Bard College Bard College , founded in 1860 as St . Stephen ' s College , is a private liberal arts college in Annandale - on - Hudson , New York . Bard ' s rural main campus is located near the town of Red Hook . The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains , and is within the Hudson River Historic District , a National Historic Landmark . The institution consists of a liberal arts college , a conservatory , as well as 8 graduate programs offering over 20 graduate degrees in the arts and sciences . The undergraduate student - to - faculty ratio is 10 : 1 . The college has a network of over 35 affiliated programs , institutes , and centers , spanning 12 cities , 5 states , 7 countries , and 4 continent s . Bard ' s Annandale campus serves as an important regional cultural institution . Both the CCS Hessel Museum of Contemporary Art and the Richard B . Fisher Center for the Performing Arts are located on campus . The college also hosts two acclaimed annual arts festivals , Bard SummerScape , and the Bard Music Festival . History . Origins and early years . During much of the nineteenth century , the land now owned by Bard was mainly composed of several country estates . These estates were called Blithewood , Bartlett , Sands , Cruger ' s Island , and Ward Manor / Almont . In 1853 , John Bard and Margaret Bard purchased a part of the Blithewood estate and renamed it Annandale . John Bard was the grandson of Samuel Bard , a prominent doctor , a founder of Columbia University ' s medical school , and physician to George Washington . John Bard was also the nephew of the Rev . John McVickar , a professor at Columbia University . The family had strong connections with the Episcopal Church and Columbia . The following year , in 1854 , John and Margaret established a parish school on their estate in order to educate the area ' s children . A wood - frame cottage , known today as Bard Hall , served as a school on weekdays and a chapel on weekends . In 1857 , the Bards expanded the parish by building the Chapel of the Holy Innocents next to Bard Hall . During this time , John Bard remained in close contact with the New York leaders of the Episcopal Church . The Church suggested that he found a theological college . With the promise of outside financial support , John Bard donated the unfinished Chapel , and the surrounding 18 acres , to the diocese in November 1858 . In March 1860 , St . Stephen ' s College was founded . In 1861 , construction began on the first St . Stephen ' s College building , a stone collegiate gothic dormitory called Aspinwall . During its initial years , the college relied on wealthy benefactors , like trustee Cornelius Vanderbilt for funding . The college began taking shape within four decades . In 1866 , Ludlow Hall , an administrative building , was erected . Preston Hall was built in 1873 and used as a refectory . A set of four dormitories , collectively known as Stone Row , were completed in 1891 . And in 1895 , the greek revival Hoffman Memorial Library was built . The school officially changed its name to Bard College in 1934 in honor of its founder . Growth and secularization . In the 20th century , social and cultural changes amongst New York ' s high society would bring about the demise of the great estates . In 1914 , Louis Hamersley purchased the fire - damaged Ward Manor / Almont estate and erected a tudor style mansion and gatehouse , or what is today known as Ward Manor . Hamersley expanded his estate in 1926 by acquiring the abandoned Cruger ' s Island estate . That same year , after Hamersley ' s combined estate was purchased by William Ward , it was donated to charity and served as a retirement home for almost four decades . By the mid - 1900s , Bard ' s campus significantly expanded . The Blithewood estate was donated to the college in 1951 , and in 1963 , Bard purchased of the Ward Manor estate , including the main manor house . The rest of the Ward Manor estate is now the Tivoli Bays nature preserve . In 1928 , Bard merged with Columbia University , serving as an undergraduate school , similar to Barnard College . Under the agreement , Bard remained affiliated with the Episcopal Church and retained control of its finances . The merger raised Bard ' s prestige , however , it failed to provide financial support to the college during the Great Depression . So dire was Bard ' s financial situation that in 1932 , then Governor of New York and trustee of the college , Franklin D . Roosevelt , sent a telegram to the likes of John D . Rockefeller , Jr . , George Eastman and Frederick W . Vanderbilt requesting donations for the college . On May 26 , 1933 , Dr . Donald Tewksbury , a Columbia professor , was appointed Dean of the College . Although Dean for only 4 years , Tewksbury had a lasting impact on the school . Tewksbury , an educational philosopher , had extensive ideas regarding higher education . While he was Dean , Tewksbury steered the college into a more secular direction , and changed its name from St . Stephens to Bard . He also placed a heavy academic emphasis on the arts , something atypical of colleges at the time , and set the foundations for Bard ' s Moderation and Senior Project requirement . ( see below ) Although Tewksbury never used the term progressive to describe Bard ' s curriculum , the school would later be considered an early adopter of progressive education . In his 1943 study of early progressive colleges , titled " General Education in the Progressive College " , Louis T . Benezet used Bard as one of his three case studies . During the 1940s , Bard provided a haven for intellectual refugees fleeing Europe . These included Hannah Arendt , the political theorist , Stefan Hirsch , the precisionist painter ; Felix Hirsch , the political editor of the " Berliner Tageblatt " ; the violinist Emil Hauser ; the linguist Hans Marchand ; the noted psychologist Werner Wolff ; and the philosopher Heinrich Blücher . In 1944 , as a result of World War II , enrollment significantly dropped putting financial stress on the college . In order to increase enrollment , the college became co - educational , thereby severing all ties with Columbia . The college became an independent , secular , institution in 1944 . Thus enrollment more than doubled , from 137 students in 1944 , to 293 in 1947 . In the 1950s , with