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 Acting President Jonathan Becker and Scholar in Residence Yael Bromberg Win AAC&U’s 2026 Frederic W. Ness Book Award
“At a time when democracy and the civic mission of higher education are under assault,Youth Voting Rights tells an important story of how students, faculty, staff, and institutions can stand up to defend the most foundational of democratic rights, the right to vote.”
Bard College Acting President Jonathan Becker and Scholar in Residence Yael Bromberg Win AAC&U’s 2026 Frederic W. Ness Book Award
L-R: Bard Scholar in Residence Yael Bromberg and Acting President Jonathan Becker.
The award is given annually to the book that best illuminates the goals and practices of a contemporary liberal education, and it will be formally presented to the editors on January 21, 2027, during the opening plenary session of the AAC&U Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington.
Youth Voting Rights examines the history of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment and the ongoing struggle to protect and expand voting rights for young people in the United States. Through case studies of Tuskegee University, Prairie View A&M University, North Carolina A&T State University, and Bard College, the book explores the role that students, colleges, and universities—particularly HBCUs—have played in the fight for suffrage and the evolution of voting rights. Combining historical, legal, and contemporary perspectives, it draws lessons from these experiences for efforts to defend youth voting rights and strengthen democratic participation today.
“At a time when democracy and the civic mission of higher education are under assault, Youth Voting Rights tells an important story of how students, faculty, staff, and institutions can stand up to defend the most foundational of democratic rights, the right to vote,” said Jonathan Becker. “All of the authors are thankful to AAC&U for the recognition of our work, particularly in telling the stories of how young people have exercised agency to effect change.”
“We are deeply humbled to receive this award, and immensely grateful to our fellow authors whose vital expertise brought this narrative to life,” said Yael Bromberg. “By tracing the evolution of voting rights and the unfulfilled promises of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, Youth Voting Rights for the first time examines legal precedents secured by college communities, and positions youth and their multigenerational allies as constitutional architects. We examine the power of organizing, advocacy, research, and litigation to catalyze hope and civic agency today.”
Jonathan Becker is acting president of Bard College, where he is also professor of political studies and executive director of the Bard Center for Civic Engagement. He serves as vice chancellor of the Global Higher Education Network for the 21st Century, a global alliance of colleges and universities committed to expanding access to higher education and strengthening collaboration across borders.
Yael Bromberg is a constitutional and voting rights litigator, and principal of Bromberg Law LLC. A nationally leading legal scholar of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, Bromberg teaches democracy law at American University Washington College of Law and is a Scholar in Residence at Bard College.
The 2026 Ness Book Award winner was selected by a committee of higher education leaders: Gilda Barabino, former president, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; Dolores Duran-Cerda, former provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, Pima Community College; Lynn Pasquerella, president of AAC&U; Jocelyn Vickers, director of public service, Auburn University; and Kathleen Woodward (committee chair), Lockwood Professor in the Humanities, professor of English, and director of the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington.
“At a moment when questions about democratic participation, civic responsibility, and the health of our democracy are so consequential, Youth Voting Rights makes an important contribution to the conversation,” Pasquerella said. “The committee was especially gratified by the book’s emphasis on the power of young people to catalyze social change.”
To ensure accessible inclusion in classroom curricula, Youth Voting Rights is designed and available as a free, open educational resource. Additional open-educational resources, including Ted-X style lectures by the book’s authors and contributors, short documentaries, and teaching case studies, can be found on the landing page of a collaborative course, The Struggle for Voting Rights at Colleges, which accompanies the book project.
Chapter authors include: Lisa Bratton, associate professor of history at Tuskegee University; Erin Cannan, vice president for civic engagement and managing director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College; Jelani Favors, vice president of the Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute; Alexander Goodwin, assistant professor of political science at Southwestern University; and Michael J. Nojeim, professor and interim department head of political science at Prairie View A&M University. Additional contributions were made by Melanye Price, endowed professor of political science and inaugural director of the Ruth J. Simmons Center for Race and Justice at Prairie View A&M University and Simon Gilhooley, associate professor of political studies at Bard College.
