News

Congratulations to Bard chemistry prof. Craig Anderson, who has received the prestigious Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award for 2011, providing a research grant of $60,000!

"We yearn to control and master the future, and one corollary of that is our deep wish to cede control over our lives to the hyper-rationality, objectivity, and reliability of machines," writes Arendt Center director Roger Berkowitz.

Ethan Bloch is a professor of mathematics at Bard. Dr. Bloch was born in Norwalk, Conn., in 1956, and spent part of his childhood in Connecticut and part in Savyon, Israel. After graduating from high school in Tel Aviv he returned to the U.S., going to Reed College, where he majored in mathematics and developed a firm belief in the value of a liberal arts education.

After graduating from Reed in 1978, he went on to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1983, focusing on geometric topology, and in particular on simplexwise linear maps. After Cornell he spent three years at the University of Utah as an instructor of mathematics, subsequently coming to Bard College in 1986, where he has been ever since. Dr. Bloch writes, "I have found Bard to be a wonderfully appropriate environment for my interest in teaching mathematics in a liberal arts setting that encourages spirited inquiry, and maintains a nice balance between individuality and flexibility on the one hand, and a traditional curriculum on the other." His publications include A First Course in Geometric Topology and Differential Geometry (1996), Proofs and Fundamentals: A First Course in Abstract Mathematics (2000, 2010), The Real Numbers and Real Analysis (2011), and numerous scholarly articles. He is the recipient of a National Science Foundation grant (1985–87) and is a member of the American Mathematical Society. Dr. Bloch is married and has two children, who, he says "quite easily fill all my non-Bard time."

The article "Implicit Science Stereotypes Mediate the Relationship between Gender and Academic Participation," coauthored by Bard psychology professor Kristin Lane with Bard undergraduates Jin Goh and Erin Driver-Linn has been published by Sex Roles as an "Online First" and can be read on the journal's website in the July 2011 issue.

Most parents assume they would need high-yield explosives to get their kid out the door and into a library to do math for two hours on a Saturday afternoon, but Bard math professor Japheth Wood has been offering an alternative to dangerous household pyrotechnics right at the Kingston Library — the Bard Math Circle.

Bard's Citizen Science Program strives for greater science literacy for students.

“Activities are focused on middle school children, but everyone is welcome,” said Japheth Wood, professor of mathematics at Bard College, noting that math teachers at all levels have come by on the second Saturday of the month to participate in the two hours of fun.

Bard's innovative January Citizen Science intensive gives first-year students science fundamentals, regardless of major.

Felicia Keesing is the lead author of a new study on biodiversity and human disease, which was published in Nature in December 2010. This important study has received international attention and press at over 70 venues and blogs.

President Leon Botstein appears on the Colbert Report to show how Bard's Citizen Science program addresses science illiteracy in the United States.

Bard High School Early College II (BHSEC II), a public school partnership between Bard College and the New York City Department of Education, has received a Science and Math Improvement Grant from the Toshiba America Foundation. The $13,440 grant was awarded for an innovative research project, "Urban Effects on Lightning Activity in Queens, New York."

Perhaps no city rivals New York, but lately Shanghai is making its bid. As the booming Chinese financial center races to emulate its Western counterpart, these two culturally disparate cities share increasing similarities. Now, thanks to an innovative grant to the Bard High School Early College (BHSEC), students from BHSEC and Shanghai’s pre- mier high schools, Affiliated High School of Fudan University and No. 2 High School of East Normal University, are examining their respective megacities through collaborative comparative environmental studies of New York’s Hudson River and Shanghai’s Huangpu River.