Bard College Awards

Sandy Zane ’80, an artist who has exhibited in New York, Texas, and New Mexico, has been owner of both Zane Bennett Contemporary Art and its sister gallery Form and Concept in Santa Fe for nearly 20 years. Zane has also worked in the nonprofit sector and has served on the foundation boards of New Mexico State University, Santa Fe Community College, and the New Mexico Museum Foundation.

A private pilot, Zane previously operated an airport community, replacing taxiways and runways and updating fueling systems. She also spent 15 years in the brokerage industry where she worked for commodities and securities companies with expertise in risk and compliance, and she worked as a headhunter in the computer industry, where she specialized in the recruitment of candidates for artificial intelligence and robotics projects. Her career has been a varied one, culminating in her current work in the arts world.
 

Andrew Zwicker ’86 is a physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and member of the New Jersey Senate, representing the 16th Legislative District. He is currently head of strategic partnerships and public engagement at PPPL and has taught bioethics and plasma physics courses. 

Andrew graduated from Bard with a degree in physics and received his MS and PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University. After performing fusion-energy research at facilities around the US and the world, Andrew transitioned to science education and led PPPL’s science education department for 18 years. During that time, he mentored dozens of undergraduate students and created innovative programs for students often underrepresented in the physical sciences. In the New Jersey Senate, his legislative work includes assessing the role of research and development as an economic driver, global warming, and voting rights.

Paul J. Thompson ’93 is executive director of the New York City Public Schools Office of Arts and Special Projects. Thompson previously spent 17 years as the founding principal of the Urban Assembly School of Music and Art, a screen-free Title I public arts high school in Brooklyn.

Before his work in education, Thompson had a career as a musician and composer, and he continues to write and perform music. He has worked across genres ranging from hip-hop to classical to jazz, and he has collaborated with artists including Grammy-winner Meshell Ndegeocello, pop sensation the Black Eyed Peas, and the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein.


Thompson has been a member of Bard College’s Board of Governors since 2007, serving as chair of the diversity committee from 2007–09. Thompson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Bardian, Spin, Jazz Life, and Time Out New York.

Since its founding on New York’s Lower East Side in 2007, the eponymous art gallery of James Fuentes ’98 has featured contemporary artists who challenge the conventions of their field. The gallery is known for its focus on humanity, history, and society with a nonexclusionary approach, positioning itself as a leader in the field. In the spring of 2023, Fuentes also opened an outpost in the Melrose Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles.

 

Zack Khalil ’14, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is a filmmaker and artist whose work centers Indigenous narratives through the use of innovative nonfiction forms. Khalil is a core contributor to New Red Order (NRO), a public secret society that addresses settler societies’ concurrent desires for Indigeneity and violent discrimination against Indigenous groups. The NRO asks potential non-Indigenous accomplices to participate in the coexamination and expansion of Indigenous agency. Khalil’s work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Film Festival, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Walker Art Center, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Creative Time, Toronto Biennial 2019, Whitney Biennial 2019, Sharjah Biennial 15, and Counterpublic Triennial 2023. Khalil is the recipient of various fellowships and grants, including a Sundance Art of Nonfiction grant, Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, and Gates Millennium Scholarship.

 

Karen Russell, a Pulitzer finalist and MacArthur and Guggenheim fellow, has received the National Magazine Award for Fiction, Shirley Jackson Award, Lattes Grinzane prize, and Bard Fiction Prize for her first story collection. She is the author of five books of fiction, most recently Orange World and Other Stories and Sleep Donation. Her work has been published in Conjunctions, New Yorker, New York Times, Harper’s, Zoetrope, and New York Review of Books. With composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone and choreographer and director Troy Schumacher, she collaborated on BalletCollective’s genre-straddling work, The Night Falls, and she is developing a new opera with Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek that will premiere in 2025. Her new novel, The Antidote, is forthcoming from Knopf.