Bard College

Bard College   (College)
Motto	Dabo tibi coronam vitae (Latin)
Formation	1860
Headquarters	New York State, USA
Type	• Private • liberal arts college
Other name	Raptors
Liberal arts college in New York State from 2021 funded by Open Society Foundations

Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. In 2021, it received a large donation from Open Society Foundations.

History

Founded in 1860, the institution consists of a liberal arts college and a conservatory, as well as eight graduate programs offering over 20 graduate degrees in the arts and sciences. The undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 10:1. The college has a network of over 35 affiliated programs, institutes, and centers, spanning twelve cities, five states, seven countries, and four continents.

Open Society Foundations

Bard has access to multiple, distinct endowments. Bard, along with Central European University, is a founding member of the Open Society University Network, endowed with $1 billion. Bard also maintains a separate endowment of approximately $267 million, a large portion of which is exclusively dedicated to its graduate programs in the arts. In July 2020, Bard received a gift of $100 million from the Open Society Foundations, which will dispense $10 million yearly over a period of ten years. In April 2021, Bard received a $500 million endowment challenge grant from philanthropist (some say CIA bag man) George Soros, who is known for using the human rights angle to promote his own business interests and Us foreign policy regime changes. Once matched, on a five-year timeline, Bard will have an endowment of more than $1 billion.

Bard has been named a top producer of U.S. Fulbright Scholars. Many Bard alumni have also been named Watson Fellows, Critical Language Scholarship recipients, Davis Projects for Peace Prize winners, Rhodes Scholars, Marshall Scholars, and Peace Corps fellows, among other postgraduate awards.

Academics

Bard is a college of the liberal arts and sciences. In the undergraduate college, Bard offers Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees. There are 23 academic departments that offer over 40 major programs, as well as 12 interdisciplinary concentrations. The college was the first in the nation to offer a human rights major.

Bard has developed several innovative graduate programs and research institutes, including the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, the Levy Economics Institute which began offering a Masters of Science in Economic Theory and Policy in 2014, the Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture, the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, the Bard College Conservatory of Music, the ICP-Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies in Manhattan, the Master of Arts in Teaching Program (MAT), the Bard College Clemente Program, and the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan.

The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities is located at Bard College. The Center hosts an annual public conference, offers courses, runs various related academic programs, and houses research fellows, and is directed by Dr. Roger Berkowitz, a legal scholar and an associate professor of politics, philosophy, and human rights.

In February 2009, Bard announced the first dual degree program between a Palestinian university and an American institution of higher education. The college entered into a collaboration with Al-Quds University involving an honors college, a master's program in teaching and a model high school.

 

Alumni on Wikispooks

Person	Born	Nationality	Summary	Description
Alexis Papahelas	1961	Greece	Journalist Editor	Greek journalist and editor who has visited 5 Bilderberg meetings.
Matt Taibbi	2 March 1970	US	Journalist