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’s Levy Economics Institute Holds 40th Anniversary Conference
The occasion drew the kind of distinguished assembly of economists, journalists, and policymakers that Levy has become known for.
Bard’s Levy Economics Institute Holds 40th Anniversary Conference
Levy Economics Institute President Pavlina R. Tcherneva and Darrick Hamilton, AFL-CIO chief economist and economic adviser to NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani. Photo by Karl Rabe
The keynote was delivered by William H. Janeway, distinguished affiliated professor at Cambridge, veteran venture capitalist, and cofounder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. The connection was fitting: in 1986, Hyman Minsky—Levy senior scholar and foremost expert on financial instability—asked a young Janeway to address the American Economic Association. 40 years later, Janeway returned the gesture, opening a conference devoted to Minsky’s enduring relevance.
The event’s panels brought together leading voices that have long defined Levy Institute conferences. Former FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair joined Bloomberg’s Tom Keene in conversation on the next financial crisis. John Cassidy of the New Yorker moderated the opening session on AI and the US economy. Isabella Weber of UMass Amherst and James Galbraith of the LBJ School discussed the global energy crisis and China’s domestic price stabilization policies. Finally, Levy Institute President Tcherneva spoke alongside Darrick Hamilton, chief economist of the AFL-CIO and economic adviser to NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani, on employment and economic security.
“The inescapable reality — the single most defining feature of our economy — is that it no longer works for most Americans,” Tcherneva said. “Everything else follows from this.”
Tcherneva’s opening address was both retrospective and strategic. She traced four decades of the Institute’s real-world impact: predicting the private-sector debt bubble, calling the 2008 housing collapse before it arrived, and anticipating the doubling of central bank balance sheets. Since then, Levy has become a go-to source on financial instability and monetary policy, its influence reaching from the US Congress and European Parliament to the highest levels of the Chinese government, shaping legislation, stabilization policy in Greece, and methodological work by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and international statistical agencies.
Looking ahead, Tcherneva identified two research and policy priorities: economic security for American families and the financial architecture on which that security depends. “Finance must be checked and economic security must be built — those are the twin pillars of Levy’s agenda.” she said. She sounded an alarm on GENIUS/STABLE coin legislation, anticipated a paradigm shift under incoming Fed Chair Warsh, and called for a fundamental rethinking of the 21st-century job—encompassing paid leave, childcare, healthcare, and retirement security alongside direct job creation.
The conference also celebrated the Institute’s graduate program and inaugurated the Levy Alumni Impact Award, presented to Oscar Valdés Viera, Senior Economist at Americans for Financial Reform, recognized for his work on private equity’s threat to retirement accounts. 40 years on, Levy’s ideas have never been more central to economic debate — and the work of the next four decades has already begun.
Post Date: 05-20-2026
Choreographer Tara Lorenzen Featured in the New York Times
Lorenzen choreographed the new version, drawing on archival video footage and photographs to retain a connection to the original while reinterpreting the performance.
Choreographer Tara Lorenzen Featured in the New York Times
Tara Lorenzen, visiting associate professor of dance and dance program director.
The Bard Dance Program sees the pursuit of artistry and intellect as a single endeavor, and fosters the discovery of a dance vocabulary that is meaningful to the dancer/choreographer and essential to their creative ambitions.
Post Date: 05-20-2026
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Bard Scholar Roosevelt Montás Featured in the Atlantic
Bard Scholar Roosevelt Montás Featured in the Atlantic
Roosevelt Montás, Laura Y. Chang and Arnold Chavkin Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College, was featured in an article in the Atlantic about a growing number of passionate educators at institutions of higher learning who are focused on humanistic education. This cohort of “great teachers” are “a part of what’s going right in American higher education, the part that critics (like me) don’t write about enough,” writes David Brooks. “These teachers talk of their vocation in lofty terms. They are not there merely to download information into students’ brains, or to steer them toward that job at McKinsey. True humanistic study, they believe, has the power to change lives.” Humanistic education, Brooks says, is not only an intellectual enterprise, as its primary purpose is to produce not just learned people, but good people. “What I’m giving the students is tools for a life of freedom,” Montás told the Atlantic.Roosevelt Montás, Laura Y. Chang and Arnold Chavkin Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life.
