News

Coralie Kraft ’13, visual editor, writer, and Bard College alumna, was interviewed by PBS News about her New York Times Magazine article “The ‘Panic Industry’ Boom,” for which she was also the contributing photo editor. The article and photo essay explored how some Americans are increasingly spending vast amounts of money prepping for doomsday scenarios by building bunkers, bomb shelters, gun rooms, panic rooms and other means of surviving through a collapse. In conversation with Ali Rogin, Kraft discussed her thoughts on why more people are preparing for disasters, the companies that build the structures meant to safeguard their clients, and the mindsets behind those who are preparing for such scenarios. “I think that as more and more people are impacted by things like pandemics, by civil unrest and demonstrations and activism in their cities, by financial collapse as those factors hit a wider and wider population, it makes sense to me that more of us would be interested in this type of, ‘what can I do in the event of a disaster scenario or a doomsday scenario,’” Kraft told PBS.

Bard alumnus Henry Mielarczyk ’25, a philosophy and music performance major, has been accepted into the 2025 Stennis Program for Congressional Interns. The internship, given by the Stennis Center for Public Service in Washington, DC, is a competitive bipartisan program designed to provide congressional interns with an opportunity to better understand the role of Congress as an institution and its role in the democracy of the United States. Interns will connect with current and former senior congressional staff through a series of discussion sessions designed to provide an in-depth look at Congress and its operations with other institutions. The Stennis Center is a bipartisan legislative branch agency created by Congress in 1988 to promote and strengthen the highest ideals of public service in the United States. The center aims to develop and deliver a portfolio of unique programs for young people, leaders in local, state, and federal government, and congressional staff.

The United Nations highlighted research by Michael Martell, associate professor of economics at Bard College, in its #NoToHate campaign designed to combat hateful speech. Martell’s study, “Economic Costs of Hate Crimes,” written for the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, estimates that the measurable annual cost of hate crimes in the United States is nearly 3.4 billion, with the actual cost likely much higher. “If you think about the cost of hate, it’s like hate crimes are kind of a recession every single year,” said Martell in a video testimony for the United Nations. “And policymakers, the Federal Reserve, everybody is always really concerned if there’s even hints of a recession. But the fact that we could be in one all of the time because of hate is something that we should really care about.” The United Nations’ concern about the impact of hateful speech cuts across numerous UN areas of focus, from protecting human rights and preventing atrocities to sustaining peace, achieving equality, and supporting children and youth.

Three Bard College graduates have won 2025–26 Fulbright Awards for individually designed research projects and English teaching assistantships. The Fulbright program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and in routine tasks, allowing the grantee to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think. During their grants, Fulbrighters meet, work, live with, and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences. Bard College is a Fulbright top producing institution.

Maia Cluver ’22, a joint Art History and Visual Culture and Human Rights major, has been selected for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) in Jordan for the 2025-26 academic year. As a student, Cluver was a language tutor in the Bard Learning Commons, and currently works in the Academic Resource Center at Al-Quds Bard.

Cecilia Giancola ’25, who majored in Historical Studies, has been awarded a Fulbright independent study/research grant to India. Giancola’s Fulbright is an archival research project focused on the operations of the Baroda (Gaikwad) state in western India during the 19th century. In her research, Giancola plans to investigate the operations of the Baroda–a “princely” state in colonial India–with the British Raj and their illicit trade and smuggling practices. 

Oskar Pezalla-Granlund ’24, an Art History and Visual Culture major, has received a Fulbright independent study/research grant to Spain. Oskar’s project investigates the history of Philippine-Spanish artistic and cultural relations through the history of Museo-Biblioteca de Ultramar (1887-1908), a museum dedicated to displaying the art, culture, and history of the Spanish colonies. Pezalla-Granlund’s research aims to contribute to the often overlooked history of the artistic and cultural contact between the Philippines and Spain through the examination of a museum that crystalizes the contradictions of late-colonial society.

Fulbright is a program of the US Department of State, with funding provided by the US government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program. Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 62 Nobel Prize recipients, 80 MacArthur Foundation Fellows, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 42 current or former heads of state or government.

Bard graduate William Helman ’25 has been announced as a recipient of the Political Studies Summer Fellowship in the Theory and Practice of Politics by the Hudson Institute. Helman’s fellowship will run from June 15 through July 25, during which he will engage in daily seminar classes and policy workshops at the think tank’s headquarters in Washington, DC. Seminars will examine works such as Plato’s Republic, Machiavelli’s The Prince, and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, along with selections from the Federalist Papers, the speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, and current scholarship on American foreign policy. “William has a profound engagement with the theory and practice of politics, so I have no doubt this is the start of a very bright future for him,” said Richard Aldous, Eugene Meyer Distinguished Professor of History and Helman’s advisor. “He has just written an outstanding History and Film Studies senior project on elections and political advertising in the 1980s and 1990s, so this is a chance for him to put some of that history and communication theory to the test somewhere that sits at the intersection between the worlds of politics and ideas.”