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How are colleges and universities using drones? For art projects, library delivery systems, and more. Bard's Center for the Study of the Drone is front and center.

The Bard Center for Civic Engagement announces more than 50 winners for the 2014 Community Action Award program, which supports student efforts to engage with communities locally, nationally, and internationally by providing funding for participation in internships that address issues impacting people around the world.

Professor Mendelsohn considers how writers have responded to national trauma, from ancient to modern times.

As seniors, Arthur Holland Michel ’13 and Dan Gettinger ’13 created the Center for the Study of the Drone, an interdisciplinary research and arts project based at Bard. Now the center is becoming a leader in the national conversation about the social, economic, ethical, and political implications of drone use.

Though Hamas's new drone program may not have an immediate impact on the conflict with Israel, drones could play a bigger role should Israel send ground troops into Gaza, according to Gettinger.

In the Bardian

By Dan Gettinger ’13 and Arthur Holland Michel ’13

As seniors, Arthur Holland Michel ’13 and Dan Gettinger ’13 created the Center for the Study of the Drone, an interdisciplinary research and arts project based at Bard. The idea was to bring together academics from a variety of disciplines to discuss, study, and learn about unmanned and autonomous systems technology and its implications for warfare, law enforcement, and other civilian applications. Their project has evolved to include seminars, lectures, debates, roundtable discussions at Bard and in New York City, a blog, and a weekly news roundup that Thomas Keenan, associate professor of comparative literature and director of Bard’s Human Rights Project, calls “one of the most authoritative sources anywhere for news about drones of all sorts.”

Gettinger’s interest in drones began in his sophomore year, when he took a seminar taught by Walter Russell Mead, James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and the Humanities. Gettinger was intrigued by Thucydides’s account of the Peloponnesian War and how choices in weapons platforms affected the strategies of the ancient city-states. His Senior Project explored drones and the changing nature of modern warfare. Holland Michel, a double major in historical studies and written arts, broached the idea of a center for studying drones to Gettinger. In fall 2012, the two assembled a faculty team and helped design a course on drones that met with overwhelming student response, and the center took flight.

At the time we first talked about creating the Center for the Study of the Drone, U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen were peaking. Al Jazeera and the New York Times were regularly running stories about these operations, which the CIA was refusing to acknowledge. Drones hadn’t become a media sensation yet, but a public debate on the issue had begun. Advocates claimed that drones were more precise, surgical, and humane than the alternatives, while human rights activists decried the loss of civilian life, the psychological trauma of living under drones, and the threat that drones pose to privacy. The debate seemed inarticulate, misinformed, and immobilized by its own narrowness. This, we soon figured out, was no accident. Nobody really understood the drone—nobody really even knew what a drone was.

Defining the word “drone” is an exceedingly complex challenge. In the public imagination, a drone is a weaponized, unmanned aircraft that watches, and engages, members of extremist organizations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and the Horn of Africa. But from a technological perspective, this definition is too narrow. An unmanned submarine is technically a drone, too. One of our goals was to help broaden the public definition of drones to include all kinds of unmanned vehicles, be they airborne, land borne, or aquatic. As we understand it, a drone is a machine that uses sensors to collect information about its environment, and then uses actuators to either manipulate its own location and orientation in that environment or manipulate the environment itself. Some drones require a human controller to be in the loop; others can respond to their environment autonomously, according to their programming. All drones, no matter their shape or size, are irresistible, fascinating, uncanny, and somewhat terrifying; we want to find out why, and how, the combination of appeal and fear influences the public conversation. This is becoming increasingly important, as drones are not just for foreign operations anymore.