“It was an honor to contribute to this project that interrogates how youth and idealism have served as significant catalysts in the preservation and expansion of American democracy. The study of historically black colleges and universities offers a particularly unique example of how the academy can and perhaps should play a critical role in the defense of fairness and equity within our society. These institutions may very well hold the answer to how we may finally create public spaces that prompt us to closely study and safeguard these professed and cherished principles of democracy and justice for all,” said Jelani Favors, vice president of the Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute.
“The burning question the United States faces right now is who can we call upon to arrest the country’s dangerous lurch toward authoritarianism,” said Michael J. Nojeim, professor and interim department head of political science at Prairie View A&M University. “Youth Voting Rights offers a powerful answer: America’s young voters.”
Lisa Bratton, associate professor of history at Tuskegee University, said, “I wrote this chapter to show that a school created for people just one generation out of enslavement could have a tremendous impact on African American voting rights in spite of the many obstacles to their political and economic independence.”
Established in 1979 to honor AAC&U’s ninth president, the Frederic W. Ness Book Award recognizes outstanding contributions to the understanding and improvement of liberal education. Recent award winners include The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom, edited by Valerie C. Johnson, Jennifer Ruth, and Ellen Schrecker; Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis by Bryan Alexander; The New College Classroom by Cathy N. Davidson and Christina Katopodis; and Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching by Jarvis R. Givens.
Becker and Bromberg’s work is also featured in Liberal Education, AAC&U’s quarterly journal. Becker’s article “Give them Ballots” and Bromberg’s “A Detour for Democracy,” are featured in the Spring 2026 issue.
Post Date: 10-29-2026
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: 10-29-2026
More News
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Fisher Center Coproduction of Suddenly Last Summer Featured in WRTI
Fisher Center Coproduction of Suddenly Last Summer Featured in WRTI
WRTI’s Arts Desk published an interview with Courtney Bryan, the composer of a new interpretation of Tennessee Williams’ one-act play Suddenly Last Summer. Bryan worked on the opera with director Daniel Fish and Gideon Lester, artistic director and chief executive of the Fisher Center, where it premiered this summer. The opera, a co-commission of the Fisher Center LAB, also had three performances at Opera Philadelphia at the end of October.Photo by Maria Baranova
In the wide-ranging interview, Bryan told WRTI’s Nate Chinen about her “immersive” process for developing new music for the material, through visits to New Orleans, Mississippi, and France, among other locations relevant to Tennessee Williams’s life and the southern gothic literary genre. Bryan’s history also includes a long-standing relationship with Lester: the two met at Columbia University, and Lester approached Bryan with the idea of developing the play shortly after joining the Fisher Center as artistic director.
“It was one of those cosmic moments,” said Bryan. “When we did one of our early workshops with me, Gideon and Daniel, we met in New Orleans, and one of the things we did was visit the house together. It made a lot come alive, because in the descriptions Tennessee Williams wrote, you could tell how much the house was an inspiration. I had a chance later to go back in the house and just sit there and think about the music, and it helped just to be there.”
Post Date: 10-28-2026
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Professor Stephen Shore Interviewed in Blind Magazine
Professor Stephen Shore Interviewed in Blind Magazine
Photography program director and Susan Weber Professor in the Arts Stephen Shore, who has led Bard’s photography program since 1982, is best known for his mundane photographs of American life, often made during cross-country road trips. The bilingual French and English language art magazine Blind Magazine shared Shore’s conversation with curator Quentin Bajac, which took place prior to his retrospective exhibition, Véhiculaire & Vernaculaire. Held in Paris at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, the exhibition examined his work through the lens of “vehicular photography,” referring to Shore’s practice of taking photographs from cars and just about every other form of transportation, drones included.Photography program director and Susan Weber Professor in the Arts Steven Shore
In the discussion with Blind, Shore speaks on his early desire to explore the United States, how his technique has changed over the decades, and even shares the advice he imparts to photography majors planning their senior projects. “One of the first things I tell them is that I would rather they try something they’ve never done before, and fail, than go back to their work that looks like the 4x5 work they did two years before,” Shore said. “And they do.”
