Newsmakers

Bard ecologist Erik Kiviat and Simon's Rock colleague Robert Schmidt were the first scientists to discover clam shrimp in New Jersey. Now Kiviat is on the hunt again for the rare crustacean.

The Center for the Study of the Drone analyzed data from the Federal Aviation Administration and found 295 near misses between drones and manned aircraft in the U.S. since November 2014.

Louis Heilbronn's first exhibition at the Galerie Polaris in Paris was a revelation for many photography critics.

Molly Myerson moved from New York City to the Bay Area where she now has a pasture-raised flock of 200 Japanese quail.

Bard Alumnus Ian Samuels was named in Filmmaker magazine's annual survey of new talent.

More than 20 years ago Feldman started her now wildly successful crystal glassware company in her apartment with just $2,500 in savings.

Herb Ritts '74 was famous for his celebrity portraits. Now his collection is on display in a career retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Bard alumnus David Duckler’s origins as a tea importer began on a trip to China where he studied, through Bard College, on a Fulbright scholarship focused on tea culture and folklore.

"Iran is going to get a nuclear weapon. Sooner or later, sanctions or no sanctions, deal or no deal," states Cristol, director of the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program.

Alumnus Dumaine Williams ’03, principal of Bard High School Early College Cleveland, urges legislators to support the Go to High School, Go to College Act of 2015.

Faustine’s series of self-portraits, titled "White Shoes," feature photographs of Faustine posing nude before New York landmarks where African men and women were once bought and sold.

Bard alumnus and trustee Charles S. Johnson III has received a "Celebration of Civil Rights Milestones" award from the State Bar of Georgia and the Center for Civil and Human Rights.

The Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College has partnered with The Verge to create a database of the first 500 exemptions to the FAA's commercial drone restrictions.

Alcantara leaves the communications department at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to join the Clinton presidential campaign as director of media planning.

Levy, an alumna of Bard's joint MFA program with The International Center of Photography (ICP), creates Hard to Swallow, a mini-documentary about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

Morrison takes a fresh approach to the study of microscopic killers: she combines new computational tools with traditional scientific methods.

Soprano Clarissa Lyons ’11, alumna of the Bard College Conservatory of Music Graduate Vocal Arts Program (VAP), has been invited to join the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, capping an exciting year in which she was named the Grand Prize Winner at Florida Grand Opera’s Young Patronesses of the Opera Competition and the Glenn & Ginger Flournay Award Winner at Shreveport Opera’s Mary Jacobs Smith Singer of the Year Competition. In January, Lyons participated in The Song Continues series at Carnegie Hall, where she performed in a master class led by Warren Jones. She will return to Carnegie Hall in January 2016 to present a Spotlight Recital in Weill Hall as part of The Song Continues series alongside tenor Miles Mykkanen and pianist Ken Noda.

Choreographer, composer, and jazz singer Jeanne Lee makes this list of exceptional black women composers to look out for in June for Black Music Month.

On June 11, Bard College's La Voz magazine was awarded the second place prize for Best Small Circulation Publication at the 2015 Ippies award ceremony. The Ippies are the only journalism awards in New York City to honor reporting in English and in languages other than English by the ethnic and community press. La Voz, cofounded by Mariel Fiori '05 and Emily Schmall '05 in 2004 as a Trustee Leader Scholar (TLS) project, serves the Latino community of the Hudson Valley with a free Spanish-language magazine.

The musical adaptation of Fun Home, the best-selling graphic memoir by Simon's Rock alumna Alison Bechdel, who received her A.A. degree in 1979, has won the Tony Award for best new musical.

 This summer, Jonah Richard is one of 54 student interns from across the U.S. worked side-by-side with top researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to see how they seek out real-world solutions to the nation's energy challenges.

This spring Triangle invites you to visit us at 20 Jay Street in Brooklyn, Suites 318 + 350 to meet artists-in-residence. View works-in-progress and engage directly with the artists whose projects span drawing, installation, painting, pedagogy, performance, photography, sculpture, video and more. 

Bard alumni Mildred Ruiz-Sapp '92 and Steven Sapp '89 each received the 2015 Doris Duke Artist Award in theatre. Mildred Ruiz-Sapp is an actress, poet, vocalist, and playwright; husband Steven Sapp is an actor, poet, director and playwright. Together, the two co-founded UNIVERSES in The Bronx, NY in 1995. UNIVERSES is an award winning poetic musical theater ensemble that has toured extensively nationally and abroad. The Doris Duke Artist Award, provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, is given to artists who have received national recognition for their work. The award provides grantees $275,000 and access to resources for audience development and creative exploration.

"GABI is like a Princess and the Pea–style mattress, constructed of layers and layers of chiffon, looped vocals, soft pink light glowing."

Ian Bickford has immersed himself in Bard's early colleges. He began as a student at Bard College at Simon's Rock in Massachusetts, and then served as a faculty member at Simon's Rock before joining the faculty at Bard High School Early College–Queens. Now he has returned to his alma mater to launch the new Bard Academy at Simon’s Rock: a 9th and 10th grade boarding and day college-preparatory program that will open its doors this fall.

In the late 1960s, Arthur Tress began creating staged photos of children's dreams and nightmares, producing a haunting series that went against the photojournalistic conventions of the time.

Bard students founded Contemporaneous on campus in 2010. On March 8, the group returned to Bard for a well-received anniversary concert.

Josephine Sacabo's haunting photographs, on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art, are created using a wet collodion on metal process that dates back to the 19th century.

Bard alumna Raquel Hardy and her high school boyfriend had very different experiences transitioning from a public high school in a poor neighborhood to elite private colleges (39:28).

Bard artist in residence Medrie MacPhee, alumnus Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford '06, and former visiting artists James Clark and Jane Rosen have been selected for the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Annual Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts. The exhibition features paintings, sculptures, photographs, and works on paper by 40 contemporary artists and will be on view at the galleries of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City from March 12 through April 12. Participating artists were chosen from a pool of over 200 nominees submitted by the members of the Academy.

CCS Bard alumna Ruba Katrib, curator at SculptureCenter in New York, discusses her journey from artist to curator and how women in the arts can support each other.

Allison Cekala '06 uses photography and video to trace the journey of road salt from Chile to Boston in her new exhibition at the Museum of Science.

The Times reviews Kansas City Choir Boy, a new opera featuring members of Contemporaneous under the musical direction of David Bloom '13.

The third annual Bard Works program runs from Sunday, January 18, to Friday, January 23, offering opportunities for students to gain valuable career tools as they near graduation. Juniors and seniors participate in a series of workshops, networking events, and other professional development activities. With the support of mentors from the campus community and beyond, students hone their business etiquette and job searching skills, work on public speaking and workplace leadership, and explore how to translate their undergraduate education to the global marketplace. Participants include more than 50 alumni/ae, parents, and local professionals. On Thursday, January 22, the program takes place in New York City with a day of panels and a networking reception hosted by the Bard College Alumni/ae Association Board of Governors. Read More

Four Bardians are involved in The Scarlet Ibis: Mallory Catlett '92, director; David Cote '92, librettist; Joe Silovsky '91, set designer; and Stefan Weisman '92, composer.

Dylan Mattingly is composing the score for Quest, a film about the life-changing relationship between one of Mattingly's former teachers and another student.

Bard alumnus Ian Dreiblatt visits temple cults, urban landscapes, and cultures both modern and ancient through Robert Kelly's A Voice Full of Cities.

The Bard Prison Initiative "is symbolic of what is best about our college and our community," says BPI director and Bard alumnus Max Kenner in this interview.

Contemporaneous, a new music ensemble featuring Bard students and alumni/ae, is performing the opera Kansas City Choir Boy with Courtney Love under the musical direction of David Bloom '13.

Erica Ball composed her first piece of music at age five. Now Ball, who majored in music and environmental studies at Bard, is working on her Ph.D. in composition at the University of Pennsylvania.

“The most important thing we can do in the United States isn’t just [to] transform the prison system,” says Max Kenner '01. “We have to transform education in this country ...”

Rhinebeck's beloved Sinterklaas festival is the brainchild of Bard alumnus Jeanne Fleming ’70, who is also behind the famous Greenwich Village Halloween Parade.

Sundance describes Ian Samuels's new film as, "A heartbroken alien dreamer from the moon transitions into young adult life in Los Angeles just like any other 20-something."

Arthur Holland Michel cautions that the state of consumer drone regulation is “like the early days of the automobile, with people speeding and not knowing what they were doing."

Between 2008 and 2013, architectural photographer Felicella captured all 212 branch libraries of New York City’s three public library systems.

Mariel Fiori talks about the character of the Hudson Valley's Hispanic population, and why she founded Bard's La Voz magazine to help serve its needs.

Chan’s “singular artistic voice” and versatile practice won him the prestigious award, which includes a $100,000 prize and an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum.

David Parker ’81 choreographs this new take on Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, with "enough creative pluckiness to reawaken the holiday spirit." Performances December 20–21.

After being trapped in the 2010 earthquake, Brelsford has gone on to raise money for the people of Haiti, continue her research, and compete as a paraclimber.

Arthur Holland Michel, Bard alumnus and codirector of Bard's Center for the Study of the Drone, weighs in on this Google Hangout.

