Bard College Holds One Hundred Sixty-Sixth Commencement on Saturday, May 23, 2026
Peabody- and Emmy-Award Winning Journalist and Author Fareed Zakaria to Give Commencement Address
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.— Bard College will hold its one hundred sixty-sixth commencement on Saturday, May 23, 2026. Bard President Leon Botstein will confer 501 undergraduate degrees on the Class of 2026 and 197 graduate degrees. Bard will also confer 46 associate degrees on students from its microcolleges. The Undergraduate Degrees Commencement will begin at 2:30 pm in the commencement tent on the Seth Goldfine Memorial Rugby Field. The Graduate Degrees Commencement will begin at 10:30 am at Sosnoff Theater in the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts.The Undergraduate Commencement address will be given by journalist and bestselling author Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s flagship international affairs program and a prominent columnist for The Washington Post. Honorary degrees will be awarded to Fareed Zakaria, lawyer Jack Arthur Blum ’62, business owner Patricia L. Bowman, public health researcher and activist Robert E. Fullilove, philanthropist Marieluise Hessel, Bard High School Early College founding principal Raymond Peterson, historian Oliver Rathkolb, physicist Thomas F. Rosenbaum, musicologist Elaine Sisman, immunologist Kathryn E. Stein ’66, and composer Richard Wilson.
The Graduate Commencement address will be given by Thomas F. Rosenbaum, president of the California Institute of Technology. Graduate degrees conferred will be doctor of philosophy, master of philosophy, and master of arts degrees in decorative arts, design history, material culture; master of fine arts; master of science degrees in environmental policy, climate science and policy, and master of education degrees in environmental education; master of arts degrees in curatorial studies; master of arts degrees in teaching; master of music degrees in vocal arts and master of music degrees in conducting; master of business administration degrees in sustainability; master of science degrees and master of arts degrees in economic theory and policy; master of music degrees in curatorial, critical, and performance studies; master of arts degrees in global studies; master of arts degrees in human rights and the arts; master of arts degrees in Chinese music and culture; master of music degrees in instrumental studies; and master of arts degrees in public humanities.
Bard College Awards will also be presented on Commencement Weekend: The Bard Medal will be awarded to Olivia B. Carino and Audrey Lasher Smith ’78; the John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science to Amy Bernard ’91 and Matthew DeGennaro ’96; the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters to Youssef Kerkour ’00; the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service to Kevin Barbosa ’18 and Eva-Marie Quinones ’17; the Mary McCarthy Award to Marilynne Robinson; the Laszlo Z. Bito Award for Humanitarian Service to Imran Ahmed ’02; and a Bardian Award to Sven Anderson.
ABOUT THE COMMENCEMENT SPEAKERS
Fareed Zakaria hosts CNN’s flagship international affairs program, Fareed Zakaria GPS, and produces documentaries for the network. He has interviewed Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Emmanuel Macron, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, among others.
Zakaria is a columnist for The Washington Post and has written five New York Times bestsellers: The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (2003), The Post-American World (2008), In Defense of a Liberal Education (2015), Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World (2020), and Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present (2024).
Zakaria was named a Top 10 Global Thinker of the Last 10 Years by Foreign Policy magazine in 2019. He has received a Peabody Award and three Emmys for his television work, and a National Magazine Award for his writing. In 2010, India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, one of the country’s highest civilian honors, and, in 2022, Ukraine awarded him the Order of Merit. He holds a BA from Yale and a PhD from Harvard.
Thomas F. Rosenbaum is the ninth president of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where he is also professor of physics. He is an expert on the quantum-mechanical nature of materials, and has conducted research at Bell Laboratories, INC.; the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center; Argonne National Laboratory; and the University of Chicago. At the last, he served as vice president for research and then as provost before moving to Caltech in 2014. He received his bachelor’s degree in physics with honors from Harvard University and a PhD in physics from Princeton University. He serves as the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Society for Science, as a board member of the Aspen Center for Physics, and on the Los Angeles Committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
For members of the press interested in learning more, please email inquiries to [email protected].
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About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place and Massena properties, Bard’s campus consists of more than 1,200 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; advanced degrees through 14 graduate programs; 10 early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 166-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at the main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place and Massena properties, Bard’s campus consists of more than 1,200 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; advanced degrees through 14 graduate programs; 10 early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 166-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at the main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
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This event was last updated on 05-13-2026
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