Commencement Schedule 2025

Pick up your tickets for the weekend’s meals, a campus map, and a schedule. A limited number of on-site barbecue tickets will be available for purchase until 3 pm Saturday. $28 per adult, $12 per child 4–12, free for children 3 and under.
Lobby, Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation

Join the Bard College Rugby team as they host the Bard Rugby Alumni/ae Association for the annual alumni/ae games! All are welcome.
Lorenzo Ferrari Soccer and Lacrosse Complex, north field

Bard College soloists and composers in concert with The Orchestra Now (TŌN), Leon Botstein, conductor. No reservations required. Seating is first come, first served.
Sosnoff Theater, Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts

Work by seniors graduating in the Photography Program.
Woods Photography Studio

Work by seniors graduating in the Studio Arts Program.
Fisher Studio Arts Building

Pick up your tickets for the weekend’s meals, a campus map, and a schedule. A limited number of on-site barbecue tickets will be available for purchase until 3 pm Saturday. $28 per adult, $12 for children 4–12, free for children 3 and under.
Lobby, Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation

Take a walk in the woods and learn about the Bard Guilds Program from Paul Marienthal, dean for social action and director of the Trustee Leader Scholar Program (TLS). Bard students have been learning how to literally build bridges while fixing the College’s trails. (Please note: This 1.5 mile walk includes some steep hills.)
Meeting point: The Community Garden, Blithewood Road
Ending point: Honey Field, behind Stevenson Athletic Center

 

For graduating seniors, their families, guests, and alumni/ae.
$14 per adult, $8 per child 4 to 12, free for children 3 and under.
Main Dining Room, Kline Commons

German and Austrian paintings from the turn of the 20th century, a bequest to Bard College from Dr. Edith Neumann.
Levy Economics Institute, Blithewood

For Class of 2025 graduates of the Bard Graduate Center:

Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture; Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts; Bard Center for Environmental Policy; Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture; Master of Arts in Teaching Program; Graduate Vocal Arts and Graduate Conducting Programs of the Bard College Conservatory of Music; Master of Business Administration in Sustainability; Levy Economics Institute Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy; Master of Music in Curatorial, Critical, and Performance Studies, The Orchestra Now (TŌN); Master of Arts in Global Studies; Master of Arts in Human Rights and the Arts; Master of Arts in Chinese Music and Culture; and Master of Music in Instrumental Studies; and their guests.

Advance registration required. $25 per adult, $12 per child 4–12, free for graduates, faculty/staff, and children 3 and under.
Blithewood north lawn

The Red Hook concession stand offers snacks and cold drinks for sale. All proceeds go to support Red Hook Responds, a volunteer organization that provides resources to those in need in the community.
Kline Commons, south patio

Stop by the Stark Blooms flower truck to buy a celebratory bouquet for your graduate. If you purchased flowers in advance, please bring a copy of your email confirmation or the receipt on your phone to retrieve your order. Flowers available while supplies last. 
Kline Commons, south lawn

Commencement Exercises

1 pm

Tent opens for seating
Commencement Tent, Seth Goldfine Memorial Rugby Field

2:30 pm
Academic Procession
Alumni/ae from reunion classes are invited to join the Class of 2025, trustees, and faculty in the procession to the Commencement tent. (Academic attire is required.) 
Formation at Annandale Road, south of the Chapel of the Holy Innocents

Livestreaming of Commencement
Olin Auditorium, Franklin W. Olin Humanities Building

3 pm
Commencement Ceremony
Celebrate the Class of 2025 and the awarding of honorary degrees. James C. Chambers ’81, chair of the Board of Trustees of Bard College, presiding, and The Right Reverend Matthew F. Heyd, officiating. A professional photographer will take photos of graduates receiving their degrees. Families of graduates will be contacted by Genesee Photo Systems to purchase images. For safety reasons, standing in the aisle is prohibited during the ceremony.
Commencement Tent, Seth Goldfine Memorial Field