This work-in-progress "easily has the makings of a professional production," writes Seth Rogovoy.

Lisa Oppenheim is the recipient of the prestigious Aimia | AGO Photography Prize which carries a $50,000 CAD prize in addition to a six-week, fully funded residency.

Opus 40, the 6 1/2 acre outdoor sculpture created by Bard alumnus and faculty member Harvey Fite, has been named to the prestigious 2014 list of endangered landscapes by The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

Bard College's newest athletic facility, Honey Field, was dedicated in a ceremony on Saturday afternoon. The ceremony was followed by an intrasquad baseball scrimmage.

The Environmental Consortium of Colleges & Universities has awarded its Great Work Award in honor of Thomas Berry this year to Erik Kiviat ’76, executive director and cofounder of Hudsonia, a not-for-profit institute for research, education, and technical assistance in the environmental sciences based at the Bard College Field Station on the Hudson River. A certified wetland scientist, Kiviat has more than 45 years’ experience with natural history and environmental issues—especially those related to rare native species as well as invasive nonnative species—in the Northeast, and across North America, Europe, and Africa.

Bard Prison Initiative founder and director Max Kenner '01—who "champions the transformative power of a college degree for inmates nationwide"—is honored with the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award.

Max Kenner kicked off his acceptance speech by sharing the story of how the Bard Debate Union at Eastern Correctional Facility beat the University of Vermont this fall.

Max Kenner, Bard alumnus and executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), has won the 2014 Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Education. The awards recognize 10 of the year’s most amazing achievements and the innovators behind them. On October 16, Smithsonian magazine, the flagship publication of Smithsonian Media, announced winners of the third annual American Ingenuity Awards, saluting 10 groundbreaking individuals across nine categories including technology, performing and visual arts, natural and physical sciences, education, historical scholarship, social progress, and youth achievement. Max Kenner conceived of and created the BPI as a student volunteer organization when he was an undergraduate at Bard College in 1999. Over the last decade, Kenner has led the expansion of BPI from a pilot program with 15 students to a nationally recognized education initiative enrolling nearly 300 students across six campuses in correctional facilities throughout New York State.

One-third of food is lost or wasted, writes Bard alumna Elizabeth Royte, but producers and consumers can take steps to change that.

Bard alumna and La Voz editor Mariel Fiori '05 has been named an Entrepreneurial Woman of the Year by Gateway to Entrepreneurial Tomorrows, Inc. (GET). GET promotes economic development in the Hudson Valley by supporting women, minorities, youth, and veterans in starting their own businesses. Every year the organization recognizes outstanding regional businesspeople with the Hudson Valley Entrepreneurial Awards. Mariel Fiori, who cofounded the Spanish-language magazine La Voz as a Bard student and has edited the publication for a decade, will be recognized for her contributions as a community leader. Fiori and five other awardees will be honored at GET's 10th anniversary celebration on Thursday, October 23, as part of the Hudson Valley Entrepreneurial Conference and Expo in Wappinger Falls.

What makes herpes viruses so difficult to kill? Biophysicist Z. Hong Zhou may have found the answer in a layer of microscopic chain mail, writes Bard biology alumna Diana Crow '13.

Stunning photography by Laura Steele and Pete Mauney '93 MFA '00 appears in issue 10.

Los Angeles-based painter Mary Weatherford MFA '06 has won the Artists' Legacy Foundation 2014 Artist Award and will receive a $25,000 cash prize.

Cartoonist, graphic memoirist, and Simon's Rock alumna Alison Bechdel has been named a 2014 MacArthur fellow. The prestigious award carries a $625,000 stipend over five years.

Bard alumnus Lindsay Hill's first novel, Sea of Hooks, has won the PEN Center's top prize for fiction. Hill will give a reading of his work at Bard on September 22.

On Monday, September 22, author Lindsay Hill ’75, will read from his novel, Sea of Hooks, winner of the 2014 PEN Center USA Fiction Award, finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, and named one of the top 10 books of the year by Publisher’s Weekly and New York magazine. Kirkus Reviews calls Sea of Hooks “a remarkable and multifaceted novel—philosophical, poignant and puzzling,” while Publisher’s Weekly writes that “nearly every paragraph astonishes, every moment rich with magic and daring.”

LGBT family activist Gabriel Blau ’02 has put children's voices front and center in his dedicated advocacy for equal rights.

The Daily Freeman offers a collection of Bard College images from its archives. The photos are from the 1980s and 1990s, and include campus scenes and commencement shots.

Works by Israeli artist and Bard graduate Orit Raff MFA '03 "transcend national identities, challenge assumptions and transport viewers." 

As hobbyists and companies take to the sky with drones, Arthur Holland Michel writes that we need a more intelligent debate about how to regulate unmanned aircraft.

"There is no poetry without a politics," says Bard alumnus Andrew Durbin '12 in this interview about poetry, surveillance, and the Internet.

Conductor Marcelo Lehninger '07 led the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood last week, under less hectic circumstances than he did the first time, when James Levine resigned in 2011.

Bard College photography major turned couture model Louise Parker provides a unique look at quiet scenes backstage with her fellow models.

As seniors, Arthur Holland Michel ’13 and Dan Gettinger ’13 created the Center for the Study of the Drone, an interdisciplinary research and arts project based at Bard. Now the center is becoming a leader in the national conversation about the social, economic, ethical, and political implications of drone use.

Though Hamas's new drone program may not have an immediate impact on the conflict with Israel, drones could play a bigger role should Israel send ground troops into Gaza, according to Gettinger.

In the Bardian

By Dan Gettinger ’13 and Arthur Holland Michel ’13

As seniors, Arthur Holland Michel ’13 and Dan Gettinger ’13 created the Center for the Study of the Drone, an interdisciplinary research and arts project based at Bard. The idea was to bring together academics from a variety of disciplines to discuss, study, and learn about unmanned and autonomous systems technology and its implications for warfare, law enforcement, and other civilian applications. Their project has evolved to include seminars, lectures, debates, roundtable discussions at Bard and in New York City, a blog, and a weekly news roundup that Thomas Keenan, associate professor of comparative literature and director of Bard’s Human Rights Project, calls “one of the most authoritative sources anywhere for news about drones of all sorts.”

Gettinger’s interest in drones began in his sophomore year, when he took a seminar taught by Walter Russell Mead, James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and the Humanities. Gettinger was intrigued by Thucydides’s account of the Peloponnesian War and how choices in weapons platforms affected the strategies of the ancient city-states. His Senior Project explored drones and the changing nature of modern warfare. Holland Michel, a double major in historical studies and written arts, broached the idea of a center for studying drones to Gettinger. In fall 2012, the two assembled a faculty team and helped design a course on drones that met with overwhelming student response, and the center took flight.

At the time we first talked about creating the Center for the Study of the Drone, U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen were peaking. Al Jazeera and the New York Times were regularly running stories about these operations, which the CIA was refusing to acknowledge. Drones hadn’t become a media sensation yet, but a public debate on the issue had begun. Advocates claimed that drones were more precise, surgical, and humane than the alternatives, while human rights activists decried the loss of civilian life, the psychological trauma of living under drones, and the threat that drones pose to privacy. The debate seemed inarticulate, misinformed, and immobilized by its own narrowness. This, we soon figured out, was no accident. Nobody really understood the drone—nobody really even knew what a drone was.

Defining the word “drone” is an exceedingly complex challenge. In the public imagination, a drone is a weaponized, unmanned aircraft that watches, and engages, members of extremist organizations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and the Horn of Africa. But from a technological perspective, this definition is too narrow. An unmanned submarine is technically a drone, too. One of our goals was to help broaden the public definition of drones to include all kinds of unmanned vehicles, be they airborne, land borne, or aquatic. As we understand it, a drone is a machine that uses sensors to collect information about its environment, and then uses actuators to either manipulate its own location and orientation in that environment or manipulate the environment itself. Some drones require a human controller to be in the loop; others can respond to their environment autonomously, according to their programming. All drones, no matter their shape or size, are irresistible, fascinating, uncanny, and somewhat terrifying; we want to find out why, and how, the combination of appeal and fear influences the public conversation. This is becoming increasingly important, as drones are not just for foreign operations anymore.

In 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration plans to create licensing procedures and air traffic rules for unmanned aerial vehicles in United States airspace. Unmanned technology is set to become an enormous industry, with some insider optimists predicting that the sector could be worth up to $400 billion in the next few years. More realistic estimates range between $13 billion and $85 billion. Whatever the dollar figure, demand for drones is expected to be extremely high. A farmer who previously operated a $3 million helicopter to survey his crops for $6,000 an hour will be able to run a $20,000 multirotor drone for a few hundred dollars per day (agriculture is expected to account for 80 percent of domestic acquisitions). Police departments will turn to unmanned aerial vehicles as a cheap and effective alternative to manned helicopters. NASA and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) already fly military hand-me-down drones to survey animal migratory patterns and weather changes. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection bureau maintains a fleet of drones, which it lends to police departments, the FBI, and U.S. Department of Justice agencies.

