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Bard Commencement Weekend, May 23–25, 2025
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Photo by AnnAnn Puttithanasorn ’23

Inclusive Excellence

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We embrace plurality, respect divergent viewpoints, and are committed to understanding the rich spectrum of experiences that comprise our community.
A woman in a red jacket plays piano.
Photo by AnnAnn Puttithanasorn ’23

Our Mission

Inclusive Excellence at Bard seeks to materialize our commitment to plurality, dialogue, and rigorous study. We strive to create a learning environment that upholds the College’s mission to meaningfully include the voices, works, and ideas of communities and cultures representing the plurality of people that make up the Bard community. Inclusive Excellence at Bard aims to work at the systemic as well as the interpersonal level to address the implicit and explicit ways discrimination impacts the learning process.

Who Does the Work of Inclusive Excellence at Bard?

Inclusive Excellence is an institutional mission at Bard College, tasking all of us with doing the work of furthering that mission. Fostering a more inclusive campus is an effort shared by those who live and work at the College—students, faculty, and staff.

Office of the Dean of Inclusive Excellence

Contact us! We’re always here to talk.
  • A woman smiles at the camera.
    Claudette S. Aldebot
    Dean of Inclusive Excellence
    [email protected]
    845-758-7492
    Office: Kappa House 110
  • A man smiles for the camera.
    Haron Atkinson
    Assistant Director of Inclusive Excellence
    [email protected]
    845-758-7605
    Office: Kappa House 102
A woman speaks into a microphone to a crowd of people seated before her.
Dean of the College Deirdre D’Albertis addresses first generation graduates at a reception. Photo by Joseph Nartey ’26

Council for Inclusive Excellence

The Council for Inclusive Excellence (CIE) serves as a central hub for discussions about inclusivity at Bard. Students, faculty, and staff volunteer or are appointed annually to serve on the Council. The Council serves as a communication nexus for concerns, projects, and initiatives requiring campus-wide collaboration for success. The CIE operates from the belief that the institutional transformation for greater inclusion requires systemic change. This systemic change is most successful when the people within an institution collaborate to work, support, and care for the holistic needs of the campus community.

Contact the CIE

A Commitment to Inclusivity

  • In the Classroom
    Our curriculum encourages students to deepen their understanding of inclusive excellence through the Difference and Justice distribution requirement and Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences courses. The Center for Faculty and Curricular Development, the Office of the Dean of the College, and working groups in Bard’s four academic divisions have all focused on creating well-attended seminars and retreats on inclusive pedagogy, inclusive syllabi, and in-service trainings for navigating difficult conversations and sensitive readings.
  • Inclusive Hiring
    Bard College is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, mental, or physical disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, familial status, veteran status, or genetic information. Bard is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for all individuals in employment practices, services, programs, and activities. 

Acknowledging Bard’s Historical Origins

  • Land Acknowledgement
    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.
  • Slavery Acknowledgment
    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.

Reporting

  • We encourage members of the Bard community to make the College aware of any instances of discrimination or harassment.
    Reports can be made to the College using the Bard College Incident Reporting Form or the Title IX Reporting Form, or by calling the dean of inclusive excellence at 845-758-7492. Any emergency should be reported to Campus Safety and Security at 845-758-7777.

Navigating Federal Actions Impacting Higher Education

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Bard has a long history of creating inclusive environments for all races, creeds, ethnicities, and genders. We will continue to monitor and adhere to all Federal and New York State laws and guidance.
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