News

Mara Baldwin, visiting artist in residence in Studio Arts at Bard, has been awarded a Summer 2025 Artist in Residency by the McColl Center through its Parent and Educator Artist in Residency Program. The internationally acclaimed program by McColl Center, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, aims to serve as a catalyst for artistic growth among creators, and residents are encouraged to immerse themselves fully in research, exploration, and creation, while also engaging with McColl Center’s community and Charlotte’s local creative sector. Baldwin’s multidisciplinary and research-based work uses textiles and drawings to create serial and narrative forms, and focuses on the impossible dream of utopia. While in residency, which takes place from June 3 to August 11, Baldwin joins three other artists, each of whom will construct immersive, hybrid worlds that reflect layered identities and complex truths using diverse practices spanning sculpture, sound, performance, and installation. Baldwin will receive a $6,000 stipend and have access to a private studio space, shared labs and facilities, including a 3D printer Lab, a ceramics and sculpture studio, a darkroom, a media lab, and a woodshop, along with curatorial guidance and marketing support.

Professor of History Richard Aldous published a review in the Wall Street Journal of Tom Arnold-Forster’s biography of Walter Lippmann, a twentieth-century journalist. Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography follows Lippmann’s career as one of the most ubiquitous journalists of his era who wrote several books of democratic theory. Aldous evaluates Arnold-Forster’s biography as a good first book and a “fair hearing,” rather than a defense, for its subject. Despite being less well-known today than some of his contemporaries, Lippmann was significant because of his “arresting, often contradictory ideas [that shaped] the national debate,” argues Aldous. He says Lippman passed the litmus test “for all public intellectuals— to illuminate their own time and make us think about ours.”

Coralie Kraft ’13, visual editor, writer, and Bard College alumna, was interviewed by PBS News about her New York Times Magazine article “The ‘Panic Industry’ Boom,” for which she was also the contributing photo editor. The article and photo essay explored how some Americans are increasingly spending vast amounts of money prepping for doomsday scenarios by building bunkers, bomb shelters, gun rooms, panic rooms and other means of surviving through a collapse. In conversation with Ali Rogin, Kraft discussed her thoughts on why more people are preparing for disasters, the companies that build the structures meant to safeguard their clients, and the mindsets behind those who are preparing for such scenarios. “I think that as more and more people are impacted by things like pandemics, by civil unrest and demonstrations and activism in their cities, by financial collapse as those factors hit a wider and wider population, it makes sense to me that more of us would be interested in this type of, ‘what can I do in the event of a disaster scenario or a doomsday scenario,’” Kraft told PBS.

Bard alumnus Henry Mielarczyk ’25, a philosophy and music performance major, has been accepted into the 2025 Stennis Program for Congressional Interns. The internship, given by the Stennis Center for Public Service in Washington, DC, is a competitive bipartisan program designed to provide congressional interns with an opportunity to better understand the role of Congress as an institution and its role in the democracy of the United States. Interns will connect with current and former senior congressional staff through a series of discussion sessions designed to provide an in-depth look at Congress and its operations with other institutions. The Stennis Center is a bipartisan legislative branch agency created by Congress in 1988 to promote and strengthen the highest ideals of public service in the United States. The center aims to develop and deliver a portfolio of unique programs for young people, leaders in local, state, and federal government, and congressional staff.

To celebrate the centennial of the publication of Mrs. Dalloway, Distinguished Writer in Residence Francine Prose wrote a retrospective on Virginia Woolf’s most famous work for the Washington Post. Mrs. Dalloway, which follows a woman over a single June day, turns 100 this week. Prose writes that her recent re-read impressed her because of Woolf’s “grace and skill” that “made the [writing] process look easy.” Discussing what makes the novel special a century later, she says it celebrates humanity while not ignoring the suffering of life: “Woolf’s subject is not just Clarissa Dalloway’s life but life itself, the wonder of human consciousness and what it means — what it feels like — to be a human being.”

Prose is the author of 22 works of fiction and has taught at Bard since 2005.

Three Bard College graduates have won 2025–26 Fulbright Awards for individually designed research projects and English teaching assistantships. The Fulbright program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and in routine tasks, allowing the grantee to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think. During their grants, Fulbrighters meet, work, live with, and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences. Bard College is a Fulbright top producing institution.

Maia Cluver ’22, a joint Art History and Visual Culture and Human Rights major, has been selected for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) in Jordan for the 2025-26 academic year. As a student, Cluver was a language tutor in the Bard Learning Commons, and currently works in the Academic Resource Center at Al-Quds Bard.

