Division of Social Studies

Recent News

• Bard Student Able Bloodgood ’25 Wins Peace Corps Fellowship
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  Bard Student Able Bloodgood ’25 Wins Peace Corps Fellowship

  

  Able Bloodgood ’25.
  

  Bard High School Early College graduate and Bard student Able Bloodgood ’25, a politics major, has been selected for a prestigious Peace Corps Fellowship in Sri Lanka. Starting in September, Bloodgood will undertake an intensive language training program to study Tamil and Sinhala, over a 27-month period, before being stationed in a town where he will coteach and lead English language courses for students of all grades. “I’m super excited to have been given this once in a lifetime opportunity to work with the Peace Corps,” said Bloodgood. “Thank you to my friends, family, and the Bard faculty for helping me through the application process.” The Peace Corps, founded in 1961, aims to assist developing countries by providing skilled workers in fields such as education, health, entrepreneurship, women's empowerment, and community development.  Since its inception, more than 240,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps and served in 142 countries.
  
  Post Date: 04-15-2025
  
• Ella Walko ’26 Recognized for Voter Registration, Education, and Turnout Efforts
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  Ella Walko ’26 Recognized for Voter Registration, Education, and Turnout Efforts

  

  Ella Walko ’26.
  

  Walko ’26 Is One of 232 College Students Nationwide Recognized for Their Nonpartisan Voter Registration and Turnout Successes in 2024

  Bard College and the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge (ALL IN) honored Ella Walko ’26 as part of the fourth annual ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll. The 2025 ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll recognizes college students at participating campuses who have gone above and beyond to advance nonpartisan student voter registration, education and turnout efforts in their communities. Ella Walko ’26 is one of 232 students who mobilized their fellow students to make their voices heard in a historic election cycle. At Bard, Walko is majoring in politics with a concentration in gender and sexuality studies. She is actively involved with Election@Bard, a student-led initiative that helps students register to vote, provides information about candidates, hosts forums in which candidates and students can meet, and protects the rights of students to vote and have their votes counted.
  
  “The Bard Center for Civic Engagement chose to honor Ella on the All-In Student Honor Roll because she exemplifies all of the best qualities of a Bard student,” said Sarah deVeer ’17, Bard CCE Outreach Coordinator Special Events Administrator. “Ella is a dynamic and consistently hardworking leader, who has risen to meet the needs of her generation through her work on the Election@Bard team. Ella is one of the most communicative, intentional, and collaborative forces of a student that I have had the pleasure of working with. We look forward to seeing where Ella's post-Bard journey takes her.”
  
  “I am honored to receive this award, but what is even more gratifying is working alongside my peers and team members to build an informed, engaged, and civically active community,” said Walko. “I’m so proud of our efforts this past year and all we’ve been able to accomplish!”
  
  “Whether they hosted nonpartisan voter registration drives or early voting celebrations, the students honored today made sure their peers did not sleep in on Election Day,” said Jen Domagal-Goldman, Executive Director of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. “With 100,000 local elections happening across the country in 2025, ALL IN students continue to ensure that everyone on their campuses has the information they need to cast their ballot. The 232 Student Voting Honor Roll honorees lead by example, making nonpartisan voter participation a lifelong habit for themselves and their peers.” 
  
  A recent survey from CIRCLE found that 48% of under-35 youth who did not vote in 2024 heard little or nothing at all about how to vote, compared to the 15% of under-35 youth who cast their ballots. By integrating nonpartisan voter registration and education into campus life, colleges and universities can have a measurable impact in encouraging students to become active and engaged citizens.
  
  The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge empowers colleges and universities to achieve excellence in nonpartisan student civic engagement. With the support of the ALL IN staff, campuses that join the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge complete a set of action items to institutionalize nonpartisan civic learning, voter participation and ongoing engagement in our democracy on their campus. The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge engages more than 1,000 institutions enrolling over 10 million students in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Campuses can join ALL IN here. 
  
  Post Date: 04-10-2025
  
• Bard College Presents Renowned Historian Dominic Sandbrook in Conversation with Richard Aldous on May 6
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  Bard College Presents Renowned Historian Dominic Sandbrook in Conversation with Richard Aldous on May 6

  

  Dominic Sandbrook. Photo by John Cairns
  

  Bard College presents its annual Eugene Meyer Lecture in British History and Literature with renowned British historian Dominic Sandbrook. Sandbrook, one of Britain’s most distinguished historians and cohost of the most widely downloaded history podcast in the world The Rest is History, will talk about Britain in the 1980s with Richard Aldous, Eugene Meyer Distinguished Professor of History. The talk will take place in the Lásló Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium (RKC 103) of the Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation at Bard College on Tuesday, May 6 at 5:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.
  