The unmanned vehicle industry is growing despite the fact that the use of drones by law enforcement agencies is controversial. In this era of pervasive surveillance, the idea of government agencies acquiring yet another highly capable surveillance platform to monitor the domestic population is unpopular. Fears of an era of unbounded aerial surveillance have prompted state and local legislatures across the nation to pass bills that curtail aerial surveillance by both private citizens and government organizations. But drone technology, like the Internet, has developed far more quickly than the policies that are meant to regulate it. Driven by the promise of high profits, the industry is developing ever more sophisticated drones, from solar-powered drones that can remain airborne for up to five years to drones the size of insects. Each new drone is accompanied by a set of new ethical questions and policy challenges.

When Amazon announced in December that the company was developing a system for drones to deliver packages under five pounds to Amazon customers in 30 minutes, the prospect of large-scale domestic drone use departed from the realm of hobbyists and futurists and entered mainstream society. By putting its weight behind the controversial idea of domestic drones, Amazon thrust the drone debate into high gear, and highlighted the need for an informed policy response. Crucially, the Amazon announcement put pressure on the FAA to develop a domestic drone integration plan—an extremely complex task. The announcement mattered because it will require society to develop a framework for understanding the implications of unmanned technology beyond the current limited scope of the drone debate. What remains to be seen is whether Amazon’s drone delivery system will actually work in time for the prospective 2015 launch date. Critics note a long list of safety concerns. For example, many believe that Amazon drones can’t possibly work in crowded urban environments. Nevertheless, Amazon’s backing could help the technology and regulatory communities resolve lingering safety and privacy concerns. The question seems to be “when will this happen?”
rather than “will this ever happen?”

This past fall, Keith O’Hara, assistant professor of computer science, taught (De-)Coding the Drone. The four-credit class, which we designed with Professor O’Hara, combines hands-on training in unmanned systems programming with a humanities-based reading list and guest speakers from philosophy, the arts, history, and political science. The fall also saw a formal debate on drones (“Resolved: Drones Do More Good Than Harm”) with Bard students, cadets from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and faculty from both institutions.

In a bid to help the public organize the mass of information and media buzz surrounding this subject, we created the Weekly Roundup, a short, accessible list of the latest news, analysis, commentary, art, and tech from the drone world. Each week, the roundup goes out to an expanding community of interested citizens, researchers, pilots, artists, journalists, and writers. The blog features news analysis, portfolios, and interviews, while the website is a platform for historical, cultural, and aesthetic perspectives on current events. The interviews on the website attempt to bring unheard voices into the conversation about drones. In late fall, for example, we interviewed Natalie Jeremijenko, an artist and engineer who uses unmanned technology to create environmental solutions, and is considered a leading voice on the intersection of art, environmentalism, and technology. In 1997 she created the first-ever piece of “drone art,” flying a small, camera-equipped drone over large tech campuses in Silicon Valley.

The center’s efforts have been praised by a number of influential people and organizations. When Dan wrote about how the German Pirate Party (a socially liberal party favoring Internet freedom and political transparency, among other issues) flew a drone toward German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a campaign rally, the story was distributed widely among the Pirate Party and its supporters. Our work has been quoted by Bloomberg News, and featured in Slate, USA Today, Wired, Artforum, and elsewhere. In January and February, we cosponsored two panel discussions at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. We are also providing research for the filmmaker Carl Colby’s forthcoming feature documentary on domestic weaponized drone use.

Initiatives to expand the center’s programs include concepts for tech literacy programs at Bard’s partner institutions, including the Bard High School Early Colleges, and development of an online archive for research about drones. We are confident that, through this collective enterprise, the public will be better equipped to face the social, economic, ethical, and political challenges that lie ahead.

Read the spring 2014 issue of the Bardian:

Bard alumna Gia Coppola '09 talks about making her first film, working with actor and author James Franco, and how professor Stephen Shore helped her get started.

In the Bardian

By William Stavru '87

During the past year, Gia Coppola ’09, somewhat reluctantly, has become a regular on the film festival circuit, with her feature film directorial and writing debut, Palo Alto, being screened—and lauded—at such prestigious venues as the Telluride, Venice, Toronto, and Tribeca film festivals. Coppola says, “Film festivals are scary to me, but if the cast and crew are with me, then they can be fun. We’re able to celebrate the work.” Based on the eponymous collection of stories by James Franco (Scribner’s, 2010), who also stars in the film, Palo Alto details the troubled lives of a group of high school students in Palo Alto, California, exploring the teenagers’ characters and how their exploits and relationships become searches for meaning.

Coppola, who admits that her own high school years were neither fun nor productive, says she felt a kinship to the characters and was drawn to the dialogue and sense of teen malaise conveyed in the book. “In 2010, I met James Franco and we started talking about photography and about his book. I read it and thought the language and mood were spot on for the world he was creating, so we decided to turn it into a film,” she says.

In the book, myriad characters wander in and out of interlinked stories, so Coppola had a challenge in adapting the collection. “I had to combine characters and focus on the meatier stories, letting others go. James gave me some good advice along the way,” she says. “One of my biggest surprises in writing the screenplay—aside from discovering how lonely and draining writing can be—is that the film goes through several filtrations until it becomes something very different than what you’ve started with. Over time, the script almost starts to tell you what it needs to be.”

Coppola and her small crew started filming on Halloween 2012 in Woodland Hills and other neighborhoods of the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. She says, “The shoot was low-budget and very familial; the boys [the crew] lived in my mom’s house and I often cooked dinner for them.” They wrapped in 30 days.

With the surname Coppola, one can expect that Gia is genetically predisposed to a life behind a camera lens. She is matter of fact when discussing her large, dynastic Hollywood family. Sticking to a short list of who’s who: Her grandfather is director/writer/wine producer/hotelier Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather films, Apocalypse Now); her aunt is director/writer Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides); her cousins are accomplished actors Nicholas Cage and Jason Schwartzman. She appreciates the many talents of each, especially her aunt and grandfather. “I love my grandfather’s work—I just rewatched The Conversation—and Sofia’s films,” she says.

Although she was determined to maintain a healthy distance from her family in order to find her own voice as a writer and a filmmaker, she did seek guidance regarding the business aspects of filmmaking. “My grandpa gave me some advice in dealing with industry executives and the money people—it’s incredibly hard to find financing, and even harder to figure out distribution. Sofia, as a young, soft-spoken woman director, had dealt with the same issues I was facing. Even though I know I have great people to turn to, I didn’t want my family’s ideas to infiltrate my work too much or rely too heavily on those connections.”

Coppola maintains that, regardless of the amount of help, nothing could have equipped her for directing her first project. “There’s no way you can be prepared for your first film; you just feel like a teenager going through very teenage insecurity,” she says. “My grandpa likes to say that directing is all about problem solving and that you need to learn to love anxiety. That’s true.”

Postproduction brought the young filmmaker other important teachable moments. Coppola says, “I learned the most in the editing room. When you’re shooting, you work from a script and let the film take its course. But I didn’t fully understand how important editing is and how it can dramatically change the look and tone of the film.”

One thing Coppola did understand before directing her film is how to use a camera, which she learned as a photography major at Bard. She chose the College in order to study with Stephen Shore, Susan Weber Professor in the Arts and director of Bard’s Photography Program. “I was a fan of Stephen’s work, so I studied photography,” she says, adding that she also enjoyed working with Gregory Moynahan and Robert Culp, both associate professors of history, who taught “an interesting class on revolutions.” Shore agreed to advise Coppola; her Senior Project was an exhibition of street and diaristic photography. “I liked the idea that Bard was close to New York City, but I could have a rural college experience,” she says. “I also liked that Bard is a liberal arts college but one that has a very creative environment.”

After graduation she tried bartending (“I liked making gin martinis, served cold, cold, cold!”) and booked work as a fashion photographer. “I was just trying to find work that inspired me. Then I shot behind the scenes on the set of Twixt, my grandfather’s film that came out in 2011. That’s where I learned a lot about how a movie is made.”

Variety said Palo Alto “brings a fresh humanity” to the topic of disaffected modern youth: “Coppola’s adaptation balances the tired sensationalism of kids behaving badly with a welcome dose of sympathy. . . . Coppola cycles through a wide range of emotions, from humor to horror, as these not-quite-kids, not-quite-adults pick fights, deface public property and seek easy gratification . . . [Palo Alto] boasts a clear and confident voice of its own, and it will be exciting to see where the young Coppola goes from here.”

With her first feature film complete, Coppola is enjoying having more down time, which she spends reading books (she was in the middle of John O’Hara’s Appointment in Samarra at the time of this interview) and considering future projects. “I’m not sure what I will do next,” she says. “I have some original ideas, but I don’t know if they will go anywhere. A dream project would be to adapt a story by Raymond Chandler. It would be fun to modernize an old mystery the way [director Robert] Altman did with The Long Goodbye.”

Palo Alto is set for wide release in June, following a limited release in Los Angeles and New York.

Read the spring 2014 issue of the Bardian:

Lia Soorenian ’14 talks about her Davis Project in the village of Litchk in Armenia, where she is promoting sustainable beekeeping as an alternative to the local mining industry.