Cecilia Giancola ’25, who majored in Historical Studies, has been awarded a Fulbright independent study/research grant to India. Giancola’s Fulbright is an archival research project focused on the operations of the Baroda (Gaikwad) state in western India during the 19th century. In her research, Giancola plans to investigate the operations of the Baroda–a “princely” state in colonial India–with the British Raj and their illicit trade and smuggling practices. 

Oskar Pezalla-Granlund ’24, an Art History and Visual Culture major, has received a Fulbright independent study/research grant to Spain. Oskar’s project investigates the history of Philippine-Spanish artistic and cultural relations through the history of Museo-Biblioteca de Ultramar (1887-1908), a museum dedicated to displaying the art, culture, and history of the Spanish colonies. Pezalla-Granlund’s research aims to contribute to the often overlooked history of the artistic and cultural contact between the Philippines and Spain through the examination of a museum that crystalizes the contradictions of late-colonial society.

Fulbright is a program of the US Department of State, with funding provided by the US government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program. Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 62 Nobel Prize recipients, 80 MacArthur Foundation Fellows, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 42 current or former heads of state or government.

Yebel Gallegos, assistant professor of dance at Bard, has been awarded a New York State Choreographers Initiative 2025 Award of $11,500 through the New York State’s DanceForce, a network of dance activists working to increase the quality and quantity of dance, in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts. The award, which is designed to help awardees develop their choreographic skills by providing resources to advance their creative practice, will fund Yebel with a $2,500 stipend and paid support for both a mentor and creative time spent with dancers and other collaborators of his choice. Yebel’s choreography project will become a mini-residency designed to fit his specific artistic needs, and he has invited Dante Puleio, artistic director of the Limón Dance Company, to serve as his mentor. Puleio’s insight into how experienced dancers navigate inherited choreographic traditions makes him an ideal guide as Yebel explores new methods of movement generation with professionals in the field.

Two Bard professors received fellowships from the New Jersey State Council for the Arts for the 2025–26 awards cycle. Artist in Residence Adriane Colburn was named an Individual Artist Fellow in Sculpture. Assistant Professor of Music Angelica Sanchez was named a Individual Artist Finalist in Music Composition. The awards will support their artistic development, including Sanchez’s current musical composition.
The New Jersey State Council for the Arts awards grants to artists each year with the goal of promoting the arts and helping the general public understand their value. This year, 107 finalists were awarded across the artistic disciplines. The council says their awards “bring [artists’] work to the attention of organizations and communities everywhere to embrace and support this remarkable ‘creative capital’ that helps make New Jersey great.”

Matt Sargent, assistant professor of music at Bard, has been selected to be a resident artist at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute (AFMI) in New Hampshire this summer. AFMI is a residential arts center designed to serve as a catalyst for unfettered artistic exploration, creation, and performance by providing an environment to inspire and empower musicians of all skill levels to develop meaningful artistic content and collaborations to share with the wider world. While in residence, Sargent will be working with Trevor Babb, professor of guitar at Vassar College, on a new recording of Larry Polansky's “51 Melodies” and Anthony Braxton's “Composition No. 193,” both of which are major contemporary works for a guitar duo, for an upcoming commercial release.

Faculty, staff, and students gathered at Blithewood Manor for this year’s Undergraduate Awards Ceremony, which was held on Monday, April 28. The annual ceremony is a celebration of the incredible talent and dedication showcased by Bard students, as well as the unwavering support and guidance from esteemed faculty and staff at the College. The evening's awardees, who were nominated by faculty from across the four divisions of the College, represent excellence in the arts; social studies; languages and literature; and science, mathematics, and computing. Among the awardees were students in the Bard Baccalaureate, a program for older students returning to college to finish their undergraduate degrees. 

The event featured remarks and award presentations from key figures, including President of the College Leon Botstein, Dean of the College Deirdre d'Albertis, Dean of Studies and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs David Shein, and Bard Alumna Cara Parks ’05. A special highlight of the evening was the announcement of a newly established award in memory of a beloved Bardian, Betsaida Alcantara ’05, by the Class of 2005, family, friends, and loved ones who knew her. The inaugural Betsaida Alcantara ’05 Pioneers for Progress Award, in memory of Betsaida Alcantara '05 (1983–2022), who exemplified the best of Bard's hope to inspire people to be passionate agents of change, pioneers for progress, and advocates for justice for those most in need was given to Sierra Ford ’26 who has demonstrated strong leadership skills, a commitment to public service, and support for open societies.
 
