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What place do the humanities have in a global economy increasingly focused on educating a work force for business, finance, and technology? Bard leaders weighed in with the New Indian Express. "Without humanities, social sciences and arts," says Bard IILE Director Susan Gillespie, "we won’t have just and liveable societies or even prosperous economies." Arendt Center director Roger Berkowitz adds that teaching the humanities is about "transmitting a tradition of meaning and substance, texts and ideas that can inspire young people to care more for the common world they share than for their parochial or personal interests."

On Saturday, October 13, the Bard Center for Environmental Policy and Bard Office of Sustainability will host a Green Car Expo and panel discussion, “An Addiction to Cars: Air Quality and Policy Challenges in the U.S. Transportation Sector.” The Expo includes opportunities to test drive the Chevy Volt, as well as learn more about student-led initiatives that focus on alternative ways to travel, including the Bard Bike Co-op, Bard Pedicab, Bard BikeShare, EcoReps, and others.

Math major and volleyball player Fiona Do Thi was born in Vietnam and raised in Poland. In this Senior Close-Up, she shares how family support and Bard scholarships made her dream of studying in the U.S. a reality.

Bard College mathematics professors Japheth Wood and Lauren Rose, the Bard Math Circle, and the Bard College Mathematics Program are proud to host the American Mathematics Contest 8 (AMC8) for middle school students in the Mid Hudson Valley. The contest will be held in the Reem-Kayden Center at Bard on Tuesday, November 13, at 4:30 p.m.

Why do women pursue science majors and careers less than men? Kristin Lane, assistant professor of psychology at Bard, will use a recently funded $169,000 Academic Research Enhancement (AREA) Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to try to answer this question.

This fall, listen in real time to climate and clean energy specialists talk about the latest science, policy, law, and economics of climate change. These half-hour talks give students the opportunity to hear top scientists, analysts, and political leaders discuss climate and clean energy solutions.

The Simons Foundation has awarded Greg D. Landweber, associate professor of mathematics at Bard, a Collaboration Grant for Mathematicians. This grant offers Professor Landwber $35,000 over a five-year period to be used in support of collaboration, travel and research expenses for his project, Supersymmetry and K-Theory. The grant also includes funds to enhance the research atmosphere of the Mathematics Program at Bard.

This summer we have 38 eighth-graders on campus at Bard participating in an intensive math program. These New York City students are spending three weeks doing seven hours of math per day! Bard math professor Japheth Wood says, "I'm amazed to see the students" educational trajectories after SPMPS. Some have gone on to some very selective NYC public high schools, and all of them are going to breathe life into their high school's math program."

Bard math professor Lauren Rose has received an award from the American Institute of Mathematics to attend a week-long program in Washington, D.C. entitled, "How to Run a Math Teachers' Circle Workshop." Professor Rose's team comprises middle school and college educators who will use the D.C. workshop to work to improve mathematics education in U.S. middle schools. They plan to host bimonthly Math Teachers' Circles in the Hudson Valley that bring together middle school math teachers and professional mathematicians.

You can also listen to an interview with Michael Specter on this topic on the Takeaway at NPR.

Michael Tibbetts is a professor of biology at Bard, as well as a faculty member in the Master of Arts in Teaching Program.

He is a molecular biologist who uses zebrafish as a model to investigate questions related to hearing. Dr. Tibbetts earned his B.S. from Southeastern Massachusetts University and his Ph.D. from Wesleyan University. He is a recipient of the Peterson Fellowship from Wesleyan and a National Science Foundation grant (2008, to study transmission of anaplasmosis from ticks to people). Tibbetts is a member of Sigma Xi, the Genetics Society of America, and the American Society of Microbiology. His professional interests include the neuroscience of hearing, cancer chemotherapeutics, bioethics, genetics, and human origins. He has been on the Bard faculty since 1992.

Professor Jain will receive $35,000 supporting his research on new ways to fight bacterial infections. Bard students Coral Liu, Sheneil Black, and Weiqing Wang work with Jain on this project.

What would it take to make faster computers and more efficient solar panels? Jesse Kohl '07 is looking for answers at the crossroads of nanotechnology and clean energy.

The college has been awarded $800,000 from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for science education, building on the success of the Citizen Science Program.

Bard Math Circle's last event of the year took place last weekend, and found Bard math students and local schoolchildren drawing tessellations with sidewalk chalk at the Kingston Library.

On Tuesday, April 10, the Bard College Citizen Science Lecture Series will present the lecture “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Investments in Reducing Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases Burden.” While diarrhea-related deaths have decreased globally, diarrheal diseases remain the second-leading cause of childhood deaths. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s investments are aimed toward saving and improving millions of lives thorough the development and delivery of low-cost interventions that prevent and treat diarrheal and enteric diseases.

Think of it as a sort of CSI: Human Rights. The Human Rights Project at Bard has addressed the role of forensic evidence in war crimes cases through a series of workshops and conferences. In this essay, HRP director Thomas Keenan examines the investigative process in the case of Nazi Josef Mengele. Slate.com called the piece one of the five "best stories ever written about war criminals on the lam."

Bard first-years in the Citizen Science program are developing their scientific literacy by studying infectious disease in a monthlong intensive. If you're in the area, join us for the Citizen Science lecture series, which is free and open to the public!