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Reunion Logo 2023
Main Image for Bard College Awards

Bard College Awards

Photo by Chris Kayden
Honoring alumni/ae, faculty, staff, and friends of the College.
  • Reunion Schedule
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Bard College Awards 2023

Looking for the full Reunion schedule? Click here.

The 2023 Bard College Awards will be held on Friday, May 26, as part of Commencement and Reunion Weekend.

Bard Medal

Bard Medal

Roland J. Augustine

Roland J. Augustine began his art career as director of Galleri Bellman in Manhattan, where he organized important monographic exhibitions on Edvard Munch and Chaim Soutine, among others. In 1985, Augustine and Lawrence R. Luhring cofounded Luhring Augustine, which now has three spaces in New York City and represents an international, intergenerational group of contemporary artists. A native of Kingston, New York, Augustine was president of the Art Dealers Association of America from 2006 to 2009, and he serves on the board of trustees of Bard College and board of governors of the Longy School of Music of Bard College. In 2015, Augustine established the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC), a scholarship program at Bard College Berlin for students from areas of crisis and conflict, many of whom have been forcibly displaced. PIESC, which is funded by private and institutional donations, has so far enabled 66 students from Afghanistan, Brazil, Eritrea, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen to work toward a bachelor’s degree in the humanities or social sciences.

John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science

John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science

Babacar Cisse ’03

Dr. Babacar Cisse ’03, Leon Levy Research Fellow at the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, is an award-winning neurosurgeon with a special expertise in primary and metastatic brain and spinal tumors. He utilizes multiple modern and advanced procedures for the achievement of the safest outcomes for his patients, including neuro-navigation, ultrasound, advanced imaging, motor- and speech mapping, and endoscopic and other minimally invasive approaches. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Bard College, Cisse joined the Medical Scientist Training Program at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York City, where he earned his medical degree and PhD with distinction. He completed his residency in neurological surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and his chief residency at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He then joined the clinical faculty at the Weill Cornell Medicine Brain and Spine Center. Cisse is also on the faculty of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute.

Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters

Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters

Layli Long Soldier MFA ’14

Layli Long Soldier MFA ’14 (Oglala Lakota) earned her bachelor of fine arts degree from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her poems have appeared in Poetry magazine, New York Times, American Poet, American Reader, Kenyon Review, BOMB, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Artist Fellowship, Lannan Literary Fellowship, and Whiting Award, and was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award. She has also received the 2018 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award, 2021 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature, and 2021 Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize, which honors a distinctive first book of poetry in English published in Britain or Ireland. Long Soldier is the author of Chromosomory (Q Avenue Press) and WHEREAS (Graywolf Press).

John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service
Photo credit: Candace Blas

John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service

Tom Begich ’82

Tom Begich ’82 was elected Alaska state senator for District J in 2016 and served as minority leader from 2018 to 2022. In the state senate he forged cross-party relationships that improved education, reduced incivility, and set the stage for the current bipartisan majority coalition. Begich is the owner of CW Communications, a strategic planning, facilitation, and communications firm where he applies the principles of community development to restorative and juvenile justice, education, and mental health reform. He is currently a faculty member and coach with Reclaiming Futures, a national juvenile justice–mental health initiative and is also executive director of the Nick Begich Scholarship Intern Fund, which has provided more than $600,000 in scholarships to those seeking careers in public service and education. He has served on numerous boards, was chair of the National Coalition for Juvenile Justice, and, with his wife, Sarah Sledge, is committed to serving his community. A poet and musician, he has released seven CDs and one book of poetry and performs throughout the country.

John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service
Ting Ting Cheng ’02

Ting Ting Cheng ’02 is a civil rights attorney and activist. She is the director of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Project at Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, where she develops expert legal guidance and strategic leadership on the ratification of the ERA to the United States Constitution, and on the role of the ERA in advancing the larger cause of gender-based justice. Prior to the ERA Project, Cheng litigated gender-discrimination cases at Legal Momentum, the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund. Earlier, she was an attorney at the New York City Commission for Human Rights and a public defender and immigrant defense attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services. She clerked at the Constitutional Court of South Africa for Justices Albie Sachs and Edwin Cameron. In addition, Cheng was a Fulbright Scholar to South Africa, where she received the Amy Biehl Award. Before coming to Bard, where she double majored in politics and music composition, Cheng was a concert oboist and performed with orchestras including the American Symphony Orchestra.