the addition of the Blithewood estate and Tewksbury Hall , the college would increase its enrollment by 150 students . Recent history . In 1969 , a police raid on Bard led a young Donald Fagen to write My Old School . Fagen also wrote Rikki Don ' t Lose That Number about Rikki Ducornet , a faculty wife at Bard . In 1975 , after serving as the youngest college president in history at Franconia College , Leon Botstein was elected president of Bard . He is generally credited with reviving the academic and cultural prestige of the college . He has overseen a major expansion of the college . In Annandale , the student population has increased by over 400 percent while several signature postmodern buildings have been constructed , including the Gehry - designed Fisher Center , the Venturi - designed Stevenson Library addition , and the Viñoly - designed Reem - Kayden Center for Science and Computation . Furthermore , over 35 affiliated institutes , centers , and programs , located locally , nationally , and internationally , have been created during Botstein ' s tenure . Campus . The campus contains more than 70 buildings with a total gross building space of 1 , 167 , 090 square feet . Campus buildings represent varied architectural styles , but the campus remains heavily influenced by the Collegiate Gothic and Postmodern styles . Bard ’ s historic buildings are associated with the early development of the college and the history of the Hudson River estates ( see Bard College History ) . During a late twentieth century building boom , the college embraced a trend of building signature buildings designed by prominent architects like Venturi , Gehry , and Viñoly . Academics . Bard is a college of the liberal arts and sciences . In the undergraduate college , Bard offers Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees . There are 23 academic departments that offer over 40 major programs , as well as 12 interdisciplinary concentrations . The college was the first in the nation to offer a human rights major . In the 2011 - 2012 academic year , the college held 1 , 345 classes . In the three weeks preceding their first semester , first - year students attend the Language and Thinking ( L & T ) program , an intensive , writing - centered introduction to the liberal arts . The interdisciplinary program , established in 1981 , aims to " cultivate habits of thoughtful reading and discussion , clear articulation , accurate self - critique , and productive collaboration . " The program covers philosophy , history , science , poetry , fiction , and religion . In 2011 , the core readings included works by Hannah Arendt , Franz Kafka , Frans de Waal , Stephen Jay Gould , Clifford Geertz , M . NourbeSe Philip , and Sophocles . During their winter intercession , first - year students must also participate in the Citizen Science program , a three - week program that began in 2011 . The Citizen Science program introduces students to science and the ideas of the scientific method . The program is designed to promote science literacy and utilizes the theme of infectious disease : the importance of infectious disease in a community , and the impact that infectious disease outbreaks and subsequent management can have on our global society . The curriculum ranges from conducting laboratory experiments and analyzing a scientific problem , to modeling potential solutions to that problem . The program merges three distinct , yet thematically interwoven , rotations , each designed to address a large question : How can we reduce the global burden of infectious disease ? All first - year student take the " First - Year Seminar , " a year - long , reading and writing core curricular course . " FYSem , " as it is commonly known among students and faculty , begins in the fall semester of the freshman year . The first semester spans thinkers from Confucius to Galileo , while the second semester spans John Locke to Virginia Woolf . There are nearly thirty sections of the course each semester , taught by a wide variety of professors , including President Botstein and other members of the administration . The course covers works by Plato , Virgil , Saint Augustine , Dante , William Shakespeare , Galileo Galilei , Jean Jacques Rousseau , Mary Shelley , Karl Marx , Charles Darwin , Friedrich Nietzsche , W . E . B . DuBois , Sigmund Freud , Virginia Woolf , Chinua Achebe , and Primo Levi . Another mandatory process of the college is moderation . Moderation typically takes place in the fourth or fifth semester , as a way of choosing a major . Conditions vary from department to department and most require the completion of a certain set or a certain number of courses . To moderate , the student presents whatever work is required to a moderation board of three professors , and is subsequently interviewed , examined , and critiqued . The capstone of the Bard undergraduate experience is the Senior Project . As with moderation , this project takes different forms in different departments . Many students write a paper of around eighty pages , which is then , as with work for moderation , critiqued by a board of three professors . Arts students must organize a series of concerts , recitals , or shows , or produce substantial creative work ; math and science students , as well as some social science students , undertake research projects . Rankings and admissions . In its 2013 edition of college rankings , " U . S . News and World Report " ranked Bard the 36th best liberal arts college in the United States In 2012 , the Princeton Review ranked Bard as the seventh - most liberal college in the United States , sixteenth most rigorous , eighth in best classroom experience , and rated the college a 97 out of 99 in selectivity . In 2011 , Newsweek ranked Bard as sixteenth most rigorous and twenty - second most artistic . For the class of 2016 , 28 % of applicants were accepted . The median SAT score was 680 in critical reading and 650 in math . Sixty percent of matriculating students ranked in the top 10 % of their high school class out of those who reported . The class of 2016 represent 39 states and 48 countries . Programs and associated institutes . Bard has developed several innovative graduate programs and research institutes , including the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts , the Levy Economics Institute , the Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture , the Bard Center for Environmental Policy , the Bard College Conservatory of Music , the ICP - Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies in Manhattan , the Master of Arts in Teaching Program ( MAT ) , the Bard College Clemente Program , and the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan . The college ' s Richard B . Fisher Center for the Performing Arts was designed by acclaimed architect Frank Gehry , and was completed in the spring of 2003 . The Bard Prison Initiative provides a liberal arts degree to incarcerated individuals ( Prison education ) in five different prisons in New York State , and currently enrolls nearly 200 students . Since federal funding for prison education programs was eliminated in 1994 , the BPI is one of only a small number of programs in the country of its kind . Bard College is also affiliated with Bard College at Simon ' s Rock , the nation ' s oldest and most prestigious early college entrance program ; Bard High School Early College , which has campuses in Manhattan , Queens , and Newark ; as well as Bard Center for Environmental Policy . Bard also helped construct a curriculum for Smolny College , Russia ' s first liberal arts college , with St . Petersburg State University . Additionally , the college hosts the Bard Globalization and International Affairs ( BGIA ) Program in New York City , which is focused on the specialized study of human rights law , international relations ethics , civil society , humanitarian action , and global political economy . Students attend seminar classes in the evenings and work at a substantive international affairs internship during the day . BGIA publishes BardPolitik , a semiannual international affairs journal featuring contributions for students and academics . In February 2009 , Bard announced the first dual degree program between a Palestinian university and an American institution of higher education . The College entered into a collaboration with Al - Quds University involving an honors college , a masters program in teaching and a model high school . Recently , Bard College acquired , on permanent loan , art collector Marieluise Hessel ' s substantial collection of important contemporary artwork . Hessel also contributed $ 8 million ( USD ) for the construction of a new wing at Bard ' s Center for Curatorial Studies building , in which the collection is exhibited . In March 2010 , Bard established an official partnership with American University of Central Asia located in Bishkek , Kyrgyzstan . The partnership will allow students of American Studies , Anthropology , Economics , European Studies , International and Comparative Politics , Journalism and Mass Communications , Psychology , Sociology and Software Engineering programs to receive liberal arts degrees fully accredited in the US . In June 2011 , Bard officially acquired the Longy School of Music and in November 2011 , Bard took ownership of the European College of Liberal Arts in Berlin , Germany . Student life . Over 120 student clubs are financed through Bard ' s Convocation Fund , which is distributed once a semester by an elected student body and ratified during a rowdy public forum . Bard students have one print newspaper , the " Bard Free Press " , which won Best Campus Publication in " SPIN Magazine " ' s first annual Campus Awards in 2003 . Literary magazines include the semiannual " Lux " , the annual " Bard Papers " , " The Moderator " , and " Sui Generis " , a journal of translations and of original poetry in languages other than English . The " Bard Journal of the Social Sciences " , " Bard Science Journal " , and " Qualia " , a philosophy journal , are also student - published . Other prominent student groups include the International Students Organization and other cultural organizations , The Bard Anti - capitalist Club , The Two Boats Country Country Club Club , the Bard Film Committee , the Bard Queer - Straight Alliance , Student Labor Dialogue , Surrealist Training Circus , Student - run Bike Co - op and college radio station WXBC . Bard is also home to the Root Cellar , a completely student - run , multipurpose space that serves as an Infoshop , vegan café , and venue for small - scale shows . It houses an extensive zine library , which once was touted as " the largest zine library on the East Coast . " While technically defined as a club by the Office of Student Activities , the " club heads " of the Root Cellar hold no more power than any other students involved , and decisions are made by consensus at weekly meetings . The space is a haven for radical political action and education , and an outlook much like that of ABC No Rio or Bluestockings bookstore in New York City . Bard has a strong independent music scene considering its isolation and size . The college ' s Old Gym was once a popular location for concerts and parties in the 1980s , 1990s , and early 2000s . In 2004 , the Old Gym was shut down and in spring 2006 transformed into a student - run theater by students Julie Rossman and Kell Condon . Many activities that once took place there now occur in the smaller SMOG building . SMOG is now primarily used as a music venue . Student - run theater is also popular : dozens of student directed and written productions are put on each semester and a 24 Hour Theater Festival is held at least once a year . Athletics . Bard College teams participate as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association ' s Division III . The Raptors are a member of the Liberty League . Their past conference affiliations were mostly as an Independent , and the Skyline Conference , which the Raptors joined from the 2007 - 08 through the 2010 - 11 seasons . Men ' s sports include baseball , basketball , cross country , lacrosse , soccer , squash , swimming & diving , tennis , track & field and volleyball ; while women ' s sports include basketball , cross country , lacrosse , soccer , swimming & diving , tennis , track & field and volleyball . One of the more popular sports on campus is rugby . In the spring of 2006 , Bard Women ' s Rugby joined the men ' s side , Bard Rugby Football Club , as an official team . In 2011 , the Bard Women ' s and Men ' s Football teams joined the Liberty League tournament .