Four covers from Bard's La Voz magazine will be displayed in the exhibition “Vive La Guelaguetza: An Encounter with Oaxaca” at the Mid-Hudson Heritage Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, through July 19. The exhibition commemorates La Guelaguetza, a world-famous cultural festival from Oaxaca, Mexico, which for the last five years has been celebrated locally at Waryas Park in Poughkeepsie. The festival, which attracts thousands of spectators, will take place on August 3 this year. The La Voz covers on display feature the town's past La Guelaguetza celebrations, and are on view alongside paintings, photography, and traditional costumes from the state of Oaxaca. Bard College students Mariel Fiori '05 and Emily Schmall '05 founded La Voz in 2004 as a Trustee Leader Scholar (TLS) project, aiming to serve the Latino community of the Hudson Valley with a free Spanish-language magazine. Fiori is still editor at La Voz, and the award-winning publication now has an estimated 20,000 readers in the area. La Voz will mark its 10th anniversary with a celebratory evening at the Spiegeltent at Bard's Fisher Center on August 12.

Jay Nelson blurs the lines between art and architecture with his remarkable and functional creations, including refurbished boats and campers as well as one-of-a-kind tree houses.

Bard alumni Joel Clark '05, Tavit Geudelekian '05, Andrew Kopas '08, and Mark Perloff '08 are part of King Post Studios, which last year launched a board game based on Herman Melville's Moby Dick, and is now working on a new game for the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf.

The Bard Prison Initiative has been offering college in prison since 1999, providing a life-changing, cost-effective model for other programs nationwide.

In the wake of an attack on a Pakistani student studying in India, Bard alumnus Saim Saeed discusses the importance of academic exchange programs between the two nations.

Bard alumnus Chris Claremont '72 revitalized the X-Men comic book series, creating some of its most iconic characters ... with a little help from studying political theory at Bard.

Bard alumnae Kate Belin '04, MAT '05 and Beth Goldberg MAT '06 have been named New York State Master Teachers by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. Belin and Goldberg are among 215 STEM educators from across the state chosen to expand the first cohort of New York State Master Teachers. They join the 104 Master Teachers announced in October 2013—which included Colleen Bucci MAT '08—bringing the total number of Master Teachers in New York to 319. Master Teachers receive a $60,000 stipend over four years, serve as mentors, and participate in professional development sessions.

What do you get when you cross the hit show Breaking Bad with Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet "Ozymandias"? An opera like no other. Playing in New York City on May 19.

Until recently Bard alumnus Dan Cline was teaching English language classes to young people in Haisyn, Ukraine, working on community projects, and even ending up in the local press for his efforts. That changed over the winter as political unrest in the country grew into a revolution and the Peace Corps evacuated all its volunteers from the country.

Composer, pianist, and singer Akie Bermiss performs live in studio, interspersed with interview segments with host Sahr Ngaujah.

Bard alumni/ae Sean Colonna '12, Thomas "Parker" Hatley '13, and Molly McFadden MFA '12 have been awarded 2014–2015 Fulbright Scholarships. Colonna and McFadden will be working in Germany, Colonna teaching English and McFadden investigating current movements in the field of art and disabilities. Hatley has been selected for an English Teaching Assistant Award to Mexico.

Skin Horse Theater, founded by five Bard graduates, has won two Big Easy Awards for their newest work, Nocturnes: Best Original Work (Devised) and Best Lighting Design.

Hazel Gurland-Pooler's The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has won a 2013 Peabody Award, which recognizes exceptional storytelling in electronic media.

Bard alumni Ben Richter and Stefan Weisman are among the winners of Wild Rumpus Music's 2013–2014 Commissioning Project for emerging composers. Their work will be featured in an upcoming season of Wild Rumpus Music performances.

"We've managed to make Bard a place that includes incarcerated people not as subjects of some kind of charity, but as students who are judged with the same courtesy and generosity, and with the same level of expectations and rigor as other students on campus."

Bard graduate and current Bard Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) student Joy Sebesta ’13 organized the presentation of the National Museum of Mathematics traveling exhibition, Math Midway 2 Go, at the Marlboro Elementary School in Ulster County on March 5. This traveling version of the museum’s hands-on math exhibits offered students in grades 3 to 5 an opportunity to enjoy math, engage their minds, and de-stress before the upcoming state tests.

A track from the record Thunder Lay Down in the Heart by composer Christopher Tignor ’98 features a new recording of poet and Bard professor emeritus John Ashbery.

Contemporaneous, a new music ensemble featuring Bard alumni/ae and students, is in residence at the University of New Orleans, where they will play free concerts that include works by acclaimed composer Yotam Haber.

Kate Hartman ’03—founder and director of The Social Body Lab in Toronto—is creating wearable technology that increases the visibility of cyclists, runners, and walkers.

Andrew Gori '04 and Ambre Kelly's SPRING/BREAK has been offering an inclusive, accessible alternative to the traditional art fair for three years, with solid attendance, positive reviews, and strong sales.

Soprano Julia Bullock has won the first prize of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s international vocal competition. Ms. Bullock’s prize includes a $15,000 cash award, two New York concerts, and an unspecified number of concerts elsewhere in the United States.

Daniel Gordon has been selected by Amsterdam’s Foam photography museum as the 2014 winner of its Paul Huf Award, which is given annually to a photographer under the age of 35. The award carries a €20,000 ($27,800) prize and an exhibition at the museum.

Bard Works is a career-oriented professional development program for juniors and seniors at Bard College that prepares them for work after graduation. Bard Works provides participants with the tools, strategies, and networking opportunities to hone their job search skills and lay a foundation for success in the workplace. Working with alumni/ae, parents, and mentors, participants explore how to convert their Bard experience in the liberal arts to a job after college.

Yishay Garbasz spent March 2013 touring the abandoned towns around the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. Ritual and Reality, exhibited at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York City, is the result.

Bard MFA faculty and alumna Amy Sillman will be featured in the Whitney Biennial for the second time this year, and her acclaimed survey Amy Sillman: One Lump or Two will come to CCS Bard.

Bard alumni/ae Adrian Grenier and Gaby Hoffmann star in a new film about how a group of old friends comes together in the wake of an apocalyptic cyber attack.

Bard alumnus Braden Lamb '03 and fellow artist (and his wife) Shelli Paroline talk about their work as creators of the popular Adventure Time comic book series that accompanies the hit TV show.

Angela Onwuachi-Willig argues that President Obama should invite Max Kenner to tonight's State of the Union address in order to show his commitment to education for all.

Ian Berry M.A. '98 directs Skidmore College’s Tang Museum, which he has transformed into an interdisciplinary teaching laboratory that stands out among peer institutions.

Maude Standish was recognized in the marketing and advertising category. She is a cofounder of Tarot, a Millenial trend insight company, director of strategy at Mistress Social, and writes for Vice, the Huffington Post and Agency Spy. She will be speaking at SXSW this year.

Third-generation filmmaker Gia Coppola is making a name for herself with her forthcoming film Palo Alto. She both directed the film and adapted the script from James Franco's short story collection.

Bard College's Office of Development and Alumni/ae Affairs has been honored with awards from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.

Saving Mr. Banks, the new film about Disney's Mary Poppins, includes Richard Sherman and Robert Sherman (both class of '49) as characters. In this interview, Richard tells the story behind the new movie.

California Academy of Sciences exhibit engineer and Bard alumnus Tosh Chiang '04 has designed a series of exhibits for the museum in his dream job.

Bard alumnus and parent Pierre Joris '69 has won the Modern Language Association's Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature. Joris, professor emeritus of the University at Albany, State University of New York, receives the award for his translation of Paul Celan’s The Meridian: Final Version–Drafts–Materials.

Class of 2003 alumni and freshman dorm-mates Bjorn Quenemoen and Jamie O'Shea have combined their skills in farming and solar energy to create a unique snack.

Bard alumnus Dan Cline '08 has been volunteering with the Peace Corps in Ukraine for more than a year. He currently lives and works in the town of Haisyn, where he teaches English as a second language to primary and secondary school students at the Haisyn School-Gymnasium. Shocked to find that the classrooms had no dictionaries, Cline is raising funds to provide better learning tools for Haisyn’s students and teachers. He has also organized English language clubs at the school and has been offering extra tutoring to students. Cline acts as vice president of the Peace Corps Gender and Development Working Group in the region, and as secretary of the HIV/AIDS Working Group. He is also involved in groups for Technology for Development and the National Olympiad.

Cline also recently received a Small Project Assistance Program grant through USAID for his keystone Peace Corps service project. With this grant, Cline will organize and oversee the construction of an outdoor athletic complex on the school grounds, which will be open to the larger community. The project will also involve Cline's Young Volunteers' Club, and will make available healthy lifestyle education for students. Cline has recently garnered media attention in Ukraine for his varied and committed work on behalf of young people in Haisyn, including interviews published in The Tribune of Labor and the Haisyn Herald.

A political studies and philosophy major, Bard College alumnus Saim Saeed ’13 won a Davis Projects for Peace Award for his project, “Living Together—Navigating Common Grounds: A MENA-EU Initiative” in Istanbul, Turkey. In May 2012, during his junior year at Bard, the New York Times published his op-ed essay "Shouting in the Mirror." After graduating from Bard College, Saeed went to work as a writer for the American Interest. In this interview, he talks about the importance of his study abroad experience at Bard.