In 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration plans to create licensing procedures and air traffic rules for unmanned aerial vehicles in United States airspace. Unmanned technology is set to become an enormous industry, with some insider optimists predicting that the sector could be worth up to $400 billion in the next few years. More realistic estimates range between $13 billion and $85 billion. Whatever the dollar figure, demand for drones is expected to be extremely high. A farmer who previously operated a $3 million helicopter to survey his crops for $6,000 an hour will be able to run a $20,000 multirotor drone for a few hundred dollars per day (agriculture is expected to account for 80 percent of domestic acquisitions). Police departments will turn to unmanned aerial vehicles as a cheap and effective alternative to manned helicopters. NASA and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) already fly military hand-me-down drones to survey animal migratory patterns and weather changes. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection bureau maintains a fleet of drones, which it lends to police departments, the FBI, and U.S. Department of Justice agencies.

The unmanned vehicle industry is growing despite the fact that the use of drones by law enforcement agencies is controversial. In this era of pervasive surveillance, the idea of government agencies acquiring yet another highly capable surveillance platform to monitor the domestic population is unpopular. Fears of an era of unbounded aerial surveillance have prompted state and local legislatures across the nation to pass bills that curtail aerial surveillance by both private citizens and government organizations. But drone technology, like the Internet, has developed far more quickly than the policies that are meant to regulate it. Driven by the promise of high profits, the industry is developing ever more sophisticated drones, from solar-powered drones that can remain airborne for up to five years to drones the size of insects. Each new drone is accompanied by a set of new ethical questions and policy challenges.

When Amazon announced in December that the company was developing a system for drones to deliver packages under five pounds to Amazon customers in 30 minutes, the prospect of large-scale domestic drone use departed from the realm of hobbyists and futurists and entered mainstream society. By putting its weight behind the controversial idea of domestic drones, Amazon thrust the drone debate into high gear, and highlighted the need for an informed policy response. Crucially, the Amazon announcement put pressure on the FAA to develop a domestic drone integration plan—an extremely complex task. The announcement mattered because it will require society to develop a framework for understanding the implications of unmanned technology beyond the current limited scope of the drone debate. What remains to be seen is whether Amazon’s drone delivery system will actually work in time for the prospective 2015 launch date. Critics note a long list of safety concerns. For example, many believe that Amazon drones can’t possibly work in crowded urban environments. Nevertheless, Amazon’s backing could help the technology and regulatory communities resolve lingering safety and privacy concerns. The question seems to be “when will this happen?”
rather than “will this ever happen?”

This past fall, Keith O’Hara, assistant professor of computer science, taught (De-)Coding the Drone. The four-credit class, which we designed with Professor O’Hara, combines hands-on training in unmanned systems programming with a humanities-based reading list and guest speakers from philosophy, the arts, history, and political science. The fall also saw a formal debate on drones (“Resolved: Drones Do More Good Than Harm”) with Bard students, cadets from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and faculty from both institutions.

In a bid to help the public organize the mass of information and media buzz surrounding this subject, we created the Weekly Roundup, a short, accessible list of the latest news, analysis, commentary, art, and tech from the drone world. Each week, the roundup goes out to an expanding community of interested citizens, researchers, pilots, artists, journalists, and writers. The blog features news analysis, portfolios, and interviews, while the website is a platform for historical, cultural, and aesthetic perspectives on current events. The interviews on the website attempt to bring unheard voices into the conversation about drones. In late fall, for example, we interviewed Natalie Jeremijenko, an artist and engineer who uses unmanned technology to create environmental solutions, and is considered a leading voice on the intersection of art, environmentalism, and technology. In 1997 she created the first-ever piece of “drone art,” flying a small, camera-equipped drone over large tech campuses in Silicon Valley.

The center’s efforts have been praised by a number of influential people and organizations. When Dan wrote about how the German Pirate Party (a socially liberal party favoring Internet freedom and political transparency, among other issues) flew a drone toward German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a campaign rally, the story was distributed widely among the Pirate Party and its supporters. Our work has been quoted by Bloomberg News, and featured in Slate, USA Today, Wired, Artforum, and elsewhere. In January and February, we cosponsored two panel discussions at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. We are also providing research for the filmmaker Carl Colby’s forthcoming feature documentary on domestic weaponized drone use.

