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 College Announces 16th President, Marvin Krislov, JD
In a unanimous vote, the Board of Trustees elected Krislov to become the next leader of Bard, one of the most innovative and distinctive private liberal arts colleges in our nation.
Bard College Announces 16th President, Marvin Krislov, JD
Marvin Krislov, Bard College’s President-Elect.
President-Elect Marvin Krislov comes to Bard College from Pace University, where he has been President since 2017. He received his Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School in 1988. Among other honors, he is a Rhodes Scholar and studied modern history at Oxford University, receiving a master’s degree and second bachelor’s degree. He graduated from Yale College, summa cum laude, with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and political science and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Krislov began his career in public service, practicing law in the US Department of Justice, Office of Counsel to the President under President Bill Clinton, and US Department of Labor, before becoming Vice President and General Counsel at the University of Michigan in 1998 until 2007. From 2007 to 2017, Krislov was President of Oberlin College. He has taught undergraduate courses in law and political science at Pace University, Oberlin College, the University of Michigan, and George Washington University. In 2009, he was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate to the National Council on the Humanities, where he served a 10-year tenure until 2019.
“Marvin Krislov is the ideal leader to guide the College forward at a pivotal moment in the institution’s 166-year history. Building upon Bard’s legacy of innovation and excellence, Krislov is committed to honoring and advancing the institution’s mission as a private college serving the public good,” said Chairman of the Bard College Board of Trustees, Brandon Weber ’97. “His deep experience and many accomplishments within higher education; his thoughtful and collaborative approach to leadership; as well as his unwavering dedication to educational equity, accessibility, and the arts encompass the qualities of leadership we sought for Bard’s next president. The Board of Trustees is excited about the future of Bard under his stewardship and confident he will deepen the College’s impact on higher education for future generations of students.”
“I am honored and humbled by this opportunity to lead this extraordinary institution,” said Marvin Krislov, Bard College’s President-Elect. “Bard’s commitment to students and communities across this country and around the world sets a standard of excellence for all of higher education. I am inspired by Bard’s intellectual rigor, openness, concern for civic engagement, and its unwavering conviction that music and the arts belong with the natural and human sciences in the educational experience. I look forward with optimism to working with the Board, faculty, staff, and students in advancing our mission to provide world-class education for individual fulfillment and in the public interest.”
Since joining Pace University as its President in 2017, Krislov has overseen the institution during a period of progress and transformation. At Pace, he secured record levels of public and private funding, increased student enrollment and graduation rates, launched the Sands College of Performing Arts, and reimagined its New York City campus through landmark investments, including the opening of 15 Beekman and the renovation of One Pace Plaza East. He led the university through the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic with steadiness and resolve, while emerging as a leading advocate for student mental health and well-being. His nearly 10-year tenure at Pace reflects his enduring commitment to expanding opportunity, strengthening the student experience, and positioning that institution for a vibrant and successful future.
From 2007 to 2017, Krislov served as President of Oberlin College, one of the few liberal arts institutions that, like Bard, is home to a fully integrated conservatory of music within its undergraduate college. At Oberlin, he successfully led a comprehensive $318 million fundraising campaign (the largest in the college’s history) and launched Oberlin Access Initiative to support low-income students for whom a liberal arts education would not otherwise be accessible.
As the University of Michigan’s Vice President and General Counsel from 1998 to 2007, Krislov spearheaded the legal, political, and public education strategy for the landmark 2003 Supreme Court cases Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. He has throughout his career steadfastly advocated for diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education.
“Over the many years that I have known and worked with Marvin Krislov, I have witnessed firsthand that he is a distinguished scholar and a collaborative leader who understands the importance of the arts and civic engagement in preparing students to soar to the heights of their possibilities. I applaud the selection of Marvin Krislov as the 16th President of Bard College,” said Johnnetta Betsch Cole, President Emerita of Spelman College and Bennett College.