When Daniel Pacheco ’07 accepted a job through Engineers Without Borders to work in Cambodia, he had no idea that he would end up launching his own sustainable energy company there. Four years later, he's helping to bring energy independence to communities throughout the country. Working with Cambodian colleagues, Pacheco installs solar in homes, orphanages, and clinics, and makes sure these systems are sustainable for local people in the long term.

Cinematographer and Bard alumnus Jake Magee '10 is the cinematographer for Naz + Maalik, a film about two closeted Muslim teens who are followed by FBI agents.

Journalist Matt Taibbi ’92 has emerged as one of the shrewdest, most tenacious reporters of our nation’s financial system and politics. In this interview with William Stavru '87, he discusses financial regulation, the multiparty system, and the state of journalism today.

Hazel Gurland-Pooler '99 of Ark Media is coproducing two episodes of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, a PBS documentary series hosted by scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.

In the Bardian

By William Stavru '87

Over the past decade, journalist Matt Taibbi ’92 has emerged as one of the shrewdest, most tenacious reporters of our nation’s financial system and politics. For someone with an international reputation as an agitator extraordinaire, he is disarmingly soft-spoken, affable, and polite. Taibbi began his writing career in Russia, his first destination after leaving Bard, then spent time in Uzbekistan and Mongolia, where he enjoyed a short stint as a professional basketball player. After 10 years abroad, Taibbi returned to the United States. Settling in New York City, he began writing for the New York Press, an alternative free weekly, now defunct. Taibbi’s merciless, wicked style got him a job at Rolling Stone; his long, in-depth pieces on Wall Street reform and other troubling financial policy decisions earned him a rock star’s level of notoriety that has been amplified by his frequent appearances on news and opinion shows such as the Rachel Maddow Show, Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Fox News. Whether or not one agrees with Taibbi’s point of view, his work inarguably has helped reaffirm the importance and merit of political reportage.

In his books—Spanking the Donkey: Dispatches from the Dumb Season (2005); Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire (2007); The Great Derangement (2008); and Griftopia (2010)—Taibbi takes to task the elected officials, government agencies, and financial institutions at the root of our current economic crisis. (“You win the modern financial-regulation game by filing the most motions, attending the most hearings, giving the most money to the most politicians and, above all, by keeping at it, day after day, year after fiscal year, until stealing is legal again,” he wrote in a scathing Rolling Stone article, “How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform.”) His pieces synthesize picaresque narratives and a policy-wonkish intimacy with finance and banking regulations and legislation, with the effect of making his readers’ indignation almost palpable. Bardians may remember him also for his 2011 Town and Country article—“Is Bard the New Brown?”—in which he examines his own feelings and nostalgia for Bard, which means many things to many different alumni/ae. I had the chance to chat with him right before Bard Commencement and just after his article on the LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) scandal appeared on his Rolling Stone blog. Here are edited excerpts from the interview.

Bill Stavru: Can you recall a single event that served as your political awakening?
Matt Taibbi: I was raised in a household in which both parents, especially my mother, were politically active, so I thought about politics from an early age. My mother was a social worker and she would tell me stories about what her clients were going through, so some of my point of view must have come from her experiences.

Did you study economics at Bard? You have an incredibly good understanding of how the machinations of this economy work.
I didn’t study economics. I never thought I’d be doing this type of reporting for a living, so I have absolutely no finance background. But I don’t look at what I do as really covering economics. When I’m assigned a story or somebody approaches me with an interesting angle on an issue, my job is to get up to speed as quickly as possible. With banking and finance, there’s no way to do a story without a lot of studying. It’s like crime reporting, but cloaked in camouflaging professional jargon.

Can you discuss the research you do for your books and articles? Because you have such a strong voice, people may underestimate how much research you do to make these stories credible.
The first thing I do, particularly with all the financial stories, is to narrow the scope of the story down to a single concept that I’m trying to understand and express. It can be something like, How does LIBOR work? How do they come up with that benchmark interest rate and how could you manipulate that? Then I call people until I’m satisfied that I understand that one thing. Obviously, a reporter has to call people on all sides of the issue before writing the background for the story. If you look closely at the stories I write, they have one single concept and then the rest is background. Who are these people? What led up to the event and what was its resolution? The main part of the research is just figuring out how a thing works, which requires finding somebody who can communicate that to you in terms an outsider will understand.

Do you think we’ve come too far to ever get back to a well-regulated, workable, and ethical financial/banking system?
That’s a difficult question. I feel strongly that we can’t regulate all these problems away. The solutions have to come from within; there’s no way to be on top of everybody all the time to make sure that they’re not stealing. You can’t have a policeman every five feet on a city block. It’s the same with the financial system. You have to rely on people to have ethics. That’s what’s gone wrong in this situation; I don’t think it’s a lack of regulation or even a lack of police presence— the lack of ethics has just been so widespread. Say you work for one of the megabanks and you’re going to sell a packet of crappy subprime bonds to a pension fund in Minnesota. You’re basically going to rob the life savings of state workers so you can drive a nicer car? We have to restore a sense of patriotism, or responsibility.

What political events and/or policy changes have given you more hope in the past few years, if any?
There are a lot of signs in Washington that the regulatory establishment has come around to the idea that the “too-big-to-fail” situation is not tenable, and that they have to break up these financial institutions. Legislation in the Senate sponsored by Sherrod Brown [D-Ohio] and David Vitter [R-Louisiana] to break up the banks got a fairly hysterical response from the banking industry, which to me indicated that it had a chance of going somewhere. When banking reform amendments were filed in the past, the banks would just ignore them, but now I think they’re worried. And some of the federal reserves—the Dallas Fed, St. Louis Fed, New York Fed—are talking about how “too-big-to-fail” is unsustainable. It would be revolutionary to go in and break up these companies.

It would be. These are not people who are unfriendly to big banking or business in general. Even some CEOs and ex-CEOs were saying, “Well, actually we are getting too big to manage.”
Yes. Sandy Weill, the former CEO of CitiGroup, which was the first of what they call the supermarket banks, said in 2012, “This doesn’t work.” The [1999] repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act [the 1933 law that separated investment from commercial banking to lower the risk of financial crashes] created CitiGroup. There’s really no intellectual argument in favor of “too-big-to-fail” anymore. It would make these banks less competitive but that doesn’t have much to do with American business. A functioning American corporation will be able to get financing from somewhere. The only thing that would be different is that a few banking executives won’t make as much money, and people are slowly coming around to that realization. I think there’s hope.

You’ve been fearless in your quest for a story. Has there been any situation in which you’ve contemplated taking a certain action and then decided that you couldn’t follow through with it?
When I lived in Russia, I knew Russian reporters who faced real risks when they researched and wrote stories; some of them were shot or attacked. I didn’t have that same problem. The physical safety aspect of my work has never seriously crossed my mind, but there are people who are irrational and will respond very aggressively to even being mentioned in a story.

We have a Republican Party that seems unable to reconcile itself on many issues, including immigration reform and gay marriage. We also have a Democratic Party that’s splintering over national security and other stands. Do you think America is ready for a multiparty system?
People are ready, but it’s not going to happen, because there are so many powerful interests who want to keep things the way they are. The two-party system is an incredibly effective mechanism for political conservatism. It has managed to continually move the needle in the direction of wealth and power for 30 or 40 years. I don’t think anybody within that system has any appetite for creating a third party; so the impetus will have to come from somewhere else. Whoever tries to do it is going to end up targeted by the entire political mechanism and discredited somehow; so I just don’t see it happening. Also, where would the money come from?

How do you decompress from all the grim news that you report on?
I follow a lot of sports and over the years I’ve gotten a lot better at keeping my home life and my professional life separate. People overestimate how depressing this job can be for me. The work is a real intellectual challenge, and there are very attractively horrible characters to write about.

In 2008, you wrote in The Great Derangement, “If there’s a villain in this book, I might offer some of the congressional representatives. . . but really the best selection might actually be me. And I have no idea what that means, but it’s probably not good.” Do you have any idea what that means now?
[Laughs.] At that time, I was covering the presidential campaign and was really conflicted about what I was doing. I had a deep sense that all of the glitzy campaign coverage was a distraction from some larger, more important issue that we weren’t looking at. And that turned out to be true: the economic crisis. I don’t have any existential angst about what I do for a living anymore, because now I’m really covering the complicated reality—these finance issues—that had been hidden from me. Back then, I was flailing around trying to make this sideshow funny, or do something with it, and so I was experiencing a lack of self-confidence.

How do you feel about the profession of journalism today? Do you think it is doing what it’s supposed to do?
The Internet has radically changed the possibilities for this profession. One of the reasons people became cynical about journalism years ago is that it had become very homogenized. Everybody wrote in the same detached, faceless, third-person voice. We had that incredible period in the 1970s with Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and others. But then, except for a few publications here and there, the whole concept of advocacy journalism really disappeared. Now we’re getting back to that type of investigative reporting, largely, I think, because financial interests don’t have control over the whole journalistic landscape anymore. There are people on the Internet—which isn’t under that control—who are doing really cool things. People are doing their own investigations or document dumps, so journalists have access to information that was never available before.

At the same time, the mainstream media has a lot of the problems it has always had. It’s still locked into a fake narrative about our political system; if you travel across America you’ll find 70 percent of people are still completely obsessed with this blue/red, football-game concept of how politics work. That speaks to some kind of failure, on the part of the media, that the country hasn’t gotten past that divisiveness. I think we’re going in the right direction, but there are still problems.