Initiatives to expand the center’s programs include concepts for tech literacy programs at Bard’s partner institutions, including the Bard High School Early Colleges, and development of an online archive for research about drones. We are confident that, through this collective enterprise, the public will be better equipped to face the social, economic, ethical, and political challenges that lie ahead.

Read the spring 2014 issue of the Bardian:

"Romm ... gives us a fresh and empathetic exploration of a man who, tantalizingly, seems destined to stay just out of reach," writes Bettany Hughes.

Ian Buruma examines the Japanese government's decision to revise the country's pacifist constitution.

Many weeds and invasive, non-native species are edible and sometimes delicious. Eradicate them by adding them to your diet, writes Environmental and Urban Studies executive administrator Tom O'Dowd.

Bard College is hosting a multinational group of 18 university-level scholars and educators on a six-week academic exchange program from June 21 to August 3. Entitled “Grand Strategy in Context: Institutions, People, and the Making of U.S. Foreign Policy,” this Study of the U.S. Institute (SUSI) is designed to foster a better understanding in academic institutions overseas of how U.S. foreign policy is formulated, implemented, and taught. Sponsored by Bard’s Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the program features an academic residency at Bard’s campus in Annandale-on-Hudson and a week in Manhattan with the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program.

Bard High School Early College's Steven Mazie looks at the Supreme Court's decision that police may not search a mobile phone in most cases without a warrant.

Bard High School Early College faculty member Steven Mazie looks at the ways in which humor helps us learn—with a little help from HBO late-night host John Oliver and Dr. Oz.

Four covers from Bard's La Voz magazine will be displayed in the exhibition “Vive La Guelaguetza: An Encounter with Oaxaca” at the Mid-Hudson Heritage Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, through July 19. The exhibition commemorates La Guelaguetza, a world-famous cultural festival from Oaxaca, Mexico, which for the last five years has been celebrated locally at Waryas Park in Poughkeepsie. The festival, which attracts thousands of spectators, will take place on August 3 this year. The La Voz covers on display feature the town's past La Guelaguetza celebrations, and are on view alongside paintings, photography, and traditional costumes from the state of Oaxaca. Bard College students Mariel Fiori '05 and Emily Schmall '05 founded La Voz in 2004 as a Trustee Leader Scholar (TLS) project, aiming to serve the Latino community of the Hudson Valley with a free Spanish-language magazine. Fiori is still editor at La Voz, and the award-winning publication now has an estimated 20,000 readers in the area. La Voz will mark its 10th anniversary with a celebratory evening at the Spiegeltent at Bard's Fisher Center on August 12.

Manuela Hoelterhoff reviews Professor James Romm's new book Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero.

Bard College announces the appointment of Wilmot James, notable South African Member of Parliament and academic, as Senior Visiting Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities at Bard College. James will be in residence at the College from April 2 to 12, 2015, and will offer a series of lectures on topics ranging from evolution, ethical considerations in the use of genetic information, and South African politics and history. He will also work with the Hannah Arendt Center to host a dynamic weeklong working group on current politics in South Africa.

Alan Sussman explores the meaning of human rights, drawing on philosophers from antiquity to modern times.

In the face of rapidly expanding drone use, Roger Berkowitz asks, "What does it mean that the once obvious boundary separating human and machine intelligence is being diminished?"

Experimental Humanities Director Maria Cecire talks about how the new concentration draws on innovative methods to help students explore the human condition in the digital age.

History Professor Richard Aldous talks with Stanford's Francis Fukuyama about his famous essay, “The End of History?”, 25 years after its publication.

Daniel Mendelsohn reviews Fermor's The Broken Road, the long-anticipated, posthumously published final volume in the trilogy chronicling his famous walk across Europe in the 1930s.

What led to the sudden resignation of one of the modern era's most successful monarchs? Omar Encarnación describes the royal family's many recent scandals, and how the new King Felipe hopes to restore the monarchy's reputation.

