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Bard College faculty, staff, and students gathered at Blithewood Manor for this year's Annual Scholarship Reception on Monday, November 11. This annual event honors students who have excelled in their studies and contributed to academic and campus life. 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. 

“We are pleased to recognize this year’s Bard Scholars, who represent the very best of what we are and what we do,” said Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Studies David Shein. “These students, who were selected by their faculty and deans in recognition of their contributions in the classroom and to the campus community, have demonstrated not only excellence in their work but deep care and commitment to that work and to the life of the College.  We are proud of them and look forward to seeing what they will do next.”

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

Further reading:
Learn More about Postgraduate Scholarships and Fellowships through Bard's Dean of Studies Office
Learn More about Scholarships, Prizes, and Awards at Bard

An-My Lê, Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor in the Arts, was interviewed for a feature on Louisiana Channel, the YouTube channel of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark with weekly videos on art and design. Lê spoke about her project Silent General and also about her experiences photographing military technology and the aftermath of war. In her conflict photography, Lê values subtlety and presenting a picture without telling the viewer how to think. “A good picture is one that is surprising,” she said. “It may be something that is familiar to me, but it's described in a way I've never seen before, [so that] it’s making me understand the situation in a new way.”

Lê spoke about understanding her childhood after she evacuated from Vietnam to the US through her work as an artist. When she took her first photography class in college, she discovered her skills in visual expression and was encouraged by a professor to become a photographer. She eventually traveled back to Vietnam and photographed the country in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. “Dealing with the unknown is a big part of being a photographer,” she says. “It requires one to be courageous, to go to places you don’t normally go to, or you may fail; it’s about realizing something that you don’t know.”

A New Day, a cello concerto released in 2021 by Joan Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts at Bard College, was featured in Times Union. The work, which began as a commission by the Colorado Music Festival, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra, was written while Jeff Litfin, her late husband of 50 years, was dying. “I was in real bad shape,” Tower said. “So I decided to write. In fact, all the music I've been writing since then is about him.” The concerto, which will be performed by Albany Symphony in Troy on November 16 and 17, contains four movements: “Daybreak,” “Working Out,” “Mostly Alone” and “Into the Night.” The titles are intentionally simple, allowing for many interpretations of a single day, she told Times Union.

Daniel Terna ’09 ICP ’15 was profiled in Artsy Artist’s “Artists On Our Radar,” an editorial series featuring five artists who made an impact in the past month through exhibitions, gallery openings, and other events. Terna’s latest exhibit The Terrain is on view at the Jack Barrett Gallery in Tribeca until December 14. The Terrain features Terna’s photographs of political events from 2017 to the present, including the Women’s March and the Global Climate Strike, along with day-to-day photographs from his own life. The Terrain was also reviewed by the New York Times, which writes that Terna's photography contains “narrative restraint... [it] keeps admitting how hard it is to really know another human being.”

Terna has exhibited at the BRIC Arts Media Biennial, MoMA PS1’s film program, and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, among others, and will exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum’s National Portrait Gallery in May 2025. His photography is focused on intergenerational relationships, combining personal narratives with his outside perspective on current events. Of Terna’s 2023 photo Monastery, taken near the Dachau concentration camp where his father was imprisoned, Artsy writes, “The peaceful scene is transformed by its context, invoking the weight of memory and survival.”

The Fund for Visual Learning (FVL) recently held their annual sale in the Fisher Studio Art Building Galleries and online, generating $8,650 to support studio arts students at Bard. Faculty, students, and staff all contributed work to the 2024 FVL art sale. The exhibition was hung by Roman Hrab and organized by Paige Mead and Erin Dougherty, with the help of students Heidi Lind ’26, Praagya Khand ’25, and Calum Tinker ’25. FVL began in 2014 to improve access to the Studio Arts Program for students experiencing financial challenges, and to enrich classroom and campus experiences for all. Since its founding, FVL has provided grants for an ambitious range of diverse student art projects.