Another thing is that technology and the media have worked to shorten our attention span, so it’s gotten harder to do what I do for a living and have any success. There aren’t a lot of people willing to read a 6,000-word article about a serious issue unless you make it really entertaining. It’s an uphill battle for most readers. That means fewer publications are going to pay for that story because the audiences are smaller.

Would you like to comment on recent news stories about government surveillance and freedom of the press?
People are missing the larger significance of these stories. It’s much more serious than a pattern of targeting journalists. If we get used to the government approving things like extralegal drone assassinations and torture on a mass scale, then pretty soon we stop being squeamish about things like illegal surveillance, wiretapping, the use of regulatory agencies to collect data on political enemies, etc. As much as people would like to think that their leaders are smart, the reality is that politicians are often too stupid, too lazy, and too paranoid to handle that kind of power responsibly. Giving presidents the power to assassinate without real legal review, and then expecting them to not use technical tools available to them to spy on/pressure their political enemies, is just naive. The abuse of journalists that we’re facing now is the inevitable consequence of our failure to react properly to Abu Ghraib [the Baghdad prison where human rights violations occurred], Bradley Manning [U.S. soldier arrested in 2010 for passing classified material to WikiLeaks], and so on. We created this monster and now everyone, not just journalists, has to figure out a way to tame it.

You played professional basketball in Mongolia but you don’t write or talk about it much.
I did play there when I was in my mid-20s and I was only just starting in journalism. I wrote a short piece about it for the Boston Globe Magazine. It was a crazy, wild experience. I was a celebrity in Mongolia. I was known as the Mongolian version of Dennis Rodman. I dyed my hair different colors and I got into fights in almost every game. I was actually ordered by the team owner to play to the crowd. We had a player on our team who was like the Mongolian Michael Jordan; he was a great player. We would walk around town together and people would come up to us and get our autographs. But I had a really bad experience at the end—I caught pneumonia and almost died. I had to come back to the United States and I was in recovery for months, so I just never got around to writing about playing basketball.

What are you working on now?
I’m finishing up a book that is a compare-and-contrast exercise on how justice is served differently among rich people and poor people. I have a bunch of Wall Street crime stories in it, and stories about regular criminals in the system, and how easy it is for the non–Wall Street criminals to get arrested. There’s a lot of material in there about inner-city life and jails. It’s new territory for me.

That’s timely; the whole prison system seems to be in question. We’re spending a lot of money keeping people incarcerated when maybe they shouldn’t be.
That’s the premise of the book. Violent crimes actually decreased rapidly in the last 20 years, but we’ve doubled the prison population during that time, thanks in large measure to the increased length of sentences, drug convictions, and “three strikes” mandatory incarcerations. More than half of federal prisoners are serving time for a drug offense, but only 11 percent are being incarcerated for a violent crime. There’s a correlation between the length of sentences, race, and class. There’s something going on that has nothing to do with crime. The book is an attempt to get to the intrigue, the mystery, of what’s going on with our prison population.

Is there a TV show in your future?
I could never do a TV show. My father was a television reporter and my stepmother was a CNN anchor so I grew up around TV my whole life and I know how hard it is. It requires a skill set that I don’t have. You have to be quick on your feet and also radiate a consistently positive, cheerful presence. People underestimate how hard it is. The older I get the more I realize that I should just stick to what I do.

But it looks like everyone is having a lot of fun on Real Time with Bill Maher.
That’s because shows like his are moderated by professionals. When you’re a guest on those shows you see how people like Bill Maher or Rachel Maddow earn their money. They have to get guests, who aren’t always professional performers, to stay within the confines of a 45- second hit. It has to be light enough for the advertisers, but heavy enough to be interesting. It’s a delicate line to balance, and they’re really good at it.

You visited campus in spring 2013 to be part of a public conversation on the U.S. financial system with Sandy Lewis. [Lewis is a former broker who pleaded guilty to stock manipulation in 1989 and was later pardoned by President Clinton. He has been a formidable critic of Wall Street.] The event was packed; people couldn’t get in to the auditorium. How did it feel to come back to campus as a media star and as someone who’s an expert on some of the most serious economic policy failures in our nation’s history?
I love coming back to Bard. I spoke on campus once before as an alumnus, a long time ago at a Commencement Week event. I’m proud to have gone to Bard and to see how well it’s done. [Professor of English] Ben La Farge was really good to me. I was having a hard time, and Ben wrote letters to me, even during summer vacation. He really encouraged me in my career.

Do you have any advice for undergraduates who want to be journalists?
I have a standard line I tell young people who want to get into the business: Move overseas, learn a language, and study something else. Have expertise in something, whether it’s botany, medicine, or whatever. In my case, I spoke Russian, and became thought of as an expert in Russian politics. That enabled me to get work. In my opinion, life experience is more important than going to journalism school.

Living overseas when you’re 22 or 23 is fun. There’s so much pressure in this country to succeed and have money, and to not be a failure. I think it’s good for young people in their twenties to get away from that. Go to Southeast Asia or wherever and just live for a while. The number one thing you need as a journalist is life experience so you can develop your own point of view. Once you get older and have kids or get locked into a mortgage, your ability to pick up and move is limited. When you’re 22 or 23, life is an open canvas—go do whatever you want.


Read the fall 2013 issue of the Bardian:

In the Bardian

By Helene Tieger ’85


“The business of an undergraduate college is to graduate not only persons who know how to make a living, but also persons who know how to live.”
—Rev. Bernard Iddings Bell, Warden of St. Stephen’s College (Lyre Tree magazine, Sept. 27, 1929)

On a foggy January day in northernmost Vermont, Justin Gallanter ’34 recounted his memories of his years at St. Stephen’s College, the precursor to Bard: “At a school with 100 students and a faculty of maybe 15, there were no secrets.” His gaze was clear, his memory sharp, and his presence, as the last known living St. Stephen’s alumnus, a bridge to the past.

Gallanter wrote in his admission application that he and his parents were first interested in St. Stephen’s after reading President Bernard Iddings Bell’s Common Sense in Education. The Gallanters were impressed by the clarity of Bell’s philosophy of education and his energetic commitment to building a rigorous residential community then sustained by four campus institutions: the curriculum, chapel, athletics, and fraternities.

Bell believed that the ideal college would be one in which students were seen as “responsible persons” and that the curriculum should be adapted to the individual student, rather than forcing undergraduates to conform to a fixed program of study.

Bell came to St. Stephen’s in 1919 as the country was regrouping from the First World War. The college was struggling; it had fewer than 30 students enrolled. By 1930, when he personally reviewed and approved Gallanter’s application for admission, B.I. (as he was known) had overseen the construction of four new buildings, including Hegeman with its brand new science labs; tripled enrollment; coordinated the merger of St. Stephen’s with Columbia University; and imprinted the community with the force of his personality and his socialist (some said radical) views.

Founded in 1860, St. Stephen’s had always provided a strong classical education for young men planning to attend Episcopal seminary, but in the 20th century the college began to expand, seeking as students “men contemplating business careers; men looking forward to lives of social service; men wishing later to enter professional schools of Medicine, Law, Education, Theology, Engineering, or Journalism . . . ” (College Catalogue, 1930).

Justin Gallanter was just 16 when he arrived at St. Stephen’s, but many of his opinions were fully formed. His admission application reads: “I am poor in mathematics and physics because they do not interest me.” He was, however, a serious student, excelling in English, Latin, French, and history. He recalled that St. Stephen’s teachers were generally excellent, though, he said, “There was a Greek professor, Harry, who . . . spoke 17 languages that all sounded like English.”

Gallanter was able to recall all of his 32 classmates. Together, the Class of 1934 participated in the rituals and ceremonies of the time, including the annual Freshman/Sophomore Tug o’ War over the Sawkill Creek and the sumptuous Boar’s Head Dinner at Christmas. In winter, they would skate on the frozen river, using their academic robes as black sails. Pranks were common: one story tells of the college horse being led into a student’s Stone Row room and left there for hours.

Justin Gallanter ’34

The only openly Jewish student at the time, Gallanter said he experienced no prejudice, and he enjoyed the music and community of mandatory daily chapel attendance. The Chapel of the Holy Innocents’ bell was rung at 6:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. to announce morning communion and vesper services. The communion service was optional, but strict attendance was kept each evening, when robed students sat in assigned seats. Each student was allowed only 15 chapel cuts per semester, and missing a Sunday service counted for three cuts, ensuring that students remained on campus over the weekends.

Gallanter did not belong to a fraternity, but he called himself an “honorary Sig” because his roommate was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Each society had its own house on campus for meetings and gatherings. S.A.E. was a national fraternity, while Kappa Gamma Chi and Eulexian, both of which had begun as literary societies soon after St. Stephen’s was founded, were unique to the college. Unaffiliated students were “Non-Socs” (for non-society men).

