Video shot by Jonathan Asiedu ’24.
Graduates, we celebrate you!
As you enter this exciting new chapter of your journey, we want to take a moment to wish you the best and hope you stay in touch. Commencement photos, taken by Genesee Photo, are available to preview and order HERE.
Issuu Flipbook
Commencement Exercises
Bard's 2026 Graduate Degree Commencement
Missed Bard's 2026 Graduate Degree Commencement? Experience the Pomp and Circumstance!
Graduate Degree Commencement was celebrated on the morning of March 23, in the Sosnoff Theater at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. 197 degrees were conferred. The address was delivered by physicist Thomas F. Rosenbaum, president of Caltech, who received an honorary degree from Bard later that day.
California Institute of Technology President Thomas F. Rosenbaum, Photo by Samuel Stuart Hollenshead
California Institute of Technology President Thomas F. Rosenbaum Delivered Graduate Commencement Address at Bard College’s One Hundred Sixty-Sixth Commencement on Saturday, May 23, 2026
"You will move through life shaped by your time here at Bard, creating new spaces for yourself and for society. I wish you wholeness and magic on your journey forward as you carve out your personal pathways."
Bard's 2026 Undergraduate Degree Commencement
Missed Bard's 2026 Undergraduate Degree Commencement? Watch now!
501 undergraduate degrees and 46 associate degrees were conferred in the afternoon of May 23, in a tent on the Seth Goldfine Memorial Rugby Field. Award winning journalist and author Fareed Zakaria delivered the Undergraduate Commencement Address. Honorary degrees were awarded to Zakaria, lawyer Jack Arthur Blum ’62, business owner Patricia L. Bowman, public health researcher and activist Robert E. Fullilove, philanthropist Marieluise Hessel, Bard High School Early College founding principal Raymond Peterson, historian Oliver Rathkolb, physicist Thomas F. Rosenbaum, musicologist Elaine Sisman, immunologist Kathryn E. Stein ’66, and composer Richard Wilson. An honorary degree was also awarded to Bard College President, Leon Botstein, in recognition of his 51 years of transformative leadership.
Bard President Leon Botstein. Photo by Samuel Stuart Hollenshead
President Botstein’s Charge to the Class of 2026
"I urge the Class of 2026, soon to become alumni of Bard College, to cherish what makes this college distinctive and its idealism about the interconnections between learning and life. Celebrate the gifts each of you have shown in your years here, the joy of thinking, imagining and creating—the thrill of discovery—and the laughter and delight that art and science and the study of all things inspire in our pursuit of life. As the years go by (all too quickly), the college will need your help."
Journalist and author Fareed Zakaria. Photo by Samuel Stuart Hollenshead
Award Winning Journalist and Author Fareed Zakaria Delivered the 2026 Undergraduate Commencement Address
"What a remarkable rise this place has had. Fifty years ago Bard was a small, struggling liberal arts college, overlooked by most. Today it is one of the most distinctive educational institutions in America—a place that has combined intellectual seriousness with civic engagement, artistic experimentation with public purpose. It is not just a college but a movement — one that stretches from music conservatories to prison education programs to partnerships across the world. My congratulations on this remarkable transformation."
