2020
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Thursday, April 16, 2020 |
Four Bard College Students Win Prestigious Gilman International Scholarships to Study Abroad
Four Bard College students, Asyl Almaz ’24, Nandi Woodfork-Bey ’22, Grant Venable ’24, and Azriel Almodovar ’24, have been awarded highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships by the U.S. Department of State. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award, to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. The recipients of this cycle’s Gilman scholarships are American undergraduate students attending 536 U.S. colleges and represent 49 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, who will study or intern in 91 countries around the globe through April 2023.
Four Bard College Students Win Prestigious Gilman International Scholarships to Study Abroad
Computer science and Asian studies joint major Asyl Almaz ’24, from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, has been awarded $4,000 towards her studies via Bard’s Tuition Exchange at Waseda University in Tokyo for fall 2022. “Coming from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, it has not been an easy journey immersing myself into a different culture when I moved to America for college—let alone another one. I am so incredibly grateful to receive the Gilman scholarship to be able to spend a semester in Waseda. This will ensure that I will be able to not only step foot in another country and learn so many new things about Asian history and culture, but also to be able to afford the expenses that I will have to pay there,” said Almaz.
Music and Asian studies joint major Nandi Woodfork-Bey ’22, from Sacramento, California, has been awarded $3,500 to study at the American College of Greece for fall 2022. “I’m immensely grateful to have received the Gilman Scholarship. I look forward to spending a semester abroad in Greece as I expand and diversify my studies in music and culture. Studying abroad will help me build the global and professional skills needed to succeed in my future endeavors, and I’m thankful that the Gilman program has further helped me achieve this opportunity” said Woodfork-Bey.
Theater major Grant Venable ’24, from Sherman Oaks, California, received a Gilman-DAAD scholarship and has been awarded $5,000 to study at Bard College Berlin for fall 2022. “I am honored to be able to attend Bard College in Berlin with the help of the Gilman scholarship. This scholarship will allow me to pursue my passion for theater and challenge my work as a performance artist through my studies in Berlin,” said Venable.
Philosophy major Azriel Almodovar ’24, from Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, has been awarded $3,500 to study in Taormina, Italy on Bard’s Italian Language Intensive program in summer 2022. “Thanks to the Gilman Scholarship, I am able to study abroad with no financial issues and really take advantage of all that the Italian Intensive Program has to offer. I am very grateful for being a recipient and look forward to my time abroad,” said Almodovar.
Since the program’s establishment in 2001, over 1,350 U.S. institutions have sent more than 34,000 Gilman Scholars of diverse backgrounds to 155 countries around the globe. The program has successfully broadened U.S. participation in study abroad, while emphasizing countries and regions where fewer Americans traditionally study.
As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, “People-to-people exchanges bring our world closer together and convey the best of America to the world, especially to its young people.”
The late Congressman Gilman, for whom the scholarship is named, served in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee. When honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, he said, “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views but adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”
The Gilman Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). To learn more, visit: gilmanscholarship.org
Post Date: 05-16-2022
Bard College Names Valerie Barr the Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Bard Network Computing Initiative
Bard College is pleased to announce the appointment of groundbreaking computer scientist Valerie Barr as the Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science in the Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing, and Director of the Bard Network Computing Initiative. She begins in fall of 2022.Bard College Names Valerie Barr the Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Bard Network Computing Initiative
“Professor Barr is a national leader in efforts to broaden participation in computing even as she champions innovative approaches to connecting computer science with a wide array of intellectual disciplines,” said Vice President and Dean of the College Deirdre d’Albertis. “Over the course of her career she has demonstrated tremendous creativity as an institution builder. Valerie Barr’s appointment will strengthen Bard’s commitment to the study of computing within the liberal arts and amplify these efforts throughout the Bard network.”