Like most things at St. Stephen’s, the pros and cons of the fraternities were intensely debated. Nevertheless, until the early 1940s when they were abandoned, fraternities structured the social life of the College. Fraternity brothers ate together at special tables in the dining hall, and each house was responsible for maintaining one of the three tennis courts then installed on Oak Lawn in front of Stone Row. Annual dance weekends saw the fraternities competing to transform the gym to best effect. These weekends also included elaborate banquets to which distinguished guests were invited. During his 2010 visit to Bard (see Spring 2011 Bardian), the Rev. John Mears ’35 recalled waiting tables at one of these banquets, attended by then Governor Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. (They would have been doubly distinguished guests, as F.D.R. was also a trustee of St. Stephen’s College. When he was inaugurated as president, Roosevelt resigned from the board of trustees.)

Gallanter boasted no athletic prowess (athletics, no doubt, did not interest him) but B.I. was determined to build strong bodies to house strong souls. In 1921, Bell had fulfilled the dreams of generations of St. Stephen’s students by constructing the Memorial Gymnasium, named to honor alumni who had died in the First World War. The College embarked on a program of intercollegiate athletics that included football, basketball, hockey, tennis, and later, lacrosse. Competing and sometimes winning against schools like Amherst, St. Lawrence, RPI, or MIT brought tiny St. Stephen’s into the national spotlight.

Despite all this progress, spring 1933 was inauspicious. Four years into the Depression, the College was running a dangerous deficit. B.I. despaired and recommended on March 4 that St. Stephen’s “be closed as of June 30th next.” The remaining board members did not close the College, but chose instead to create a budget that slashed operating expenses and halved the deficit by halving the salaries of the entire staff. Bell could not reconcile his vision for the College to these terms and submitted his resignation. Donald Tewksbury was chosen to head the College—not as president, but as dean, on leave of absence from Columbia. Tewksbury did not hesitate to effect change. He reduced mandatory chapel attendance to three times per week, and dropped the classics requirement altogether. In his Educational Program for Bard College, he placed a heavy academic emphasis on the arts, and outlined the Moderation and Senior Project requirements familiar to Bard students today. The following spring, the Board agreed to change the name of St. Stephen’s College to Bard, in the belief that more grant dollars would be given to a modern, secular school.

Bard President Leon Botstein says Bard today continues the tradition of academic excellence. “Throughout my 38 years at Bard I’ve been conscious of the ideals of my predecessors,” he said. “Like them, we require our students to take themselves seriously in college, and expect that what they learn here shapes what they do in the world. If the College today is a center for and a model of cultural creation, debate, service, and political exchange among citizens of the future, then we are doing our job, as we have always done.”

Helene Tieger ’85 is Bard College archivist.

*Correction: the print version of this article incorrectly labels this as a photo of the soccer team.

Read the fall 2013 issue of the Bardian:

Raj Mukherji '00 is one of youngest people ever to join the New Jersey State Assembly.

On a foggy January day in northernmost Vermont, Justin Gallanter ’34 recounted his memories of his years at St. Stephen’s College, the precursor to Bard: “At a school with 100 students and a faculty of maybe 15, there were no secrets.” His gaze was clear, his memory sharp, and his presence, as the last known living St. Stephen’s alumnus, a bridge to the past.

Musician Donald Fagen has penned a literary memoir focusing on his musical influences, not stardom.

Lawyer, statesman, author, and (soon-to-be) television personality Ronan Farrow '04 has the resume of someone twice his age.

Where privatization and charity fail, investments in watershed services can solve the global water crisis, writes CEP alumna Karen Corey.

Bard College and Simon's Rock alum Ronan Farrow '04 has a new MSNBC show and a book in the works.

Lilly Bechtel '09 harnesses the healing power of yoga in her work with veterans who are coping with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Bard College Master of Arts in Teaching (Bard MAT) graduate Colleen Bucci ’08 has been named a New York State Master Teacher by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. Bucci is one of 104 educators from four regions to be selected as the first group of New York State Master Teachers. Bucci, who graduated from the Bard MAT Program in 2008, is a biology teacher in the Hyde Park Central School District.

Larissa Phillips examines the social, environmental, and parenting implications of hunting for food.

Composer Sung Jin Hong '03 plans to stage his new mini-opera Breaking Bad—Ozymandias next year. The piece will combine elements of the hit show with Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet "Ozymandias."

Alumni/ae Day and Family Weekend will take place on campus October 25–27. Join us for a variety of events, including What's New at Bard, the Ask the President forum, sample classes, performances by the American Symphony Orchestra, campus tours, and panel discussions. Click below to view the full program.

How do you turn a graphic novel into a musical? Broadway veterans took the unconventional childhood memoir Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel A.A. '79, and adapted it for the stage.

City Year volunteers work as tutors, classroom assistants, and after-school program leaders to give struggling students a boost in U.S. cities. Jennifer Spadaccia '13 is among the 42 young adults providing academic support in New Orleans schools with City Year.

Bard alumnus, actor, and filmmaker Andrew Gilchrist '05 discusses his new film, Sea Pig, which recently won Best Short Film at both the Kansas City Film Festival and the Coney Island Film Festival.

Canadian and Omaskêko Cree artist and Bard alumnus Duane Linklater MFA '13 has won the nation's Sobey Art Award for contemporary artists under the age of 40.

Gabriel Blau '02 founded the God and Sexuality National Academic Conference at Bard in 1998. These days, he's advocating for LGBT families as the new executive director of the Family Equality Council.

Meher Varma '07 encourages international students to consider studying in the United States by relating some of the best things about being at Bard.

The Bard Prison Initiative is expanding. This summer the program opened two new campuses in New York State, one of which restored BPI's program for women after Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan was closed after Hurricane Sandy. BPI has more students enrolled in its programs and a more diverse array of classes than ever before. In June, the program hosted a conference on the liberal arts in prison with its growing consortium of national partner organizations. BPI has also hired three new site directors, all of whom are Bard alumni/ae: classicist Rana Al-Saadi Liebert '01, writer Joe Vallese '06, and sculptor Pamela J. Wallace '87.
Read More

Artist Amy Sillman is both a graduate and faculty member of Bard's MFA program. Her first museum retrospective, one lump or two, opens Thursday at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

Bard alumnus Dan Gettinger '13, of the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College, considers questions of collectivism and individuality raised at the recent Maker Faire in New York City.

Recent graduate Saim Saeed '13 writes about the challenges of political self-determination and the appeal of patriarchs.

Bard alumna Lisa Kereszi's photography is an homage to the medium, guided by everyday life and objects rather than any preconceived goals by the artist.

President Obama has nominated Richard G. Frank '74 for the position of assistant secretary for planning and evaluation in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Vocal Arts Program alumnae Lucy Dhegrae M.M. '12 and Ariadne Greif M.M. '10 performed at the Resonant Bodies Festival in Brooklyn, and will sing at Bard on Sunday in "Dawn Upshaw and Friends."

Bard alumnus, writer, and director David Cote '92 will direct two plays in New York City this month: Otherland, which he wrote, and Something Something Über Alles, written by late Bard faculty member Assurbanipal Babilla.

Gia Coppola's first feature film, Palo Alto—which she adapted from James Franco's short story collection—was well received at the Telluride Film Festival.

Opus 40, the sculptural masterwork (now museum) of the late Bard alumnus and professor Harvey Fite '30, hosted the Felice County Fair last weekend, featuring Béla Fleck, the Felice Brothers, Amy Helm, and more.

Independent theater companies like Skin Horse Theater are finding fertile ground for experimentation in the city.

“The first photo books that registered with me were a few Aperture titles at the bookstore at Bard College," writes Michelle Dunn Marsh. "Stephen Shore’s Uncommon Places, Larry Fink’s Social Graces ..."

You may never look at a hamburger the same way again. “Despite the rather disgusting quality of many of these images," writes Feinstein, "there is still an allure.”

Hannah Bronfman '11 is a woman of many talents—among them DJ, restaurateur, and brand creator. In this interview, she talks about her new mobile app and gives advice to enterprising college students.

Bard Conservatory graduate Ming Aldrich-Gan '10 is the music director for Bradley Cole at the New York International Fringe Festival.

Arthur Holland Michel '13, of Bard's Center for the Study of the Drone, examines the many possible uses of drone technology, and the ethical implications of drone development.

Bard alumnus, performer, screenwriter, and playwright Nick Jones '01 talks about how the Netflix approach of making an entire series available at once enables a different kind of viewing experience.

Contemporaneous, a new music ensemble featuring Bard alumni/ae and students, was on WNYC's Soundcheck this week with musician Jherek Bischoff.

Bard alumnus Adam Goldman '08, creator of the hit Web series The Outs, is working on a new show called Whatever this is., featuring alumnae Sasha Winters '08 and Madeline Wise '12. The series focuses on the junior members of a video production crew in New York City, as they struggle to meet their personal goals while working underpaid jobs.

Scott Gendel '99 weaves an Appalachian tale through music.

Alex Kalman cofounded Red Bucket Films while studying at Bard. Later this month he plans to release a new, free app called Camra, which enables users to edit a one-minute video on the go.

Gaby Hoffmann '04 lived in the famous Chelsea Hotel in New York City as a child, setting the stage for her acting career.

Bardians Liza Birnbaum '10, Molly Schaeffer '10, and Paul Cavanagh '11 started a new literary journal in Portland, Oregon, in memory of Bill Cranshaw '10, their friend who passed away after graduation.