The Chang Chavkin Center for Liberal Arts and Civic Life is focused on the connection between liberal education and civic life. It hosts discussion-based classes and supports faculty in building general education programs for students in all disciplines.
Post Date: 05-20-2026
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Bard College Faculty Member Argyro Nicolaou Awarded Production Grant for Feature Film
Bard College Faculty Member Argyro Nicolaou Awarded Production Grant for Feature Film
Argyro Nicolaou, artist in residence and visiting faculty at the Center for Human Rights and the Arts (CHRA) at Bard College, has received a Cyprus Cinema Office Development and Production Grant in support of her first feature film. The grant, in the amount of €425,000 or roughly $500,000, was bestowed by the Cyprus Cinema Advisory Committee, which provides national funding for film development and production through Cyprus’s Deputy Ministry of Culture. The funding is awarded for projects that focus on the cultural reality or history of Cyprus, with a substantial portion filmed in the country.Argyro Nicolaou, artist in residence and visiting faculty at CHRA. Photo by Ellinor Stigle
Nicolaou’s project, Excavators, is a mystery drama that tackles themes of intergenerational memory and family relationships in a society scarred by war. The film follows its main protagonist, Klió, as she sets out to dig up the truth about her grandmother’s disappearance during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
Nicolaou is a Cypriot filmmaker and scholar based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work deals with the representation of history, displacement, and intergenerational memory in post-conflict, postcolonial societies. Nicolaou has taught film and literature courses at Bard, Columbia and Princeton, and is a member of the European Film Academy, the International Documentary Association, and the Directors Guild of Cyprus. Nicolaou has been in residence at Bard during the 2025–26 academic year coteaching the thesis seminar sequence in the MA Program in Human Rights and the Arts. Nicolaou was previously a resident fellow at CHRA in 2023–2024, developing several research projects.
Post Date: 05-19-2026
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Omar Encarnación Writes About Pedro Sánchez for the New York Times
Omar Encarnación Writes About Pedro Sánchez for the New York Times
Omar Encarnación, Charles Flint Kellogg Professor of Politics in the Division of Social Studies, wrote about the trajectory of Spain’s president Pedro Sánchez for the New York Times. Discussing “Sánchezismo” or the belief that Sánchez’s politics are populist and amoral, Encarnación argues that instead the Spanish president’s approach has effectively protected social democracy in the country “by mixing ambition, idealism and pragmatism.” Although repeating his success elsewhere will be difficult, Encarnación says, his global significance drew “like-minded leaders, navigating a tumultuous world, [to] pay him homage and to see for themselves how they can learn from Spain.”Omar G. Encarnación, Charles Flint Kellogg Professor of Politics.
Encarnación teaches in Bard’s Politics Program, which gives students a well-rounded understanding of political theory, American politics, comparative politics, and international relations, studying the choices we can make as individuals and the fates of communities, nations, and states.
Post Date: 05-19-2026
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Emma Benser Spoke About the Importance of Teaching Computer Science in Prison for CACM
Emma Benser Spoke About the Importance of Teaching Computer Science in Prison for CACM
Emma Benser, assistant professor of computer science at Bard College, published an article in the Communications of the ACM (CACM), the monthly journal of the Association for Computing Machinery. In the article and in a video interview with CACM, Benser stresses the importance of creating educational opportunities for those who are incarcerated. She cites how the demand for computer science education is high, and how engaging directly with incarcerated students can help in addressing systemic blind spots in the criminal justice system, while training a new population of technologists with relevant experience to prevent harm. “Expanding [computer science] education in prison is a vote toward a future where people with lived experience of incarceration are represented among computing faculty and industry, informing our research and practice of computing in and outside of prison,” writes Benser.Emma Benser, assistant professor of computer science.
