Mya Benally, Bard Graduate Center ’28 (Diné), is one of ten students nationwide to be selected for Planet Forward's 2026-27 Ilíiaitchik: Indigenous Correspondents Program. Through workshops and mentorship, she will explore connections between Indigenous land stewardship and cultural expression.

Bard is a 2026 award recipient of Campus Connect’s Election Rapid Response Mini-Grant Program. The College’s Center for Civic Engagement will receive $5,000 to fund a peer mentorship program with the goal of increasing civic engagement and voter participation among first-year undergraduate students.

Yana Lahoda ’27 was interviewed by the Daily Catch about the summer writing workshop she founded and ran for 30 teenagers in Kyiv. Inspired by Bard’s Language and Thinking Program, the course was the first time many of the participants had attended a school in person since Russia’s invasion in 2022.

Congratulations to Christine Sun Kim MFA ’13 and Layli Long Soldier MFA ’14, who have been named 2026 MacArthur Fellows. MacArthur Fellowships are awarded to talented individuals in a variety of fields who have shown exceptional originality in and dedication to their creative pursuits.

Dutchess Magazine’s “On Our Radar” series featured Bard’s Montgomery Place Estate, a 380-acre historic site acquired by the college in 2016. “The college’s undergraduates and faculty are a constant presence... using the grounds as a living classroom,” Dutchess Magazine writes.

Congratulations to Jamal Armstead ’26, who received this year’s Beth Rickey Award, presented annually to a member of Bard College’s international network of schools who has taken sustained and effective action against hate. Armstead is currently pursuing a Bard MBA in Sustainability.

The Human Rights Project at Bard College has awarded Anthony Lester Fellowships, which support legal and human rights work, to Charlotte Manson and Darlington Marange. The awards of $25,000 each will support Manson’s legal advocacy and Marange’s fieldwork.

Bard College has added an additional cohort to its Posse Foundation site in Puerto Rico, which was established in 2022. The Posse Foundation recruits students who demonstrate extraordinary leadership potential, providing full-tuition scholarships from partner colleges and universities.

A sculpture by Visiting Artist Tschabalala Self ’12 was unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square on September 10. Lady in Blue will stand prominently on the Square’s fourth plinth for two years. Self described her sculpture to the Guardian as “a beacon that could shed light into a possible future."

Bard professor Felicia Keesing co-authored a 35-year study into Lyme disease published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study found that mice may be more relevant as hosts of Lyme-carrying ticks than deer, challenging scientific understanding of tick-borne disease.

The Galloping Cure, an opera by Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli, was featured on the BBC’s Radio 4: Front Row. A collaboration between Mazzoli and Bard Fiction Prize winning author Karen Russell, the Edinburgh International Festival described it as “visually stunning and emotionally gripping."

Bard College was ranked in the top five in the “Professors Get High Marks” category of the Princeton Review’s rankings of colleges and universities 2026. The ranking is based on how strongly students agree with the statement, "Professors are interesting and bring their material to life."