Human Rights and Written Arts joint major Corinna grew up in the small town of Sherman, Texas. She has been active with Bard’s Center for Civic Engagement and the TLS (Trustee Leader Scholar) program, which supports student volunteer efforts. In this interview, she talks about falling in love with Bard's campus, getting involved in the community, and how Bard has changed her.

Bard High School Early College's Steven Mazie discusses the Bond v. U.S. Supreme Court case, in which it was determined that the Chemical Weapons Convention Act—intended for large-scale acts of war and terrorism—cannot be applied to small, local crimes.

"The only people worth envying are the dead. That much, at any rate, is clear once you’ve spent some time reading the Greeks," begins Daniel Mendelsohn in this "Bookends" piece, which honors a most enviable ancient writer.

Political Studies Professor Omar Encarnación writes that Pope Francis is changing the Catholic church with a focus on social issues that stems from his time working in Latin America.

Arthur Holland Michel, Bard graduate and cofounder of the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard, reports on the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International convention.

Ian Buruma explores the films of Kenji Mizoguchi, whose work is showing in a retrospective at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City through June 8.

Professor Baruah takes a look at last week's ethnically targeted killings in the Indian state of Assam, where Muslims of East Bengali descent were attacked for the way they voted.

Professor Mendelsohn writes that the skills required of an excellent critic are often impediments to writing strong fiction.

Professor Romm examines the actions of Martin Heidegger, Paul de Man, Seneca, and Socrates in response to oppressive governments and considers the moral responsibilities writers and thinkers have to align their words and their deeds.

Roger Berkowitz and colleagues discuss the recent publication of Martin Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, which contain anti-Semitic passages. This article includes links to videos of conversations between Professor Berkowitz, Black Notebooks editor Peter Trawny, and Fordham University Professor Babette Babich.

Until recently Bard alumnus Dan Cline was teaching English language classes to young people in Haisyn, Ukraine, working on community projects, and even ending up in the local press for his efforts. That changed over the winter as political unrest in the country grew into a revolution and the Peace Corps evacuated all its volunteers from the country.

Bard College announces the appointment of esteemed writer Anne Carson as Visiting Distinguished Writer in Residence. Carson, who joins the faculty in fall 2014, will teach courses in classical studies and in written arts through the Division of Languages and Literature. Anne Carson, a classics scholar, poet, essayist, critic, and translator, has won international acclaim across genres. She was twice a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; was honored with the 1996 Lannan Award and the 1997 Pushcart Prize, both for poetry; and was named a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow in 2000.

Until recently Bard alumnus Dan Cline ‘08 was teaching English language classes to young people in Haisyn, Ukraine, working on community projects, and even ending up in the local press for his efforts. That changed over the winter as political unrest in the country grew into a revolution. In late February, the Peace Corps deemed Ukraine unsafe and evacuated more than 200 volunteers from the country. Now Cline has gone home to New Jersey, hoping to eventually return to Ukraine to finish his service. In the meantime, he’s giving presentations at local schools and doing what he can to support his Ukrainian colleagues remotely.

The revolution seemed far away to Cline when he was in Haisyn. The small city in central Ukraine is 175 miles from the capital, Kiev, the site of much of the nation’s turmoil. There were no protests in Haisyn, only polite discussion in the teachers’ lounge at the school where he worked. While his site was quiet and safe, that wasn’t necessarily the case for his fellow Peace Corps volunteers in other parts of the country. “I very much want to go back and continue my work,” Cline says, “but I understand how and why the decision was made to evacuate.”

Bard College alumnus Dan Cline '08

Cline had been teaching English to students in the equivalent of the fourth through eleventh grades at The Haisyn School–Gymnasium Complex. His major at Bard was an interdivisional combination of literature, history, and Russian/Eurasian studies, which prepared him perfectly for his Peace Corps service. “I enjoy teaching English,” he says. “That has to do with my love of the language, which is thanks in no small part to the wonderful English department at Bard College.”