Mohammed Adawulai came to Simon's Rock from Ghana in 2005 as an exchange student. This May, he graduated magna cum laude, sharing the commencement stage with Ben Bernanke, and calling attention to the wealth gap between nations in the global north and south.

Bard artist, alumnus, and longtime faculty member Harvey Fite crafted the massive Opus 40 sculpture park, "one of the most extraordinary pieces of sculpture ever created by a single man."

A Rite opens this weekend at the Fisher Center. Co-creators Anne Bogart '74 and Janet Wong discuss the innovative dance-theater piece.

Bard Conservatory Vocal Arts Program graduate Julia Bullock receives a rave review for her "full-voiced, stunningly paced account of 'Somewhere,'" in the San Francisco Symphony's concert performance of West Side Story.

Bard lands at number 15 on the Forbes list of top 50 colleges for return on investment.

Bard alumnus Ben Rubenstein '04 MAT '06, a member of the mathematics faculty at BHSEC Manhattan, has received a 2013 Blackboard Teaching Award. Presented by Manhattan Media, the United Federation of Teachers, Columbia Teachers College, and the New School, the Blackboard Awards honor outstanding educators from all grade levels and education communities.

The New York Times calls Corps Exquis, by Daniel Wohl '03, a "deliciously lovely new album." Bard percussion faculty members, who compose the group So Percussion, perform on the album.

Sara Wintz's first full-length collection of poetry, Walking Across A Field We Are Focused On At This Time Now, "takes the twentieth century and gives it a new haircut," writes Claire Wilcox.

Writer Sherman Yellen '53 pens "Screenplay for a 60th Wedding Anniversary" for his wife, designer Joan Yellen '55.

Several Bard alumni from the mid-90s have reunited Challenge of the Future, the band they started at Bard, for concerts and recordings to benefit the daughter of their late classmate Sebastian Quezada '96. Band members include Nick Zinner '96, Aaron Diskin '95, Mike Guy '96, Seth Prouty '96, and Simon Marcus.

Bard alumnus Adam Goldman '08, creator of the hit Web TV series The Outs, gives the New York Times a tour of his Brooklyn home.

Bard alumnus Jordan Bridges '96 continues a family legacy of acting, following in the footsteps of his father Beau Bridges, grandfather Lloyd “Sea Hunt” Bridges, and uncle Jeff Bridges (of Big Lebowski fame).

Actor, comedian, and Bard alumnus Chevy Chase '68 and his wife, Jayni, will be in Woodstock this weekend to be recognized by the Catskill Mountainkeeper environmental organization and to raise funds for the Opus 40 sculpture park and museum.

Bard Graduate Center alumna and MFA Boston fashion arts curator Michelle Tolini Finamore Ph.D. '10 explores the intersection of couture and cooking in a recent event at the museum, using her own personal collection of cookbooks by fashion designers.

Deirdre Faughey '00 interviews Bard Prison Initiative director Max Kenner '01, who founded BPI while still an undergraduate at Bard.

in the Bardian

Only 10 playwrights—out of nearly 600—have been accepted into the Public Theater’s prestigious 2013 Emerging Writers Group (EWG), a selective program created to nurture the work of new playwrights. Manuel Borras Oliveras ’08 is one of them. “Being accepted into the program was one of the most satisfying experiences, in terms of being acknowledged for my writing,” says Oliveras, who takes nothing for granted, having come to playwriting via an unconventional route: while incarcerated, as a student in the Bard Prison Initiative.

With EWG, Oliveras has attended writing retreats; participated in “speed-dating sessions” with agents, directors, and actors; and met established playwrights such as Suzan-Lori Parks (Venus; Topdog/Underdog) and David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly). “It’s the environment you want to be in,” says Oliveras. “It’s school for me. I tackle it like I tackled Bard College, soaking up as much knowledge and education as I can.”

Oliveras grew up in the Bronx. Conditions in his neighborhood were harsh. He made it to 11th grade before he dropped out of school. At 17, Oliveras ended up in prison. “My life drastically turned at that point. I did not really know anything about my future, other than the fact that I was going to do a lot of time,” he says.

Awaiting sentencing in the city’s detention center, Oliveras’s head raced. He realized that his only option was to make the most of his time—17 years. Once in prison, he immediately enrolled in a GED class and threw himself into the schoolwork. “I felt like I could redeem myself a little bit, instead of only bringing tears to my mother’s and family’s eyes,” he says. “When I obtained my GED, it felt monumental. I knew then that I wanted to pursue education as far as possible.”

Oliveras began applying to college-in-prison programs. Unfortunately, the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act repealed federal Pell Grant funding for incarcerated students. Within months, New York State’s thriving network of postsecondary correctional higher education programs collapsed. So Oliveras began a journey of voracious independent study through books in prison libraries. “I was reading philosophy, history; I read a lot about my culture. I read Puerto Rican writers: Miguel Piñero and Julia de Burgos. My mind started expanding. I read about Pedro Albizu Campos, Che Guevara, the Black Panthers, and other influential people who had been through struggles like me.” He built friendships with older prisoners who were motivated to make the most of their time—starting and running community and educational programs on the inside.

When he was moved to Sing Sing in Ossining, New York, Oliveras enrolled in a theology program for college credit run by Mercy College. After he completed the program, he had no further opportunities for higher education until being transferred to Woodbourne Correctional Facility. “At Woodbourne, I saw a flyer for the Bard College program [the Bard Prison Initiative]. I immediately signed up. I wrote an entrance essay. Close to 200 guys applied. I thought, ‘Thank God I went through the theology program, because it taught me how to structure an essay.’ My essay got me an interview with Max Kenner ’01 [BPI executive director] and Daniel Karpowitz [BPI director of policy and academics, and lecturer in law and the humanities]. Only 11 of us were chosen. I felt so honored,” says Oliveras. “Bard came in at a time when other programs were leaving. I’m eternally grateful to Bard.”

Oliveras appreciates the quality of his Bard education, especially the focus on exploring ideas through writing. “It opened up my worldview,” he says. “It introduced me to writers like John Dewey, Plato, Shakespeare. I met professors who had written books, and I could sit down and talk to them. At those moments I felt totally free.” He was awarded an associate’s degree in 2006 and a bachelor’s degree in 2008.

During this period, Oliveras found himself taking writing very seriously. He cofounded Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) at Woodbourne, a program that uses theater as a transformative tool, and applied what he was learning at Bard to his drama projects. “I kept reading plays and seeing what others had done,” he remembers. “I mimicked what they wrote, then I eventually started telling my own unique story.” He was the lead writer for Starting Over, a group-written play that was performed at Woodbourne and Sing Sing, and is being turned into a film as well as slated for production in New York City. Through RTA, Oliveras met Arin Arbus, associate artistic director of Theater for a New Audience in New York City. She read his work and encouraged him to submit it to theaters on the outside. Arbus showed a writing sample—“Dear Friend,” which is a letter to a man being incarcerated for the first time—to Mark Plesent, producing artistic director of the Working Theater in New York City; based on that, Plesent commissioned Oliveras’s full-length play, Song to a Child Like Me. The play’s first public reading, attended by his sister and other family members, was held at the Working Theater while Oliveras was still on the inside.

In September 2010, Oliveras was released. Balancing a full-time job as a housing advocate for Common Ground (a nonprofit dedicated to ending homelessness in New York City), he still writes every day. “In prison, I led a monastic life fully immersed in writing and studies. Out here, I need to work, pay bills, cook,” he says. “I had to relearn all this. It takes time. But I separate at least two hours a day to write. Never neglect your writing, or the work suffers.”

EWG provides playwrights with a stipend, master classes with established playwrights, a biweekly writers’ group led by members of the Public’s Literary Department, opportunities to attend rehearsals and productions at the Public, tickets to shows at other theaters, artistic and professional support, and at least one public reading of their work. Oliveras marvels at meeting with playwrights he once read in A-block. He’s aiming for a full production of one of his plays, and hopes to be able to write full time. “It takes a lot of courage sometimes, using what I’ve learned,” he says emphatically. “There were moments that were really tough. The change wasn’t overnight. It took a lot of things. I had to grow up to be a man in prison."

Read the spring 2013 issue of the Bardian:

Since graduating from the Bard Prison Initiative, the writing career of Manuel Borras Oliveras ’08 has blossomed. He has been accepted to the Public Theater's prestigious 2013 Emerging Writers Group, a selective program created to nurture the work of new playwrights. Of his Bard education behind bars, Oliveras says, “It opened up my worldview. It introduced me to writers like John Dewey, Plato, Shakespeare. I met professors who had written books, and I could sit down and talk to them. At those moments I felt totally free.”

Mentored by CCS Bard director Tom Eccles, Gabi Ngcobo M.A. '10 has become the first curatorial fellow of POOL, a new, Zurich-based program to develop and encourage emerging curatorial talent. She will curate their first exhibit this summer.

Diplomat, lawyer, and writer Ronan Farrow '04 examines the Benghazi hearings. "Congress isn't just wasting America's time—it's squandering a chance to save lives in the future."

Depending on one’s viewpoint, it would seem either incongruous or quite likely that twins would study the same subjects at the same college. But for Alina and Janeta Marinova ’06, a double major in economics and mathematics at Bard was simply something both of them wanted to pursue. Here, they talk about their time at Bard and where their careers have taken them since then.