Mary McCarthy Award

Mary McCarthy Award

Katherine Boo

Katherine Boo, journalist and editor at the New Yorker, reports from within under-resourced and stigmatized communities on crucial questions of opportunity and equity. Her journalism has received a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, a MacArthur “genius” grant, and a National Book Award for Behind the Beautiful Forevers, a nonfiction account of life in the Mumbai slums that has been published in 30 languages. At the New Yorker she stewards into print investigative projects and features on social issues, and has been a volunteer adviser to numerous nonprofit journalism endeavors, among them Barbara Ehrenreich’s Economic Hardship Reporting Project, the 19th News, and the Pulitzer Prizes, whose board she cochaired in 2021 and 2022. Boo also collaborates with low-income families on community development projects in two underserved areas—an endeavor she began a decade ago with her husband, writer and historian Sunil Khilnani.

Bardian Awards

  • Sanjib Baruah
  • Laura Battle
  • Michèle D. Dominy
  • Ellen Driscoll
  • Robert Kelly
  • Michael Lerner
  • Lucy Sante
  • Jean Wagner
  • Li-hua Ying (posthumous)

Bard College Awards Archive

Please email [email protected] for additional information or to request copies of earlier programs.

  • Awards Program (PDF)

    2022


    Bard Medal
    George F. Hamel Jr.

    John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science
    Chidi Chike Achebe ’92

    Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters
    R. H. Quaytman ’83

    John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service
    Michael Zach Korzyk MAT ’0

    Mary McCarthy Award
    Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

    László Z. Bitó Award for Humanitarian Service 
    Bryan Billings, Aselia Umetalieva, and Omar Waraich

    Bardian Award
    Marcia Acita, Thurman Barker, Norton Batkin, Daniel Berthold, Ken Buhler, Jean Churchill, Randy Clum Sr., Richard H. Davis, and Joseph Santore

     
    2022
  • Awards Program (PDF)

    2021


    Bard Medal
    Charles S. Johnson III ’70

    John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science
    Brianna Norton ’00

    Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters
    Paul Chan MFA ’03

    John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service
    Nsikan Akpan ’06;

    Mary McCarthy Award
    Claudia Rankine

    Bardian Award
    Peggy Florin
    Medrie MacPhee
    Amie McEvoy

     
    2021
  • Awards Program (PDF)

    2020


    Bard Medal
    Barbara S. Grossman '73

    John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science
    Juliet Morrison '03
     
    Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters
    Xaviera Simmons '05

    John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service
    Nicholas Ascienzo

    Matthew Taibbi '92


    Mary McCarthy Award
    Carolyn Forché

    Bardian Award
    Peggy Awesh, Matthew Deady, Bonnie R. Marcus '71, Richard Teitelbaum

     
    2020
  • Awards Program (PDF)

    2019


    Bard Medal
    George A. Kellner

    John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science
    Tatiana M. Prowell '94
     
    Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters

    Alexandra Elliott Wentworth '88

    John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service
    Sonja Brookins Santelises
    Marya Warshaw '73

    Mary McCarthy Award
    Judith Thurman

    Bardian Award
    Ken Cooper, John Halle, David Kettler, Robert Martin, Alice Stroup, Dawn Upshaw, Carol Werner


     
    2019
  • Awards Program (PDF)

    2018


    Bard Medal
    Eric Warren Goldman '98
    U Ba Win

    John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science
    Rebecca L. Smith '93
     
    Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters
    Walead Beshty '99

    John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service
    Cynthia H. Conti-Cook '03

    Mary McCarthy Award
    Lorrie Moore

    Bardian Award
    Mary I. Backlund, Jeffrey Katz


     
    2018
  • Awards Program (PDF)

    2017


    Bard Medal
    James Haller Ottaway Jr.

    John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science
    Mariana Raykova '06
     
    Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters
    Nick Jones '01

    John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service
    Betsaida Alcantara '05

    Mary McCarthy Award
    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Bardian Award
    Mario J. A. Bick, Diana De G. Brown, Marsha Rial Davis, Larry Fink, Norman Manea


     
    2017
  • Awards Program (PDF)

    2016


    Bard Medal
    Patricia Ross Weis
    Charles "Chuck" Simmons

    John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science
    Eric Kiviat '76
     
    Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters
    Steven Sapp '89 and Mildred Ruiz-Sapp '92

    John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service
    David Harman

    Mary McCarthy Award
    Jorie Graham

    Bardian Award
    Carolyn Dewald, Terence F. Dewsnap Sr, Gennady L. Shkliarevsky, Peter D. Skiff


     
    2016
  • Awards Program (PDF)

    2015


    Bard Medal
    Marieluise Hessel

    John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science
    Ilyas Washington '96
     
    Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters
    Charlotte Mandell '90

    John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service
    Harvey L. Sterns '65

    Mary McCarthy Award
    Alice McDermott

    Bardian Award
    Benjamin La Farge, Mark Lytle, Martha J. Olson, Justus Rosenberg, Hap Tivey


     
    2015
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