Shore teaches in the Photography Program which offers instruction in the medium while providing a historical and aesthetic framework for student development in the context of a broad-based liberal arts education.
Post Date: 10-28-2026
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Photography Professor Walid Raad’s Work and Career Covered by MSN, ARTnews, and Others
Photography Professor Walid Raad’s Work and Career Covered by MSN, ARTnews, and Others
The paintings, drawings, and photographs of Walid Raad, artist and professor of photography at Bard, were included in this year’s prestigious Venice Biennale. These works, and Raad’s noteworthy 40-year career, were featured in recent articles by MSN, ARTnews, and USA Art News.Artist and professor of photography at Bard Walid Raad
Raad, who is based out of Beirut and New York, often draws from his experiences coming of age in war-torn Lebanon, and the ongoing social and political developments the Middle East. His works also play with documentary fact and creative imagination or embellishment, leading to works that are difficult to describe or summarize, laden with references through seemingly inane or inocuous subjects, like beds or cakes. The context of the items adds intrigue and meaning—the cakes, for example, are fictitious birthday cakes for highly controversial political figures, such as Benjamin Netanyahu; the beds are those said to have been slept in by Yasser Arafat, the former leader of the PLO. “[He] is said to have never slept in the same bed two nights in a row,” said Raad, who spent 30 years searching for the beds.
The articles also dive deeply into the concepts behind Raad’s work, and his “unique methodology.” For US Art News, Sarah Mitchell cites a description of his work as “a form of surrealism for the information age, giving playful form to misinformation without reproducing fake news,” adding that “clues to the constructed nature of his documents are often found ‘at the edges.’”
Raad teaches through the Photography Program at Bard College, which 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: 10-28-2026
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Aliza Becker Published in Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Aliza Becker Published in Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Associate Fellow of the Hannah Arendt Center Aliza Becker published an essay in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency commemorating the eighth anniversary of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. She shared four lessons she took away from the tragedy, compiled from an oral history project conducted with historian Noah Schoen. Those lessons are: reach out to offer support, show up publicly and visibly, trauma ripples outward, and build relationships before tragedy strikes. “Solidarity and close connections help us get through hard times and sustain our collective humanity,” she writes. “[For survivors], acts of public solidarity made them feel that they did not have to stand against antisemitism alone.”Associate Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center Aliza Becker.
Becker turned her oral history into October 27th, a podcast that tells the story of the Tree of Life shooting through the voices of the local community. She also published two oral history projects at the Hannah Arendt Center, which aims to create and nurture an institutional space for bold, risky, and provocative thinking about our political world in the spirit of Hannah Arendt. Its vision is to empower people to discover their unique opinions and political agency and also find common ground to build together a shared world through thinking, listening, and talking with one another.
Post Date: 10-28-2026
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Professor Jack Ferver Speaks About Organizing an Exhibit on Martha Graham in Dance Magazine
Professor Jack Ferver Speaks About Organizing an Exhibit on Martha Graham in Dance Magazine
Assistant Professor of Performing Arts Jack Ferver spoke to Dance Magazine about developing “Martha Graham: The Mother of Psychological Dance,” an exhibit he organized around the work of choreographer Martha Graham. Ferver says his attachment to Graham’s work began when he was a teenager. “I felt so empowered through the movement vocabulary of Graham [and] the empowerment came from knowing it had been developed by a woman,” he told Dance Magazine. “The majority of my writing is based in creative expression for my performance work, so writing the [exhibition] text was truly exciting. I wanted it to be accessible and alluring.”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
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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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