Newsmakers

Bard Prison Initiative alumnus George Chochos started his college education behind bars. Last week he graduated with his master of divinity from Yale Divinity School.

Chris Claremont has written more X-Men comics than anyone else, and his work has had a major impact on the franchise and the superhero genre generally.

"I found myself going back to my childhood at Bard," writes Ducornet. "That campus had provided me so many amazing experiences."

BPI students are "some of the most driven and talented undergraduates we have anywhere in the United States," says Max Kenner, Bard Prison Initiative founder and director.

Bard College students and alumnae have won several prestigious awards and honors. Julia Tinneny ’18 has been awarded a 2016 Davis Projects for Peace Prize. Tinneny will spend the summer in Senegal, where she will work on a grassroots project to promote economic empowerment for women. Her project, called “Jappal,” the Wolof affirmative that translates to “hold on,” focuses on education and skill building for poor women living in the rural community of Sandiara. Through the development of economic independence within their own community, these women are able to break an aggressive cycle of poverty leading to domestic servitude or marriage far from their home village. The $10,000 Davis prize will support a two-year course that provides training for women in tailoring, artisanal skills, and the production of sellable goods. Tinneny is focusing on global and international studies at Bard. Projects for Peace was created in 2007 through the generosity of Kathryn W. Davis, a lifelong internationalist and philanthropist who believed that today’s youth—tomorrow’s leaders—ought to be challenged to formulate and test their own ideas.
 
Sophie Lazar ’15 has won a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) to Ukraine for 2016–2017. Lazar is one of four ETA Fulbright recipients who will be placed in Ukraine to help teach English at the university level while serving as cultural ambassadors for the United States. Virginia Hanusik ’14 has been named an alternate recipient of the U.S. Fulbright Scholarship to the London School of Economics, where she has been accepted into the City Design and Social Science Master’s program.
 
Angie Del Arca ’16 has won a 2016 Humanity in Action Fellowship. Del Arca is one of 48 students selected from a nationwide pool of 513 applicants. The Humanity in Action Fellowship program brings together an international group of undergraduates and recent graduates from colleges including William and Mary, New York University, Harvard, and Duke, as well as students from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, and Ukraine, to explore past and present examples of resistance to intolerance, with a goal of encouraging future leaders to be engaged citizens and responsible decision makers. Del Arca’s fellowship will take her to Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Sarajevo, and Warsaw. An orientation workshop in Washington, D.C., will focus on American civil rights, Holocaust education, European security and political issues, as well as how to engage human rights work in innovative and artistic ways.
 
Kayla Adams ‘19 and Corrina Gross ‘19 have both won Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships to study abroad this summer in Qingdao, China. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Gilman scholars receive up to $5,000 toward study abroad or internship costs. The program aims to diversify the students who study abroad and the countries and regions where they go. Congressman Gilman, who retired in 2002 after serving in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chairing the House Foreign Relations Committee, commented, “Study abroad is a special experience for every student who participates. Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views, but also adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”
 
Dariel Vasquez ’17 was named a finalist out of a record number of 775 nominees nationwide for the prestigious Truman Scholarship. The Truman Scholarship Foundation, established by Congress in 1975 as the federal memorial to our 33rd president, awards scholarships for students demonstrating outstanding leadership potential and communication skills, academic excellence, and a commitment to careers in government or the nonprofit sector.
 

Bard College students and alumnae have won several prestigious awards and honors. Among them are two Fulbrights, two Gilman Scholarships, a Davis Project for Peace Prize, a Humanity in Action Fellowship, and a Truman Scholarship finalist.