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Higher Education
“I love the electric spark that comes from a constant confrontation of a historic past and a vital present. They bounce o each other, so there’s a kind of creative tension between memory and dreams.”
— Leon Botstein President, Bard College
The laboratory stemmed from a $600,000 State University of New York 2020 grant awarded in 2014.
“This is going to provide public and private partnerships with our local companies,” says Stoe el. “That’s always been our mantra: ‘We want our companies to stay here and be successful.’”
MICROHYDRO PROJECT
Bard College is leading innovation in energy e ciency through a small project with big possibilities.
A group of Bard students won a $1 million state award in the Energy to Lead competition for its “Micro Hydro for Macro Impact” project. The project focuses on two dams on the historic Montgomery Place property—home to an early 19th-century estate—which the college purchased in 2016.
With the award, Bard will use the dams for microhydropower—less than 100 kilowatts of production—resulting intheavoidanceof335metrictonsof greenhouse gas emissions annually.
Bard will also launch an online public information resource that will help others across the state install microhydropower generators.
“Our recent grant award provides the opportunity to move a few more steps toward our sustainability goals and a thriving, low-carbon future,” says Laurie Husted, chief sustainability o cer at Bard College. “While we are grateful for the chance to take these next steps, we know we have many more to take. We must adapt to a changing climate and enhance our resiliency to the changes that have already begun to impact our community.”
FIELD WORK
Vassar College’s work program is a partnership with local businesses that gives students real-world training. Health sciences students intern at hospitals and clinics across the Dutchess County area. Upon graduating, many of these students remain in Dutchess County to start their health- care careers.
Also available to Vassar students is the school’s 527-acre farm and ecolog- ical preserve. Students conduct research projects and internships on the farm and preserve, while the Poughkeepsie Farm Projectfacilitatescommunityinteraction through a Community Supported Agri- culture(CSA)programandeducationon foodjusticeandsecurity.
Vassar is also a leading arts institution, a highlight of which is the Powerhouse Theater, a summer theater incubator and partnership between Vassar and New York Stage. More than 200 artists visit the Powerhouse each summer to develop new works. The rst reading of John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize–winning “Doubt” took place at the theater in 2003. Recent shows that the Powerhouse introduced to the world include Edie Brickell and Steve Martin’s “Bright Star” and Lin- Manuel Miranda’s groundbreaking Tony winner for best musical, “Hamilton.” The school’s Loeb Art Center houses a collection of 19,000 works and has rotating exhibitions of classic and contemporary art.
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Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Photo by Noah Sheldon.