Watch the Livestream

Gather with family and friends.
$28 per adult, $12 for children 4–12, free for children 3 and under. Advance reservations recommended. Cash bar. 
Blithewood north lawn

Annual gathering of jazz-loving alumni/ae musicians. 
Everyone is welcome.
Blum Hall, Edith C. Blum Institute, Avery Arts Center

Stake your spot on the lawn and lie back for the best fireworks show in the Hudson Valley.
Blithewood west lawn

End the night with TYMMYT (pronounced Timmy-Tee), American rapper, singer, and trumpeter from Atlanta, Georgia. TYMMYT (Timothy Trumpet Jr. ’20) returns to Bard for his five-year reunion with a DJ set full of nostalgic Bard vibes and new school sounds. Everyone is welcome!
Fisher Studio Arts Building

In honor of alumni/ae, faculty, and special friends of the College who died during the past year.
Officiants: Bard College Chaplaincy
Chapel of the Holy Innocents

Watch the Livestream

Join Bard President Leon Botstein and Mollie Meikle '03, president of the Bard College Alumni/ae Association Board of Governors, for a celebration brunch. All are welcome. Remarks at 11:30 am. $28 per adult, $12 per child 4–12, free for children 3 and under. Advance registration recommended.
Kline Commons

New graduates and all alumni/ae interested in volunteering for alumni/ae committees and programs are cordially invited to attend.
Olin LC Room 115

Developed in cooperation with the Stockbridge-Munsee Community

In the spirit of truth and equity, it is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are gathered on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, who are the original stewards of the land. Today, due to forced removal, the community resides in Northeast Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We honor and pay respect to their ancestors past and present, as well as to future generations, and we recognize their continuing presence in their homelands. We understand that our acknowledgment requires those of us who are settlers to recognize our own place in and responsibilities toward addressing inequity, and that this ongoing and challenging work requires that we commit to real engagement with the Munsee and Mohican communities to build an inclusive and equitable space for all.

This land acknowledgment, adopted in 2020, required establishing and maintaining long-term, and evolving, relationships with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. The Mellon Foundation's 2022 Humanities for All Times grant for “Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck” offers three years of support for developing a land acknowledgment–based curriculum, public-facing Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) programming, and efforts to support the work of emerging NAIS scholars and tribally enrolled artists at Bard.

The College acknowledges that its origins are intertwined with slavery, which has shaped the United States and American institutions from the beginning. Starting in the 16th century, European traders trafficked approximately 12 million Africans to the Americas, where they were held as property and forced to work as enslaved laborers. Their descendants were also held as slaves in perpetuity. The exploitation of enslaved people was at the foundation of the economic development of New York and the Hudson Valley, including the land now composing the Bard College campus. In the early 18th century, Barent Van Benthuysen purchased most of this land and was a slave owner. Later owners of the property also relied on Black workers they held in bondage for material gain. Montgomery Place, which became part of the College in 2016, was a working farm during the 19th century that likewise profited from the labor of enslaved people.

The founders of Bard College, John Bard (1819–99) and Margaret Johnston Bard (1825–75) inherited wealth from their families and used it to found the College. That inheritance was implicated in slavery on both sides. John’s grandfather Samuel Bard (1742–1821) owned slaves. His father William Bard (1778–1853) was the first president of the New York Life Insurance Company, which insured enslaved people as property. Margaret’s fortune derived from her father’s commercial firm, Boorman and Johnston, which traded in tobacco, sugar, and cotton produced by enslaved labor throughout the Atlantic World. Other early benefactors of the College, such as John Lloyd Aspinwall (1816–73), also derived a significant proportion of their wealth, which they donated to the College, from commercial ventures that depended on slavery. John and Margaret Bard devoted their lives and monies to educational pursuits. In his retirement John Aspinwall redirected his fortune and energies toward humanitarian pursuits.

Recognition and redress of this history are due. As students, teachers, researchers, administrators, staff, and community members, we acknowledge the pervasive legacy of slavery and commit ourselves to the pursuit of equity and restorative justice for the descendants of enslaved people within the Bard community.