  A hundred years after the birth of Magaret Thatcher and 50 years after she became the first woman to lead a major British political party, Dominic Sandbrook will delve into Britain in the seminal decade of the eighties. “The story of these years is bitterly contested,” he has written. “There is no consensus about the 1980s and there never will be.” From the conservative revolution to inner-city riots, Princess Diana, Chariots of Fire, and multiculturalism, this was a time of great cultural originality, political ambition and controversy, and wide scale social change—and all to a soundtrack by The Specials, Bananarama, and The Clash. Bard professor Richard Aldous will speak with renowned historian Dominic Sandbrook about Britain in the eighties for the latest event in Bard’s Eugene Meyer Lecture Series on British History and Literature, commemorating Eugene Meyer (1875–1959)—owner and publisher of the Washington Post, Chairman of the Federal Reserve and first President of the World Bank.
  
  “Dominic Sandbrook is that rare thing, the brilliant historian who is also immensely popular,” says Richard Aldous, Eugene Meyer Distinguished Professor of History at Bard. “His revisionist scholarship has transformed the way in which we write about postwar Britain, and his podcast, The Rest is History—with 11 million monthly downloads—has used technology to expand the range of how history is presented and enjoyed.”
  
  Dominic Sandbrook is one Britain’s best and best-known historians. Educated at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, he taught at the University of Sheffield before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of eight books, including five volumes of a bestselling and critically acclaimed history of Britain from the 1960s to the 1980s. He has presented numerous BBC documentaries and is cohost of The Rest is History—the most popular history podcast in the world. He is currently working on an opera about Margaret Thatcher with the composer Joseph Phibbs.
  
  Richard Aldous is Eugene Meyer Distinguished Professor of History at Bard and the author of eight books, including Reagan and Thatcher. 
  
  The Eugene Meyer Series was established in 2010 in association with the endowment of the tenured Eugene Meyer Chair. Richard Aldous has held the chair since its inception. Previous Eugene Meyer Lecture Series invited speakers have included Sir David Cannadine, Andrew Roberts, Colm Tóibín, Olivette Otele, David Reynolds, Fintan O’Toole, Francine Prose, and Lord Skidelsky. 
  
  Post Date: 04-08-2025
  
• Pavlina Tcherneva Discusses Budget Deficit and Government Financing
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  Pavlina Tcherneva Discusses Budget Deficit and Government Financing

  

  Bard Professor of Economics and President of the Levy Economics Institute Pavlina Tcherneva.
  

  Bard Professor of Economics and President of the Levy Economics Institute Pavlina Tcherneva joined WAMC’s Roundtable to discuss the debt ceiling, how the US government spends, and repercussions from potential disruptions to the payments system. She emphasized how Covid relief payments clearly demonstrated that the government does not depend on borrowing or wealthy taxpayers to fund its expenditures but can self-finance. Elon Musk's discovery of so-called “magic money computers” betrays ignorance about the architecture of our federal financial system. Government payments are typically made via electronic means by issuing electronic payments on as-needed basis. As a practical matter, it is virtually impossible for the government to run out of cash. Slash-and-burn policies to cut federal spending are politically motivated and not about US government solvency. 
  
  On Marketplace, Tcherneva noted that while small businesses make up a small share of total employment their behavior is a “bellwether for overall trends in the economy”—and small business hiring slowed down in February’s Job Openings and Labor Market Survey.
   
  

  Listen on WAMC
  

  Listen on Marketplace
  

  
  Post Date: 04-08-2025
  
• Bard College Senior Blanche Darr ’25 Wins Prestigious Watson Travel Fellowship
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  Bard College Senior Blanche Darr ’25 Wins Prestigious Watson Travel Fellowship

  

  Blanche Darr ’25.
  

  Bard College senior Blanche Darr ’25 has been awarded a prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, which provides for a year of travel and exploration outside the United States. Continuing its tradition of expanding the vision and developing the potential of remarkable young leaders, the Watson Foundation selected Darr as one of 37 students in the 57th Class of Watson Fellows to receive this award for 2025-26. The Watson Fellowship offers college graduates of unusual promise a year of independent, purposeful exploration and travel in international settings to enhance their capacity for resourcefulness, imagination, openness, and leadership and to foster their humane and effective participation in the world community. Each Watson Fellow receives a grant of $40,000 for 12 months of travel and independent study. Over the past several years, 27 Bard seniors have received Watson Fellowships.
  
  Blanche Darr ’25, an anthropology major and violinist in the Bard College Conservatory, will spend a year expanding her musical vocabulary for her Watson project, Reimagining Music-Making as a Way of Life. She will travel to Kenya, Indonesia, India, and Germany to examine barriers to music-making such as access, cost, and elitism, and, by joining international music education programs, explore ways to overcome them. “Learning to play music in a variety of settings and traditions will allow me to meet students with a wider ear for their musical vocabularies, experiences, and goals,” Darr writes in her proposal. “In the United States, music-making is something that is usually only for those with time, money, and some supposed talent. I wish to challenge this idea, looking at music-making around the world that is more participatory, improvisational, and connected to communities. I hope that this will provide me with a deeper understanding of the ways that people can make music integrated in daily life.”
  