“Marvin Krislov is an experienced higher education leader and an excellent choice for Bard College. Always attuned to student concerns, institutional integrity, and financial stability, Marvin will chart an exciting new course for the College during a challenging era for higher education in our country. Marvin knows the Northeast, the Midwest, liberal arts colleges, the arts, the law, and professional education. He is the perfect fit,” said Mary Sue Coleman, President Emerita of the University of Michigan.
“I've known Marvin for many years, back when he was President of my alma mater Oberlin. He's a special person, a humble guy, and also the type of person who can go 360 degrees when it comes to dealing with all types of people. Marvin can sit down with a plumber or a PhD and have a thrilling, engaged conversation about any manner of subjects. My favorite Marvin Krislov story is when he was serving as President of Pace and came to a kids’ concert at my church in the Red Hook Housing Projects in Brooklyn. About 15 kids from the projects banged away at instruments for an hour or two. I looked up during the concert and who did I see in one of the pews but Marvin! Afterwards, he was approached by one of the locals, a colorful dude with a net worth of about 25 cents who fancies himself an expert on the stock market, among other things. I couldn’t hear the conversation, but when I looked over, I saw the two of them laughing,” said author, musician, and screenwriter James McBride, Distinguished Journalist in Residence, Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, NYU. “He's a perfect fit for Bard, a wonderful institution. He understands the complexities that face us in these difficult times. In terms of creativity and the importance of a liberal arts education, music, art, science, research, he checks all the important boxes. And most importantly, he has given his life over to the betterment of humanity. He lives it. It's a loss for Pace and the NYC creative community, and a real gain for Bard.”
As Bard’s next President, Krislov will take leadership of one of the world’s most innovative and distinctive institutions of higher education. Bard stands out for its belief in the inextricable link between education and democracy, its emphasis on civic engagement, its commitment to radically expanding access to liberal education, and as a champion of the arts, music, and intellectual freedom. More than just a small liberal arts college, Bard’s expansive educational networks—including the Bard Prison Initiative, Bard Early Colleges, Bard College Berlin, Bard Graduate Center, Bard Global Degree, and dual-degree programs in Palestine and Kyrgyzstan—provide rigorous liberal arts education to a diverse population of over 6,500 students enrolled in AA, BA, Masters, and PhD programs worldwide as well as academic refuge for threatened students and scholars. Bard offers transformational degree opportunities to underserved communities as it pioneers new models of educational collaboration globally. On Bard’s home campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, its world-renowned faculty, academic excellence, and rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum — from the arts to the experimental sciences — stand out in today’s higher education landscape.
Following the transformative 51-year tenure of Leon Botstein, Krislov’s appointment comes at a pivotal moment of growth and expansion at Bard College. “During Leon Botstein’s more than half a century of inspired leadership, Bard grew into an institution that brought the transformative power of education to students of all backgrounds at—and beyond—its home campus. I am thrilled that under its new leadership, Bard will continue to advance education, so important for our democracy, in the public interest,” said Phil Murphy, former Governor of New Jersey and parent of Bard College alum Joshua Murphy ’20.
The campus has recently opened a new energy-efficient Passive House–designed residential complex, which features a light-filled campus center, and houses more than 400 students across five distinct buildings. A superb 25,000-square-foot Maya Lin–designed performing arts studio building for the Fisher Center at Bard completed construction this year. Recently launched initiatives including the Chang Chavkin Center for Liberal Education and Civic Life, which seeks to foster liberal education nationwide, and the newly established Ralph Ellison Center, which serves as a central hub to writers, artists, and scholars, build upon Bard’s commitment to interdisciplinary learning and the connection between education and democracy. At a challenging time for higher education, Bard has raised $1 billion in the past five years to secure a transformational endowment and continues to experience steady increase in undergraduate admissions and enrollment numbers.
Post Date: 10-23-2026
Professor Jack Ferver Speaks About Organizing an Exhibit on Martha Graham in Dance Magazine
“I felt so empowered through the movement vocabulary of Graham," Ferver said.
