Newsmakers

Bard alumna and La Voz cofounder and editor Mariel Fiori has been named to the inaugural class of the etsy.org Hudson Valley Good Work Program.

Troy Simon, once a troubled, illiterate teenager, has now graduated from Bard and is on his way to Yale.

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.

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.

"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.

The Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce 40 Under 40 Shaker Awards were presented on April 28, recognizing the next generation of leaders in the region.

The Bard College community packed the Bertelsmann Campus Center and other campus venues for Teach-In 2016 on Tuesday, April 19, and Wednesday, April 20. The Teach-In featured lectures, workshops, performances, and exhibitions designed to educate and engage the campus.

Schapiro speaks about the Bowie photo shoot that would produce some of the most iconic album art and magazine images of the 1970s, now collected in his new book, Bowie.

Bard alum Felix Walworth '13 plays music in four New York City bands, and is releasing an album on June 17 for Told Slant, a band formed on the Bard campus.

Max Kenner '01, Bard College alumnus and Bard Prison Initiative founder and executive director, has been named an honoree of the Tribeca Film Festival's 2016 Disruptive Innovation Awards.

The "Shakespeare-steeped" poetry of distinguished poet, Bard College alumnus, and former Bard faculty member Anthony Hecht '44 is praised in the New Criterion.

Conductor David Bloom '13, M.M. '15 offers tips on leading youth orchestras and reveals what it’s like to work with Courtney Love.

Artistic Director Fionn Meade CCS '09 called de Bellis and fellow new hire Adrienne Edwards "two of the most exciting and dynamic curators in contemporary interdisciplinary practice."

"The tattered history of the Ojibway people of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is redeemed through punk-rock humor" in Adam and Zack Khalil's INAATE/SE/.

Madeleine Wise '12, Milo Cramer '12, and Morgan Green ’12 of the New Saloon appear in the upcoming Minor Character: Six Translations of Uncle Vanya at the Same Time.

Arthur Holland Michel, cofounder and codirector of Bard's Center for the Study of the Drone, talks about the public fascination with, and fear of, drones.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters has awarded Bard alumnus and composer Dylan Mattingly a Charles Ives Scholarship of $7,500, which is given to composition students of great promise.

Virginia Hanusik's photography project focuses on coastal land loss in Louisiana, which relates to work she began during her sophomore year at Bard.

BPI founder Max Kenner '01 and alumnus George Chochos '08 speak about the program's history, expansion, and its profound impact on students.

J. p. Lawrence '14, an Army National Guard member who was deployed to Iraq, reports on an American lawyer who defends Ugandans wounded on American bases in Iraq.

Ben Hopkins ’14 and Liv Bruce ’15, who make up the punk band PWR BTTM, require that every venue where they perform have gender-neutral bathrooms.

Elizabeth Royte '81 wrote the cover story for the March issue of National Geographic on how one third of global food is wasted, and the people who are working to change that.

"Apple’s marketing promises that each new product will help us live up to our highest ideals; however, more often than not, the products ... enable our basest impulses," Marrs writes.

Arthur Holland Michel '13, cofounder and codirector of Bard's Center for the Study of the Drone, gives input on the use of drones to prevent rhino poaching in South Africa.

"Worm Loves Worm ... brilliantly explores the idea of love between two beings, regardless of gender (or species) and despite societal ­pressures."

Nguyen Khoi Nguyen, video and multimedia editor at Science magazine, created this video on last week's monumental, first-time detection of gravitational waves.

Cekala found beauty in the salt used to keep Boston roads safe. Her curiosity has led to an exhibition of photography and video, now on view for the second time in the city.

Cynthia Conti-Cook will receive the Michele S. Maxian Award for Outstanding Public Defense Practitioner for her instrumental role in the Eric Garner case.

Caitlin Keogh is now being represented by Chelsea gallery Bortolami. Her work can be found in the well-received group exhibition “Flatlands” at the Whitney Museum of Art.