The Computer Science Program at Bard focuses on the fundamental ideas of computer science and introduces students to multiple programming languages and paradigms, covering theoretical, applied, and systems-oriented topics. Most courses include hands-on projects so that students can learn by building, and by participating in research projects in laboratories devoted to cognition, computational biology, robotics, and symbolic computation.
Post Date: 05-14-2026
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Bard College Holds One Hundred Sixty-Sixth Commencement on Saturday, May 23, 2026
Bard College Holds One Hundred Sixty-Sixth Commencement on Saturday, May 23, 2026
Bard College will hold its one hundred sixty-sixth commencement on Saturday, May 23, 2026. Bard President Leon Botstein will confer 501 undergraduate degrees on the Class of 2026 and 197 graduate degrees. Bard will also confer 46 associate degrees on students from its microcolleges. The Undergraduate Degrees Commencement will begin at 2:30 pm in the commencement tent on the Seth Goldfine Memorial Rugby Field. The Graduate Degrees Commencement will begin at 10:30 am at Sosnoff Theater in the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts.Fareed Zakaria. Photo courtesy of CNN
The Undergraduate Commencement address will be given by journalist and bestselling author Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s flagship international affairs program and a prominent columnist for The Washington Post. Honorary degrees will be awarded to Fareed 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.
The Graduate Commencement address will be given by Thomas F. Rosenbaum, president of the California Institute of Technology. Graduate degrees conferred will be doctor of philosophy, master of philosophy, and master of arts degrees in decorative arts, design history, material culture; master of fine arts; master of science degrees in environmental policy, climate science and policy, and master of education degrees in environmental education; master of arts degrees in curatorial studies; master of arts degrees in teaching; master of music degrees in vocal arts and master of music degrees in conducting; master of business administration degrees in sustainability; master of science degrees and master of arts degrees in economic theory and policy; master of music degrees in curatorial, critical, and performance studies; master of arts degrees in global studies; master of arts degrees in human rights and the arts; master of arts degrees in Chinese music and culture; master of music degrees in instrumental studies; and master of arts degrees in public humanities.
Bard College Awards will also be presented on Commencement Weekend: The Bard Medal will be awarded to Olivia B. Carino and Audrey Lasher Smith ’78; the John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science to Amy Bernard ’91 and Matthew DeGennaro ’96; the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters to Youssef Kerkour ’00; the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service to Kevin Barbosa ’18 and Eva-Marie Quinones ’17; the Mary McCarthy Award to Marilynne Robinson; the Laszlo Z. Bito Award for Humanitarian Service to Imran Ahmed ’02; and a Bardian Award to Sven Anderson.
ABOUT THE COMMENCEMENT SPEAKERS
Fareed Zakaria hosts CNN’s flagship international affairs program, Fareed Zakaria GPS, and produces documentaries for the network. He has interviewed Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Emmanuel Macron, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, among others.
Zakaria is a columnist for The Washington Post and has written five New York Times bestsellers: The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (2003), The Post-American World (2008), In Defense of a Liberal Education (2015), Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World (2020), and Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present (2024).
Zakaria was named a Top 10 Global Thinker of the Last 10 Years by Foreign Policy magazine in 2019. He has received a Peabody Award and three Emmys for his television work, and a National Magazine Award for his writing. In 2010, India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, one of the country’s highest civilian honors, and, in 2022, Ukraine awarded him the Order of Merit. He holds a BA from Yale and a PhD from Harvard.
Thomas F. Rosenbaum is the ninth president of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where he is also professor of physics. He is an expert on the quantum-mechanical nature of materials, and has conducted research at Bell Laboratories, INC.; the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center; Argonne National Laboratory; and the University of Chicago. At the last, he served as vice president for research and then as provost before moving to Caltech in 2014. He received his bachelor’s degree in physics with honors from Harvard University and a PhD in physics from Princeton University. He serves as the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Society for Science, as a board member of the Aspen Center for Physics, and on the Los Angeles Committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Post Date: 05-13-2026
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Ziad Abu-Rish Interviewed on Al Jazeera About Lebanon
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