Professor Jack Ferver Speaks About Organizing an Exhibit on Martha Graham in Dance Magazine
Assistant Professor of Performing Arts Jack Ferver
“I felt so empowered through the movement vocabulary of Grahamwas previously reviewed in ArtForum, which wrote that it “offers a deep examination of the artist’s legacy and unpacks the influence of psychology on her choreography.” The exhibit runs through November 7, 2026 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Ferver teaches in Bard’s Theater and Performance Program, which offers an interdisciplinary, liberal arts-based approach to the making and study of theater and performance, and embraces a wide range of performance practices, from live art and interactive installation to classical theater from around the globe.
Post Date: 10-21-2026
More News
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Associate Professor of Photography Tanya Marcuse Featured in MSN
Associate Professor of Photography Tanya Marcuse Featured in MSN
Associate Professor of Photography Tanya Marcuse’s series, “Woven: An Ecological Tapestry” was featured in an article on MSN. The photo series, made between 2015 and 2020, features carefully composed, large-format images of animals decomposing amidst soil, flowers, and the elements. Eight images from “Woven” are at the heart of an exhibition now showing at the Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) in Kingston, New York through January 2027. “Beauty and ruin occupy the same picture,” writes Peter Dench for MSN. “Marcuse describes ‘Woven’ as an attempt to hold together ‘beauty and terror, reverence, and grief.’”A photo series by Associate Professor of Photography Tanya Marcuse is on display in an exhibition now showing at the Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) in Kingston, New York. Photo by Jonah Romm
“Marcuse’s photographs are meticulously staged over weeks or months,” Dench continues. “She gathers, composes, paints, burns and transplants natural materials. The photograph is the last stage of a long process. Her flowers wither, spiders build webs and organic matter blooms then decays. The camera then records the final spectacle.”
Marcuse’s work is held in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, George Eastman Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and National Gallery of Art. The CPW exhibition includes one large-format photograph, 15 smaller prints, and an 11 minute film made in collaboration with filmmaker Ben Stechshulte. In addition to her exhibition at CPW, Marcuse’s photo series “Book of Miracles” is running at The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York.
The Photography Program at Bard College offers instruction in the medium while providing a historical and aesthetic framework for student development within the context of a broad-based liberal arts education.
Post Date: 10-20-2026
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Acting President Jonathan Becker Featured in Journalist’s Resource
Acting President Jonathan Becker Featured in Journalist’s Resource
Journalist’s Resource quoted Acting President of Bard Jonathan Becker in an article about the barriers young adults have to overcome to vote. The article, which offers guidance to young voters, addresses why they have lower turnout rates than older adults. Rather than apathy about politics, the larger issue is that “youth voters must overcome a series of structural and logistical hurdles to participate in elections,” Denise-Marie Ordway writes. These hurdles include banning student IDs for voter registration, limiting mail-in voting, and more.A student holding an "I voted" sticker. Photo by Joseph Nartey '26
Jonathan Becker, who has previously published on voting access and has contributed to get out the vote initiatives by Bard’s Center for Civic Engagement and Election@Bard, echoed this point. “Some of the systems used to exclude African Americans [from voting] have been used on young people,” Becker told college students who gathered at Emerson College for Constitution Day this September. Becker recently published an opinion piece on student voting in the New York Times, where he argued colleges have a responsibility to help students navigate the voting process.
Post Date: 10-20-2026
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Levy Institute Holds Panel on the AI Bubble, Featuring Pavlina Tcherneva
Levy Institute Holds Panel on the AI Bubble, Featuring Pavlina Tcherneva
The Levy Economics Institute at Bard College held a presentation in its Capitol Hill Lecture Series in Washington DC, “The AI Bubble: From Boom to Financial Bust.” Moderated by Zachary Carter and featuring Levy Institute President Pavlina Tcherneva, the panel was cosponsored by the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. Four panelists discussed the sustainability, or lack thereof, of the artificial intelligence industry. Tcherneva focused her remarks on providing a framework for the financing of the AI buildout, including its fragilities. “Our job [is] not to predict the next [crisis] but to outline the anatomy of a crisis,” she said.Pavlina Tcherneva (center) and fellow panelists at the Capitol Hill lecture series.
