Bard College Holds 164th Commencement on Saturday, May 25, 2024

Renowned Earth Scientist Naomi Oreskes to Give Commencement Address

Bard College will hold its one hundred sixty-fourth commencement on Saturday, May 25, 2024. Bard President Leon Botstein will confer 395 undergraduate degrees on the Class of 2024 and 229 graduate degrees, including master of fine arts; doctor and master of philosophy and master of arts in decorative arts, design history, and material culture; master of science and master of arts in economic theory and policy; master of business administration in sustainability; master of arts in teaching; master of arts in curatorial studies; master of science in environmental policy and in climate science and policy; master of music in vocal arts and in conducting; master of music in curatorial, critical, and performance studies; and master of education in environmental education. Bard will also confer 40 associate degrees from its microcolleges. The program will begin at 2:30 pm in the commencement tent on the Seth Goldfine Memorial Rugby Field.
 
The Commencement address will be given by internationally renowned earth scientist, science historian, and author Naomi Oreskes, who is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. Honorary degrees will be awarded to Naomi Oreskes, President of Al Quds University Imad Abu Kishek, sculptor El Anatsui, Chancellor of New York City Public Schools David C. Banks, scholar R. Howard Bloch, health economist Richard Frank ’74, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, and actor Rachel Weisz. 

Other events taking place during Commencement Weekend include Bard College award ceremonies. The Bard Medal will be presented to Sandy Zane ’80 and The Right Reverend Andrew M.L. Dietsche; the John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science to Daniel Fulham O’Neill ’79 and Andrew Zwicker ’86; the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters to Adam Conover ’04 and James Fuentes ’98; the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service to Paul J. Thompson ’93 and Erin J. Law ’93; the Mary McCarthy Award to Karen Russell; the László Z. Bitó ’60 Award for Humanitarian Service to Golden McCarthy ’05, Adam Khalil ’11 and Zack Khalil ’14; and Bardian Awards to Myra Young Armstead, Patricia Eichenbaum Karetzky, Joel Perlmann, and Tom Wolf.

ABOUT THE COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER
Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. She is an internationally renowned earth scientist, science historian, and author of both scholarly and popular books and articles on the history of earth and environmental science. Her authored or coauthored books include The Rejection of Continental Drift (1999), Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth (2001), Merchants of Doubt (2010), The Collapse of Western Civilization (2014), Discerning Experts (2019), Why Trust Science? (2019), and Science on a Mission: How Military Funding Shaped What We Do and Don’t Know about the Ocean (2021).

Oreskes has been a leading voice on the science and politics of anthropogenic climate change. Her 2004 essay “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change” (Science 306: 1686)—the first peer-reviewed paper to document the scientific consensus on this crucial issue—has been cited more than 2,500 times. It was featured in the landmark Royal Society publication, “A Guide to Facts and Fictions about Climate Change,” and in the Academy Award–winning film, An Inconvenient Truth. Her 2010 book, Merchants of Doubt (coauthored with Erik M. Conway), has been translated into nine languages and was made into a documentary film produced by Participant Media and distributed by SONY Pictures Classics. Her 2014 TED Talk, “Why We Should Trust Scientists,” has over 1.6 million views.

In 2018 she was named a Guggenheim Fellow for a book project with Erik M. Conway, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market. It was released by Bloomsbury Press in February 2023, and has been widely reviewed, including in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the New Yorker. 

Post Date: 04-22-2024