One of the Peace Corps’s goals in the region is to bring new and interactive teaching methods into the classroom. “There’s a large focus on memorization,” he says, “so we try to get away from the textbook as much as possible with role-playing activities and visual aids.” All the classes are taught in teams with one Ukrainian instructor and one Peace Corps volunteer. Cline praises his colleagues as experienced teachers who are open to new ideas. The classroom resources are another matter: Many of the students don’t have dictionaries, and the teachers’ desk editions are worn and out of date. Dan has been raising money through family and friends to better equip the classes.

Cline poses in his classroom in Haisyn with his students and fellow teacher.

In addition to teaching, Cline’s Peace Corps service requires a capstone project—a community service initiative to be left in the hands of local staff upon his departure. Cline’s project, for which he received a USAID grant, is an outdoor athletic complex at the school where he teaches. Plans include a playground, workout equipment, and stone chess tables. Programming would be offered at the school and around the complex to promote healthy lifestyles for people of all ages. A Young Volunteers Club—a national, state-supported phenomenon in Ukraine—would be responsible for raising additional funds to build the structure, as well as maintaining the programming series in the long term. He was in the midst of executing this project when he was recalled to the United States, and his carefully crafted plans for the site are now on hold.

Cline wrapped up other projects as well as he could, hoping to return but planning for the worst. He had intended to direct two camps for children this summer, one for HIV-positive youth and another that teaches boys about gender and discrimination. Since being evacuated, he has been training new Ukrainian camp staff via Skype so they can take over from the Peace Corps volunteers. He was also preparing exams for Ukraine’s National Olympiad, an advanced English language competition for high school students. He and a colleague were able to finish writing the exams after returning to the United States and to send them back to the country’s Ministry of Education in time for the event in March.

Cline speaks Russian and Ukrainian, and has a strong background in the region’s history and culture. “When I came to Bard, Visiting Professor Jonathan Brent had offered Soviet History, which I jumped on. I was completely enthralled with the subject. It was just amazing the professors that I met. Professor Gennady Shkliarevsky and Professor Jennifer Day worked with me a lot, and they were true mentors.” Seeing Professor Day’s level of language proficiency as a non-native speaker inspired Cline. He decided to study Russian, and enrolled in Bard’s study abroad program at Smolny College in St. Petersburg, beginning with a summer language intensive and returning for further study the following year.

Cline hosted a Thanksgiving celebration for his students in 2013.

“I had a wonderful time traveling and learning. My Russian improved by leaps and bounds, and that made it vastly easier to pick up Ukrainian later. I had an unfair advantage. As a lot of my Peace Corps friends like to tell me, ‘Showing up speaking Russian is not really fair for the rest of us.’ I definitely have Bard to thank for putting me in a place in which my language skills were so advanced that I feel comfortable giving speeches.” That is what Cline did last fall at Rayon Rada, the parliamentary body in Haisyn that administers the surrounding county. He attended a ceremony with his director during which he was asked to make an impromptu speech. He was later interviewed by one of the mayor’s assistants and that interview was broadcast over the radio in Haisyn.

Now back home, the safety of his friends, coworkers, and students in Haisyn is always on his mind. He’s looking for a job in the United States, but he continues his service by educating Americans about Ukrainian history and culture. In March, Dan spoke at New Jersey City University and to several classes at the Hudson School in Hoboken, his former school. He also hopes to present at his high school and at Bard.

In mid-April, the Peace Corps officially ended the terms of service for all volunteers who had been in Ukraine, though there is a possibility that Cline could be reinstated at the same location within a year. He finds it difficult to imagine not returning to Haisyn. “I hope that I can resume my service. It was wonderful to be in Ukraine. I met amazing volunteers who were full of energy and ideas, and I met so many fantastic Ukrainians. I also learned a lot about my own abilities. A lot of firsts happened in Ukraine.”

Richard Aldous hosts the American Interest podcast, and his guests this week are fellow Bard faculty member Walter Russell Mead and Princeton's Martin Gilens, lead author of a recent study that found that average citizens have virtually no influence in American politics.