The new culinary education center, cofounded by world-renowned restaurateur Claus Meyer, is free to residents of Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Joris-Peyrafitte’s "tragic love story for the no-labels generation" began as his Senior Project at Bard in 2014, and has now won a Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

Ralph Nader interviewed environmental writer and Bard alumna Elizabeth Royte '81 on why vultures are critical to the ecosystem.

Founded at Bard in 2010 and led by alumni/ae, Contemporaneous now makes its home in New York City. The ensemble plays Murray's in Tivoli on February 2.

Arthur Holland Michel investigated how a small team of engineers built the first lethal Predator drone and created the basis for modern drone warfare leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bard MFA alumna Robin Coste Lewis discusses her book Voyage of the Sable Venus, which won the National Book Award last year.

The fourth annual Bard Works program runs from Sunday, January 24, to Friday, January 29, 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 65 students and more than 50 alumni/ae, parents, and local professionals.

Jedamiah Wolf, alumnus of the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, coauthors this examination of how and why Congress removed sustainability concerns from the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Eight Bard alumni/ae are involved in the production of Bieber Bathos Elegy, created by Felix Bernstein '13, which will premiere at the Whitney Museum in New York City on January 15. This hybrid work by New York–based artist, poet, and writer Bernstein combines musical performance, poetry, cabaret drag, and opera to explore the concept of bathos—the failure to achieve pathos—and illuminate issues of identity and persona through the character of Justin Bieber. The work is directed by Gabe Rubin '14 with assistant director Clara Lipfert MFA '18, composed by Rron Karahoda '13, with production design by George Dupont '14 and sound design by Cammisa Buerhaus MFA '18, and features musical performances by Leila Bordreuil '13 and Lazar Bozic '14.

"At a time when many people question the value of a liberal-arts education, Max Kenner believes — fervently — that studying the humanities and sciences can transform lives."

Films by Film and Electronic Arts faculty members So Yong Kim and Kelly Reichardt as well as alumnus Miles Joris-Peyrafitte '14 will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, later this month. Reichardt's Certain Women features Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, and James Le Gros. The film follows the intersecting lives of three women in small-town America, and is based on short stories by Maile Meloy. In Kim's Lovesong, with Jena Malone, Riley Keough, and Brooklyn Decker, the relationship between two friends deepens during an impromptu road trip. Joris-Peyrafitte's As You Are is the telling and retelling of a relationship between three teenagers through a construction of disparate memories prompted by a police investigation, with Owen Campbell, Charlie Heaton, Amandla Stenberg, John Scurti, Scott Cohen, and Mary Stuart Masterson.

Holland Michel, Bard alumnus and codirector of Bard's Drone Center, unfolds the little-known history of the rise of unmanned aircraft in the American military.

A study by two researchers at the Center for the Study of the Drone, at Bard College, provides a comprehensive overview of the risks posed to manned aircraft by unmanned aircraft.

With the holiday season approaching, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) estimates that up to one million new drones will be entering U.S. airspace, creating potentially dangerous situations for unmanned and manned aircraft. A new study released today by The Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College offers a comprehensive examination of incidents involving drones and manned aircraft in the national airspace over the past two years. Using data from the FAA and Department of Interior, the report, “Drone Sightings and Close Encounters: An Analysis,” explores 921 incidents in the national airspace from December 2013 to September 2015. Coauthors Dan Gettinger and Arthur Holland Michel identified 327 close encounters in which drones presented some level of hazard to manned aircraft, 90 of which involved commercial multiengine jets, and 594 sightings, in which drones were spotted near or within manned aircraft flight paths but did not pose immediate danger of collision.

Bard senior Antoinette Kane has been honored with the 2015 Spirit Award, which recognizes a young person in foster care who is succeeding in college. The award carries a $10,000 scholarship.

She may feel more comfortable as a supporting player, but Blythe Danner proves she can hold her own as a lead in the new film I’ll See You in My Dreams.

Hudson Valley Magazine interviewed Bard alumna and La Voz editor Mariel Fiori for their December Women in Business issue.

After graduating from Bard, photography major Nick Zinner became the guitarist of the band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Zinner's photographs of his life on and off stage are now on view at an L.A. gallery.