Newsmakers

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 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. 

 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.

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.

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

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.

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.