The story
Origins and early years
During much of the nineteenth century, the land since owned by Bard was mainly composed of several country estates. These estates were called Blithewood, Bartlett, Sands 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 John McVickar, a professor at Columbia University. The family had strong connections with the Episcopal Church.
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 (7.3 ha), 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, after early trustee John Lloyd Aspinwall, brother of William Henry 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.
20th century 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 90 acres (36 ha) of the Ward Manor estate, including the main manor house. The rest of the Ward Manor estate became the 900-acre (360 ha) Tivoli Bays nature preserve.
In 1919, Bernard Iddings Bell became Bard's youngest president at the age of 34. His adherence to classical education, decorum, and dress eventually clashed with the school's push towards Deweyism and secularization, and he resigned in 1933.
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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 College trustee Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a telegram to the likes of John D. Rockefeller Jr., George Eastman, and Frederick William Vanderbilt requesting donations for the college.
On May 26, 1933, Donald Tewksbury, a Columbia professor, was appointed dean of the college. Although dean for only four 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. Stephen's to Bard. He also emphasized the arts, something atypical of colleges at the time, and set the foundations for Bard's Moderation and Senior Project requirement. While Tewksbury never characterized Bard's curriculum as "progressive," 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. Arendt is buried at Bard, alongside her husband Heinrich Blücher, as is eminent novelist Philip Roth.
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. Enrollment more than doubled, from 137 students in 1944, to 293 in 1947.
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's experiences at Bard prompted them to write the 1973 song "My Old School" for their rock group, Steely Dan. The song was motivated by the 1969 drug bust at Bard in which the college administration colluded. Fagen and Becker wrote another Steely Dan song, "Rikki Don't Lose That Number", about novelist, artist and former Bard faculty spouse Rikki Ducornet.
21st century
In 2020, Bard College and Central European University became the founding members of the Open Society University Network, a collaborative global education initiative endowed with US$1 billion. As part of this new initiative, the college received a US$100 million gift from the Open Society Foundations which ranks among the largest financial contributions to a U.S. institution in recent history. In 2021, philanthropist George Soros made a $500 million endowment pledge to Bard College. It is one of the largest pledges of money ever made to higher education in the United States.
In June 2021, Bard College was declared an "undesirable organization" in Russia, becoming the first international higher education organization to be branded with this designation. Bard president Botstein hypothesized that this tag was due to their association with and funding from the Open Society Foundations which was also classified as undesirable in Russia and related conspiracy theories about George Soros.
Throughout the early 2010s, Bard College president Leon Botstein maintained a relationship with financier, child sex offender, and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, from whom he received gifts and donations to Bard totaling $150,000. Epstein repeatedly visited Bard by helicopter. Epstein had presented himself as a philanthropist interested in Bard's educational programs, particularly its arts and music programs, as well as taking an interest in Bard's high school early college model. Epstein made a $125,000 gift to Bard High School Early College in Queens, which added 30% to the high school's endowment.
In response, more than one hundred Bard alumni, including Fergie Chambers, the son of the then chair of the Bard College Board of Trustees James Cox Chambers, called on Botstein to resign as president. The scandal resulted in the resignation of Chambers as chairman and interest from the House Judiciary Committee. Botstein retired as president of Bard College on June 30, 2026, the end of his 51st academic year leading the institution.
Starting July 1, 2026 Executive Vice President Jonathan Becker has been appointed to serve as acting president while the college board searches for an interim president, as well as a permanent president. Becker's term as acting president is expected to be around 1 year long.
College leaders
At various times, the leaders of the college have been titled president, warden or dean. They are listed below:
George Franklin Seymour (1860–1861)
Thomas Richey (1861–1863)
Robert Brinckerhoff Fairbairn (1863–1898)
Lawrence T. Cole (1899–1903)
Thomas R. Harris (1904–1907)
William Cunningham Rodgers (1909–1919)
Bernard Iddings Bell (1919–1933)
Donald George Tewksbury (1933–1937)
Harold Mestre (1938–1939)
Charles Harold Gray (1940–1946)
Edward C. Fuller (1946–1950)
James Herbert Case Jr. (1950–1960)
Reamer Kline (1960–1974)
Leon Botstein (1975–2026)
Jonathan Becker (2026–present, acting)
From Wikipedia’s article on Bard College, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5