The Capitol Hill Series panel on October 14 was followed up on October 15 by a Levy Institute briefing with congressional staffers and DC-based think tanks on the topic of the job guarantee. Tcherneva previously published "The Case for a Job Guarantee," which she called, in conversation with Business Insider, “a public option for jobs . . . provided irrespective of what the state of the economy is.”
The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy research organization that encourages diversity of opinion in the examination of economic policy issues while striving to transform ideological arguments into informed debate. The Capitol Hill Series, established last year, brings together financial experts, academics, and policymakers in Washington, DC to discuss the most pressing issues facing the US economy.
Post Date: 10-20-2026
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Professor Joseph Luzzi Describes His Storytelling Inspiration in LitHub
Professor Joseph Luzzi Describes His Storytelling Inspiration in LitHub
In a story published by LitHub, Professor Joseph Luzzi details how inspiration for his 2011 memoir My Two Italies came from his mother, Yolanda. Part memoir of his family’s life in southern Italy and part work of cultural criticism, My Two Italies was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice upon its release. But before the book’s accolades came numerous morning coffees and summer dinners Luzzi and his mother shared. “But make no mistake,” he writes, “those summertime stories about love and loss in Calabria, about the first uncertain steps of a family in the New World, were as much for her as for me. Yolanda Luzzi understood the first cardinal rule of a great story: it has to be interesting to you first, if it’s going to hold the attention of your listeners and readers.”Joseph Luzzi. Photo by Helena Baillie
Professor Luzzi is the author of eight books, the most recent of which, The Innocents of Florence: The Renaissance Discovery of Childhood, was named one of the New Yorker’s Best Books of 2025. He teaches in the Literature Program at Bard, which emphasizes cultural, linguistic, and geographic diversity, challenging national, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries.
Post Date: 10-20-2026
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Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason Published in the New York Times
Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason Published in the New York Times
Bard Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason reviewed a new biography of author Cormac McCarthy in the New York Times. Tracy Daugherty’s Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited, to be published this month, is the first major biography of the author, spanning McCarthy’s entire career until his death in 2023. Daugherty draws on ten interviews with McCarthy, as well as magazine features, that together give a fuller picture of his relationship to the press.Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason.
“McCarthy’s 60-year career divides neatly into 30-year halves: obscurity and fame,” Mason writes, noting that the author’s legacy has been tarnished by his mistreatment of women, a subject Daugherty doesn’t ignore. His “detailed account of McCarthy’s life … may give us the means to consider whether [his] art was able to transform, even transcend, the life [he led].”
Mason teaches in Bard’s Written Arts Program, which encourages students to experiment with their writing in a context sensitive to intellectual, historical, and social realities. Students consider writing as an act of critical and creative engagement, a way of interrogating and translating the world.
Post Date: 10-13-2026
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Edith C. Blum Professor of Art History Susan Aberth Interviewed on the FolkArtwork and Friends Podcast
Edith C. Blum Professor of Art History Susan Aberth Interviewed on the FolkArtwork and Friends Podcast
Susan Aberth, the Edith C. Blum professor in the Art History and Visual Culture Program at Bard, appeared on the FolkArtwork and Friends podcast. She spoke with host Adam Oestreich about a range of topics, including the persistence of public interest in UFOs, the history and rising popularity of tarot cards, the various meanings of “outsider art,” and artists Paulina Peavy and Hilma af Klint. They also discussed an exhibit that Aberth curated, titled “Conduits of the Unseen: Women Artists Imagine Other Worlds”, now on display at Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York City until October 31st.Edith C. Blum Professor of Art History Susan Aberth.
“My entire art historical career, as I like to say, has been skulking around the periphery,” says Aberth, “which I have found always more interesting than the center, because the center is often more conventional and geared towards art markets.”
Aberth is also the coordinator of the Theology concentration, teaching courses on Surrealism, Spiritualism, Freemasonry, Alchemy, Latin American and Outsider Art. Her books include The Tarot of Leonora Carrington and Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art, and she has contributed to numerous other books and exhibition catalogues. Aberth is also a founding member of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism.
The Art History and Visual Culture Program at Bard introduces students to visual material across a broad range of periods and societies.
Post Date: 10-13-2026
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