Mark Danner, journalist and foreign affairs scholar, examines the War on Terror and the role of Vice President Dick Cheney in determining its direction.

Hannah Arendt Center director and Bard professor Roger Berkowitz debates Hannah Arendt's ideas and her legacy with Rivka Galchen, Adam Gopnik, and Adam Kirsch.

Human rights scholars from the Bard network of institutions gathered at Bard College Berlin April 25–27 for a workshop on "Human Rights in the New International Context." Faculty from Bard College, Al-Quds Bard in the West Bank, Bard College Berlin, European Humanities University in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Smolny College of St. Petersburg State University in Russia participated. The workshop featured both public panels and private meetings for faculty presentations and collaboration.

Bard alumni/ae Sean Colonna '12, Thomas "Parker" Hatley '13, and Molly McFadden MFA '12 have been awarded 2014–2015 Fulbright Scholarships. Colonna and McFadden will be working in Germany, Colonna teaching English and McFadden investigating current movements in the field of art and disabilities. Hatley has been selected for an English Teaching Assistant Award to Mexico.

Bard High School Early College's Steven Mazie takes a look at an app that helps users identify their happiest Facebook friends, and considers what Aristotle might have to say about friendship in the digital age.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, President of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, announced today that Bard College student and sociology major Karimah Shabazz ’15, from Atlanta, Georgia, has won a prestigious 2014 Truman Scholarship, which awards up to $30,000 for graduate or professional school, and makes available leadership development activity and special opportunities for internships and employment with the federal government.

"When we look at the Parthenon today," writes Bard classicist and critic Daniel Mendelsohn, "we are looking at a building that began life much as One World Trade Center did—as a monument to a national cataclysm."

On Friday, April 4, the recently founded Bard Debate Union branch at Eastern New York Correctional Facility hosted its first competitive intercollegiate debate. This new team, composed of students in the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), welcomed the award-winning West Point Debate Team for a debate and discussion on whether the federal government should fund a high-speed rail network. The debate occurred in front of an audience of more than 50 people, including faculty and staff from Bard and West Point, Eastern staff, BPI administrators, and nearly 40 Bard students based at Eastern. After thoughtful and passionate debate, the judges sided with the Bard team, which argued against the resolution to fund high-speed rail. This debate represented the culmination of a year of training for the new team, served as a capstone to the 10th year of the Bard Debate Union, and marked the continuation of close cooperation between the Debate Union and the Bard–West Point Exchange.

Bard College students have won two 2014 Davis Projects for Peace Awards, which provide $10,000 in funding for proposed projects. Lia Soorenian ’14 (from Glendale, California), won a Davis award for her project, “Sustainable Apiculture: Community Empowerment Through Local Economies.” She will travel to the village of Lichke in Armenia, where mining is the primary industry, to promote sustainable development through beekeeping. Ameer Shalabi ’16 (from Mas’ha in the West Bank), Zelda Bas ’16 (from Paris, France), and Harrison Liddle ’14 (from Miami, Florida) have together won a Davis award in support of the Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative (BPYI). Every year, 20 Bard College students with BPYI travel to Mas’ha, where they partner with the local community to run children’s summer camps and community service projects, teach English classes, and engage in cultural discourse.

Bard College Berlin has expanded its educational offerings with a new B.A. in economics, politics, and social thought. This interdisciplinary program will begin in the fall of 2014. In keeping with the college's approach to liberal arts, the four-year English-language degree situates the study of foundational economics within the history of human cultural change and reflection. The new professorship in this program will be held by Martin Binder, whose research interests include behavioral and normative economics, and especially subjective well-being, or happiness.

Jonathan Becker discusses the persistence of Bard's program at Smolny College in St. Petersburg. "University partnerships with Russia ... existed during the Cold War, and we ultimately believe that we’re in this for the long run," he says.

Professor Kuznitz's book, YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation, will be published later this month.

In February, the Bard College Model UN Team hosted the second Bard One Day Youth Model UN (BODYMUN) in Annandale, bringing together students from Russia, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Indonesia.