jansing also reported on Bard’s efforts to strengthen students rights on MS NOW’s morning show Way Too Early. Jansing mentioned Becker’s recent essay in the New York Times about student voting rights, “What Does the Trump Administration Have Against the 26th Amendment?” “The fight that they’re waging is just to be allowed to let students vote and use federal funds for that,” she said in reference to Becker’s piece. “[Bard has] a fantastic program that helps students learn how to vote, learn how to register, get involved. It took them 25 years and four lawsuits to get to where they are today.”
Since 2014, the student-led group Election@Bard has educated students on their voting rights and organized to remove obstacles to voting. Election@Bard is an initiative of the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College, which coordinates a broad range of initiatives that connect students to internships, volunteer opportunities, community engagement, and activism. Providing Bard students with the opportunity to tap into their own idealism and vision, and develop civic skills that are fundamental for active citizenship.
Post Date: 08-26-2026
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Professor Felicia Keesing Contributes to 35-Year Study Finding Lyme Disease is Spread More by Mice than Deer
Professor Felicia Keesing Contributes to 35-Year Study Finding Lyme Disease is Spread More by Mice than Deer
After more than 35 years, the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies has published the results of a long-term study into the ecology of Lyme Disease. The study, which was co-authored by Bard Professor and David & Rosalie Rose Distinguished Chair of the Sciences, Mathematics, and Computing Felicia Keesing and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, aimed to better understand how ticks, bacteria, climate, plants, and mammals interact to spread Lyme, a disease with nearly half a million new sufferers every year that affects the heart, joints, and nervous system.Richard Ostfeld and Felicia Keesing, husband-and-wife researchers in upstate New York, are studying why Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses are getting worse.
The study found that mice, not deer, may be the more relevant hosts of Lyme-carrying ticks, which could reshape how scientists think about tick-borne disease. “On balance, these surprises have enriched our knowledge of this system, helping us to inform management of tick-borne disease risk,” says Richard Ostfeld, the paper's lead author. The study, conducted on 2,000 acres of forest in New York's Dutchess County, is particularly noteworthy for having run continuously for nearly 40 years. Such long-term studies provide invaluable longitudinal data, revealing trends and patterns that shorter studies may miss. “Studies of this depth and length are incredibly rare,” says Shannon LaDeau, who co-directs the research program at the Cary Institute. “The evolution of understanding summarized in this paper is something you simply cannot get without such a long-term and system-focused study.”
Post Date: 08-24-2026
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Bard Acting President Jonathan Becker Writes Guest Essay for New York Times Opinion
Bard Acting President Jonathan Becker Writes Guest Essay for New York Times Opinion
Jonathan Becker, acting president at Bard College, has published a New York Times Opinion guest essay about student voting rights. In the article, “What Does the Trump Administration Have Against the 26th Amendment?” Becker argues that institutions of higher learning have a duty to assist their students in navigating the registration and voting process, educating them not only about their democratic rights, but also actively helping them to realize those rights. He views this as especially crucial given new federal regulations set to take effect in October, in which the Office of Management and Budget has proposed to classify voter registration efforts by colleges and other nonprofit organizations as lobbying, which would curtail student democratic engagement. “American colleges and universities must not be neutral on the issues of democracy and civic participation,” Becker writes for the Times. “In the 2022 midterms, only 30.6% of college students voted: we should all view this as unacceptable. College leaders should articulate their opposition to the proposed rule changes and find resources to promote and defend the most foundational of democratic rights.”Students making signs at a polling location on campus. Photo by Jonathan Asiedu ’24.
Post Date: 08-19-2026
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Tara Westover Joins Bard College as Visiting Writer in Residence in the Division of Languages and Literature
Tara Westover Joins Bard College as Visiting Writer in Residence in the Division of Languages and Literature
Bard College’s Division of Languages and Literature is pleased to announce the appointment of Tara Westover as visiting writer in residence. Her appointment begins in the fall 2026 semester.Tara Westover. Photo by Brigitte Lacombe
Westover is an American historian and memoirist. Her first book, Educated, a memoir of her upbringing in rural Idaho, was a finalist for a number of national awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, PEN America’s Jean Stein Book Award, and two awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award. The New York Times named Educated one of the 10 Best Books of 2018, and the American Booksellers Association voted Educated the Nonfiction Book of the same year. “I'm very pleased to be joining the faculty at Bard and am really looking forward to meeting the students,” said Westover.
In 2019, Westover was named by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the year. She holds a PhD in intellectual history from Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 2019 she was the Rosenthal Writer in Residence at Harvard University. In 2023, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by former president Joseph Biden.
Post Date: 08-14-2026
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Bard College Presents an Evening of Jazz with Marilyn Crispell and Angelica Sanchez on September 8
Bard College Presents an Evening of Jazz with Marilyn Crispell and Angelica Sanchez on September 8
Jazz at Bard, by the Bard College music program, will present an evening with two of the most distinctive voices in creative music, Marilyn Crispell, jazz pianist and composer, and Angelica Sanchez, assistant professor of music at Bard.L–R: Marilyn Crispell, Angelica Sanchez.
The performance will be held on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, at 6:30 pm in the László Z. Bitó ’60 Conservatory building on Bard’s Annandale campus. Tickets start at $60. The concert will be followed with a wine and cheese reception, and all proceeds will benefit Jazz at Bard. To purchase tickets, please visit here.
Crispell, an NEA Jazz Master and 2025 and 2026 Mellon Foundation Jazz Legacy Fellow, has forged a singular musical language shaped by deep lyricism, fearless improvisation, and a lifelong commitment to artistic exploration. Her work with Anthony Braxton, Reggie Workman, Joe Lovano, Wadada Leo Smith, and many others has established her as one of the most influential pianists and composers in contemporary creative music. For more than four decades, Crispell has remained a pioneering force in avant-garde jazz, creating music that is both adventurous and deeply expressive.
Sanchez is an acclaimed composer, pianist, and educator whose music seamlessly integrates intricate compositional structures with the spontaneity of improvisation. A leading voice in modern creative music, Sanchez has collaborated with artists including Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Motian, Nicole Mitchell, Joe Lovano, Tim Berne, and Billy Hart. Her recordings have received widespread critical acclaim, with Sparkle Beings named one of The New York Times' Top Ten Jazz Recordings of 2022 and Nighttime Creatures selected among DownBeat's Best Recordings of 2023.
A centerpiece of this collaboration is their celebrated duo recording, How to Turn the Moon (Pyroclastic Records). Recognized in NPR's Critics Poll as one of the Top 50 Recordings of 2020, the album showcases an extraordinary musical dialogue between Crispell and Sanchez. Through expansive improvisations, subtle textures, and profound listening, the recording reveals the deep artistic connection shared by these two remarkable pianists. This performance brings that acclaimed partnership to the stage, offering audiences a rare opportunity to experience the artistry behind How to Turn the Moon live. Moving fluidly between composition and improvisation, Crispell and Sanchez create music of intimacy, intensity, and discovery, demonstrating the boundless expressive possibilities of the piano duo.
Post Date: 08-13-2026
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