“I am deeply honored to be offered the Margaret Hamilton Professorship, which recognizes the numerous contributions Hamilton made to the practice and processes of large-scale software development,” said Barr. “I am also excited to join the Bard faculty. I have watched the growth of the Bard Network for many years, and am pleased to become part of this innovative and exciting institution,” she said. “A key question I hope to explore is what do all students, not just computer science students, need to know about computing in order to actively critique and challenge the current pace and impact of technological change? My many conversations with Bard faculty convinced me that Bard, with its rich array of interdisciplinary programs, many of which reach across the Bard Network, will provide a wonderful arena in which to explore this question.”
Valerie Barr comes to Bard from Mount Holyoke College, where she is currently the Jean E. Sammet Prof. of Computer Science. She recently completed four years as chair of Mount Holyoke’s Computer Science department, and is also cochair of the Data Science program.
In addition to teaching, Barr has distinguished herself in curriculum development and computing education, leading directly to the creation of interdisciplinary programs with a goal of changing the demographics of computer science. Her research projects have been funded repeatedly and extensively over the past two decades by the National Science Foundation. She is past-chair of the Association for Computing Machinery Council on Women in Computing, and has served as a program officer for the National Science Foundation. She is a member of the Liberal Arts Computer Science Consortium.
Barr’s research interests include computer science education, particularly new curricula that will engage diverse groups of students in the liberal arts setting; working collaboratively with colleagues in other disciplines to apply computing to problems in their fields; reanalyzing degree attainment data to better identify and understand long standing trends in the areas of gender, race, and ethnicity; and in software testing, particularly as applied to various kinds of artificial intelligence and language processing systems.
Prior to Mount Holyoke College, Barr was on the faculty of Union College, where she served as Director of Interdisciplinary Programs, and Hofstra University. She has also taught at Pratt Institute and Rutgers. She received her master’s degree from New York University and Ph.D. from Rutgers.
The Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professorship of Computer Science was established by Bard College President Leon Botstein in honor of trailblazing computer scientist Margaret Hamilton, who led the NASA software team for the Apollo program’s first moon landing. Hamilton is an honorary degree recipient of Bard, as well as a parent and grandparent of Bard alumni/ae.
Post Date: 10-01-2021
American Mathematical Society Recognizes Bard Math Circle’s CAMP Program and Its Founder, Professor Japheth Wood
The Bard Math Circle’s Creative and Analytical Math Program (CAMP) and founder Japheth Wood have been recognized with a 2020 Epsilon Award for Young Scholars Programs. The Epsilon Awards, given annually by the American Mathematical Society, support some of the most prestigious summer math enrichment programs in the United States.American Mathematical Society Recognizes Bard Math Circle’s CAMP Program and Its Founder, Professor Japheth Wood
CAMP is not “summer camp.” It is a nonresidential academic program for middle school students that features mathematics in a creative learning environment. CAMP started in August 2014 with initial funding from the Dolciani Math Enrichment Grant Program, and it has grown to become a popular late-summer treat for math kids in the Mid-Hudson Valley and beyond. Experienced educators and undergraduate math majors lead classes and activities that emphasize hands-on math, teamwork, and outside-the-box thinking.
This summer, CAMP was held online for the first time. During the first week in August, 49 middle schoolers and a staff of 15—including seven Bard math and computer science majors and two Bard math alumnae—got together via Zoom. “Since cyberspace shortened the distance between us, the Bard Math Circle received numerous applications from around the country,” says Wood. “We could see students’ excitement over running into old friends and connecting with new CAMPers in Zoom classrooms.”
This year’s CAMP theme was cryptography. Students explored cipher encryption (using a cipher wheel like the one at right), created artworks with encoded messages, made cryptograms, and more.
“Though [CAMP] wasn’t around during my student days at Bard, an amazing community has developed since,” says Bard alumna and CAMP senior instructor Erin Toliver ’00. “I love seeing the look on a student’s face when they’ve discovered a new pattern, found a different perspective, or made a new connection for a deeper understanding of this glorious world of mathematics.”
Learn more about the CAMP program at bardmathcircle.org.
Post Date: 09-22-2020
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