The presentation of awards was a moment to acknowledge and celebrate the exceptional academic achievement, leadership, and commitment demonstrated by Bard students. It was a testament to their hard work and perseverance, which defines the spirit of Bard College and serves as an inspiration to us all.

Many of the undergraduate awards are made possible by generous contributions from Bard donors. Thank you to all our supporters for believing in the value of a college education, and for investing in the future of Bard students.

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships to Bard College Assistant Professor of Photography Lucas Blalock ’02 and Bard College Visiting Artist in Residence Gwen Laster. Chosen through a rigorous application and peer review process from a pool of nearly 3,500 applicants, Blalock, who teaches in the Photography Program, and Laster, who teaches in the Music Program, were tapped based on both prior career achievement and exceptional promise. Bard MFA alum Jordan Strafer ’20 was also named Guggenheim Fellow for 2025. As established in 1925 by founder Senator Simon Guggenheim, each fellow receives a monetary stipend to pursue independent work at the highest level under “the freest possible conditions.” Blalock, Laster, and Strafer are among 198 distinguished individuals working across 53 disciplines appointed to the 100th class of Guggenheim Fellows.

“At a time when intellectual life is under attack, the Guggenheim Fellowship celebrates a century of support for the lives and work of visionary scientists, scholars, writers, and artists,” said Edward Hirsch, award-winning poet and president of the Guggenheim Foundation. “We believe that these creative thinkers can take on the challenges we all face today and guide our society towards a better and more hopeful future.”

In all, 53 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, 83 academic institutions, 32 US states and the District of Columbia, and two Canadian provinces are represented in the 2025 class, who range in age from 32 to 79. More than a third of the 100th class of fellows do not hold a full-time affiliation with a college or university. Many fellows’ projects directly respond to timely themes and issues such as climate change, Indigenous studies, identity, democracy and politics, incarceration, and the evolving purpose of community. Since its founding in 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has awarded over $400 million in fellowships to more than 19,000 fellows. The 100th class of Fellows is part of the Guggenheim Foundation’s yearlong celebration marking a century of transformative impact on American intellectual and cultural life.

Lucas Blalock is a Brooklyn-based photographer whose work is in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Hammer Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Portland Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others. Recent solo exhibitions include Florida, 1989, at Galerie Eva Presenhuber, New York; Insoluble Pancakes, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels; and An Enormous Oar, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; recent group exhibitions include venues in Oslo, Miami, Moscow, Berlin, Beirut, Minneapolis, and New York, where his work was selected for the Whitney Biennial 2019. He and his art have been profiled in publications including Arforum, the New York Times, New Yorker, Art in America, Brooklyn Rail, BOMB Magazine, W Magazine, British Journal of Photography, and Time. He has published essays and interviews as author in the journal Objectiv, IMA Magazine, BOMB, Foam, and Mousse, among others. He previously taught at the School of Visual Arts; Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University; Sarah Lawrence College; and the MFA Program at Ithaca College. He also served as visiting lecturer on visual and environmental studies at Harvard University. He received his BA from Bard College and MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Gwen Laster is a nationally acclaimed musician who has been the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Jubilation Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Arts Mid Hudson, Lila Wallace, and the Cognac Hennessey 1st place Jazz Search. A native Detroiter, her creative influences come from the Motor City’s exciting urban and classical music culture. Laster started improvising and composing because of her parents’ love of jazz, blues, soul, and classical music, and her inspiring music teachers from Detroit’s public schools. Laster relocated to New York City after earning two music degrees from the University of Michigan. Laster is many things: A virtuoso violinist with exquisite taste. An adventurous composer, arranger and orchestrator. A classically-trained artist with a deep appreciation for America's musical history, and a scholar of African-American musical heritage. A socially conscious activist and educator who understands the power of music to reach and touch everyday people.

When her grandmother died at the age of 99, artist Mae Colburn ’10 and her parents were left with the question of what to do with the matriarch’s massive collection of vintage wool skirts. Sorting through the collection—spanning decades and ranging in colors, plaids, and styles—they were inspired to archive it. “Because I studied art history,” says Colburn, who majored in art history and visual culture at Bard, “research, writing, and archiving [have] always been a really big part of what I do, with a focus on textiles in both art and fashion.” Colburn’s mother is a clothing historian and her dad is a photographer so the project spoke to their collective skills. Together the family has catalogued and photographed 632 vintage wool skirts. The physical archive is in Colburn’s Brooklyn studio—which is occasionally open to the public for viewing—and the digital archive is online.

