Living at Bard

Students can take advantage of all the facilities of the Bard campus during the summer sessions, including all collections of the Stevenson Library. A rich source of additional information is available via ConnectNY, a 14-member library consortium for interlibrary borrowing that features 5 million additional volumes. In addition, a comprehensive image library containing both slides and digital images is located in the Richard B. Fisher and Emily H. Fisher Studio Arts building.

The College's proximity to New York City, with its multitude of exhibitions, performances, readings, lectures, and films, is also significant for the program; many members of the teaching faculty reside in New York, and visiting artists can easily travel from the city for presentations and performances at Bard.

The Heinz O. and Elizabeth C. Bertelsmann Campus Center is a central meeting place and is often used for M.F.A. community events. It houses the College bookstore and post office, a café, a 100-seat theater, multipurpose and conference rooms, offices, recreation and meeting rooms, exhibition space, and a small computer center.

The Bard campus is also home to the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard), an exhibition and research center dedicated to the study of art and exhibition practices from the 1960s to the present day. In November 2006, the Center inaugurated the Hessel Museum of Art, a 17,000-square-foot building for exhibitions curated from the Marieluise Hessel Collection of more than 1,700 works. With nearly 25,000 square feet of exhibition space overall, an extensive research library and curatorial archives, and a series of free public lectures and educational programs addressing key topics in the study of contemporary art, CCS Bard is a unique contemporary arts resource open to the entire Bard community.

The renovated Bard College Exhibition Center (UBS Gallery), the former Universal Builders Supply warehouse in the center of neighboring Red Hook, is a professional-level gallery in which MFA students present their Master's Projects to the public. The 21,000-square-foot space is used as a gallery for exhibitions of paintings, photographs, sculptures, and sound and video installations. In addition, Bard offers special facilities for each artistic field.