  A Watson Year provides fellows with an opportunity to test their aspirations and abilities through a personal project cultivated on an international scale. Watson Fellows have gone on to become leaders in their fields including CEOs of major corporations, college presidents, Emmy, Grammy and Oscar Award winners, Pulitzer Prize awardees, artists, diplomats, doctors, entrepreneurs, faculty, journalists, lawyers, politicians, researchers and inspiring influencers around the world. Following the year, they join a community of peers who provide a lifetime of support and inspiration. For more information about the Watson Fellowship, visit: https://watson.foundation.
  
  Post Date: 03-20-2025
  
• Pocketbook Issues Such as Raising Minimum Wages, Paid Leave, and Protecting Public Education Could Sway the American Electorate, New Levy Economics Institute Report Says
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  Pocketbook Issues Such as Raising Minimum Wages, Paid Leave, and Protecting Public Education Could Sway the American Electorate, New Levy Economics Institute Report Says

  

  Blithewood, home to the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.
  

  Long-Term Voting Trends Show Democrats Losing Working Class Support Due to Absence of Clear Vision for Popular Progressive Economic Policies

  The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College has published a policy brief outlining economic policies that improve the lives of working-class families and could sway the American electorate. That “Vision Thing”: Formulating a Winning Policy Agenda, Levy Public Policy Brief No. 158, coauthored by Levy Economics Institute President Pavlina R. Tcherneva and Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray, analyzes the shifting allegiances of American voters over the decades as the Democratic Party lost the support of its traditional base—blue-collar and rural counties—and came to be seen as the party of the educated elite, socially liberal, and relatively economically secure.

  
  “Trump was the beneficiary of a long-term retreat of working-class voters from the Democratic Party. But becoming the party of the economically secure in a world of runaway inequality, rising precarity, and widespread frustration with many aspects of the economy does not and will not win elections. Still, as we show in this report, Americans are far more progressive than either party gives them credit for. Whatever path forward Democrats choose, winning back the working class would be a long process without a big and bold vision,” says Tcherneva.
  
  For the first time since 1960, Democrats earned a greater margin of support among the richest third of American voters in 2024 than they did among the poorest or middle third. Meanwhile, Trump gained more vote share in counties rated as distressed—and gained less in prosperous counties—despite those counties benefiting significantly and performing better economically under President Biden’s policies that boosted government assistance. In spite of the Democratic focus on inequality, the party fails to reach the financially disadvantaged (who are the true swing voters) with their message, the report asserts.
  
  “Democrats had neither delivered on nor even highlighted the changes that many voters wanted: policies that would provide economic benefits. They were tired of inflation that reduced purchasing power, wages that remained too low (even in supposedly good labor markets) to support their families, and many other issues related to economic precarity, including the costs of healthcare, prescription drugs, childcare and—for a significant portion—college,” write Tcherneva and Wray.
  
  Assessing ballot measures and polling data, the Levy report identifies worker-friendly policies that would improve the wellbeing of the American working class and win elections. “Americans seem to apply two litmus tests to any proposed policy: (1) how will it impact American jobs and (2) how will it impact American paychecks,” they find. “If tariffs are expected to protect jobs, voters are behind them. If they hurt their paychecks, even conservative-leaning voters are strongly against them.”
  
  Ballot measures indicate voters are more progressive than either party recognizes. Winning policies include: raising minimum wages, lowering taxes on earned income and social security (or eliminating them altogether for tips), making healthcare and education more affordable, protecting funding for public schools, increasing Pell grants, reducing the costs of higher education, and implementing paid sick and family leaves. Importantly, whenever asked, Americans strongly support federal programs of direct employment and on-the-job training—in the form of a federal job guarantee or national service for youths in jobs that support the community and the environment. They also care about rebuilding public infrastructure and investing in arts and culture.
  
  Moreover, voters want policies that protect them from price increases, corporate greed, predatory interest rates, and hidden fees. They support more progressivity in the tax system and fewer tax loopholes for billionaires. They are tired of the dominance of billionaires in lobbying by special interests and campaign finance.
  
  “Employment security, economic mobility, community rehabilitation, and environmental sustainability are winning messages. But they are especially powerful when anchored in concrete policies that directly deliver what they promise—good jobs, good pay, decent benefits, affordable health, education, food, and a peace of mind that Americans can care for loved ones without the threat of unemployment or price shocks or the loss of essential benefits,” the report concludes.
  

  Read the full policy brief
  

  
  Post Date: 03-10-2025