A new book of poetry by alumna Juliana Spahr ’88 was featured in the Washington Post. Christopher Kondrich included Spahr’s most recent collection, Ars Poeticas, in a list of four books of poetry that “help restore nuance to our chaotic world.” Kondrich describes Ars Poeticas as a collection about poetry’s ability to respond to social and environmental crises. “We can’t help but wonder what poetry could ever add to the efforts to address [issues like] climate change and right-wing populism. With Ars Poeticas, the answer, despite Spahr’s reservations, is a tremendous amount.” Spahr has published nine books of poetry, the first in 1994. She was the recipient of the OB Hardison Poetry Prize from the Folger Shakespeare Library in 2009.

The Bard Baroque Ensemble, under the direction of Renée Anne Louprette, presents a concert dedicated to the memory of Frederick Fisher Hammond (1937–2023), Professor Emeritus, Irma Brandeis Chair of Romance Cultures and Music History at Bard College. Presented with the Bard Chamber Singers, Bard Preparatory Division Chorus, and the Graduate Vocal Arts Program, the program includes works by Bach, Handel, and Mozart and features the rededication of Frederick Hammond’s two restored William Dowd harpsichords. The performance will be held on Saturday, April 19 at 7 pm in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater. This is the Bard Baroque Ensemble’s debut concert in the Sosnoff Theater. The concert is free and open to the public. For information visit fishercenter.bard.edu/whats-on/ or call 845-758-7900 (Mon–Fri 10 am–5 pm).

The evening’s program celebrates the restoration of Professor Hammond's French double-manual and Italian single-manual harpsichords—now a part of Bard College’s collection of early keyboard instruments—featuring them in the Concerto for Two Harpsichords, Strings, and Continuo in C Minor, BWV 1060 by Johann Sebastian Bach, with Sophia Cornicello and Raymond Erickson as harpsichord soloists. One of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's most popular and enduring works, Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550, opens the program, interpreted by the Ensemble with a Baroque sensibility. Bard faculty member and distinguished tenor Rufus Müller presents the ravishing opening aria from Handel’s Serse: Ombra mai fu (Never was a shade). The program concludes with Bach's Cantata No. 1: Wie schön leuchtet Der Morgenstern (How brightly shines the Morningstar), featuring the Bard Chamber Singers, Preparatory Division Children's Chorus, and soloists from the Graduate Vocal Arts Program. This luminous chorale-cantata—originally conceived for the Feast of the Annunciation—is presented here in the context of transition from darkness to light, on the date of Holy Saturday within the Christian Church. Valentina Grasso, assistant professor of history at Bard, will present a reading from Dante’s Divine Comedy—in lieu of the traditional Lutheran sermon—at the center of Bach’s 1724 masterpiece. 

When the recent Los Angeles wildfires burned down the Altadena home of artist Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio ’12, his brick fireplace and chimney were the only structures left standing. “I began thinking about the resilience of these chimneys,” Aparicio told Hyperallergic. “I’m always looking at symbols that can hold both sides of an emotion: resilience and trauma.” In his first painting since the fires, Aparicio collaborated with Bay Area artist and activist David Solnit and a group of about two dozen volunteers to create a protest painting made with paint that was mixed by Solnit using pigments made from ash and charcoal collected at Altadena burn sites. Aparicio’s black-and-white painting depicts his chimney and fireplace standing among charred ruins and belching dark black smoke. The words “Invest in Communities, Not Fossil Fuels” are printed in both English and Spanish. Environmental activists assert that oil and gas companies have directly contributed to climate change–fueled disasters, like wildfires, that are devastating communities. Aparicio’s painting was unveiled at a Pasadena rally calling for CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund, to fully divest from fossil fuels. An identical painting was unveiled the same day at another rally in front of the Chevron oil refinery in Richmond in northern California.

Betsy Clifton, lecturer in Architecture at Bard College, and Jesse McCormick, former visiting lecturer in Architecture at Bard, have received a 2024 Independent Project Grant from the Architectural League of New York and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) in support of their project, Toxic Assets, Seeing Like a Land Bank. Through an exhibition hosted in collaboration with the architecture collective Citygroup, Toxic Assets will synthesize and translate the history, activity, politics, and potential futures of land banks to an architecture-allied audience. By interrogating the role of land banks in urban development, the project illuminates how these institutions shape the built environment and contribute to larger conversations about equity, policy, and spatial justice. This research and exhibition process has also provided an opportunity for two Bard undergraduate students, Anderson Fletcher ’26 and Noah Protas ’26, to engage with the project as an independent study.
 

Grace Miller-Trabold ’26, a junior art history and visual culture and human rights major at Bard College with a concentration in Latin American and Iberian Studies, has been awarded a Projects for Peace Grant for $10,000 by the Davis Foundation. Miller-Trabold’s project, “Connecting Threads: Reciprocity and Gratitude as Pedagogies of Peace in Oaxacan Textile,” will provide resources for youth workshops on Indigenous Oaxacan textile traditions, which will take place in Oaxaca, Mexico, and in Poughkeepsie, New York.

“The preservation of these textile traditions, despite colonization and the imperialization of global capitalist markets, exemplify a cultural resilience that is rooted in communal practices which emphasize belonging, presence, and peace,” Miller-Trabold writes in her proposal. “The artistic medium of textile is inherently peacebuilding as it cultivates a multigenerational, community centered experience that is grounded in intentionality, gratitude, and reciprocity.”

Grace will organize and host two weeks of art workshops for youth in Teotitlan del Valle, Mexico, who will work with the Zapotec community on textile traditions and practices. The small artworks they produce will travel back to the US with Miller-Trabold, who will then facilitate workshops for youth groups in New York to collaborate on these projects at educational institutions in Poughkeepsie, using the same traditional dyeing and weaving traditions, before those collaborative works are returned to Oaxaca. The project aims to create spaces of peace across national borders and across generations in which textile traditions that incorporate ancestral Zapotec ecological knowledge and artistic expertise can be continued and shared.

She “will work closely with farms and gardens in our community to grow plants suitable for use as dyes,” said Paul Mairenthal, the director of the Trustee Leader Scholar Program at Bard, where Miller-Trabold developed her project. “Her project is about history, tradition, memory and community building through textiles. It has a lot of great possibilities.”

Projects for Peace, a Davis Foundation initiative facilitated by Middlebury College in Vermont, is a global program that partners with other educational institutions to identify and support peacebuilders and changemakers across college campuses. Every year, 100 or more student leaders are awarded a grant in the amount of $10,000 each to implement a “Project for Peace” anywhere in the world. To learn more, visit: middlebury.edu/projects-for-peace

Bard professors Daniel Mendelsohn, Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities, and An-My Lê, Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor in the Arts, have been announced as newly elected 2025 members of the Academy of Arts and Letters. Mendelsohn and Lê, who are among 24 new members to join the organization in 2025, were elected in recognition of notable achievements in their fields into the departments of Literature and Art, respectively. They will be inducted into Arts and Letters during its annual ceremonial in May, where writer and member Caryl Phillips will deliver the keynote address. Founded in 1898, the American Academy of Arts and Letters is an honor society of artists, architects, composers, and writers who foster and sustain interest in the arts. Its members distribute over $1.2 million in awards annually, fund concerts and new works of musical theater, donate art to museums across the US, and present exhibitions, talks, and events for the public in New York City.

Filmmaker and Bard alumna Gia Coppola ’09, director and producer of The Last Showgirl starring Pamela Anderson, was honored at the 2025 Kodak Film Awards, which celebrate the artistry of cinematography. Coppola received the Auteur Award—which is bestowed in recognition of extraordinary talent, discernment, and perspective in cinematic arts—for her directorial achievements. The annual Kodak Film Awards, now in its seventh year, recognize acclaimed visual artists who are unyielding in their artistic process and celebrate industry partners who contribute to the support of analog film.

Visiting Artist in Residence and alumna Tschabalala Self ’12 was commissioned to create portraits of the Washington family—father Denzel and sons John David and Malcolm—who were behind the recent movie adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play The Piano Lesson. Denzel, John David, and Malcolm respectively produced (with his daughter Katia), starred in, and directed the film. Rochelle Steiner writes for TheWrap, “In Self’s hands, images of the Washingtons are intertwined with the film’s characters, such that the real and fictional commingle as references that exemplify Black America.” Inspired by and named after a 1984 Romare Bearden lithograph, The Piano Lesson is one of Self’s favorite August Wilson plays. “When looking at the play’s origin within the context of American slavery, the significance of home for the characters in the play and the figures depicted in Bearden’s piece becomes all the more poignant when you realize the legacy of separation, loss and displacement inflicted on their ancestors,” says Self. 

Her newly installed exhibition Tschabalala Self: Dream Girl is on view February 15–April 26, 2025 at Jeffrey Dietch in Los Angeles.