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An Ecosystem of Engagement Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education Volume 11, Number 1 Bard College: An Ecosystem of Engagement Jonathan Becker Bard College ABSTRACT Despite its moderate size and rural location, Bard’s civic engagement efforts resonate locally, nationally, and internationally, and have significant public policy impacts. Bard has achieved success by making engagement central to its institutional mission, viewing liberal arts and sci- ences education as both a means and an end of civic engagement efforts, and forging an “ecosystem of engagement” that encourages organizational engineers, links student-led and in- stitutional initiatives, and unites a network of partners across the globe. Keywords: liberal arts, liberal education, early college, institutional engagement, civic engagement, international partnerships Bard College identifies itself as “a forts; (2) Bard’s success in creating an private institution in the public interest.” “ecosystem of engagement” that has shaped Having spent most of its 160-year history as the institution’s main campus in Annandale a small institution, first as a preparatory col- -on-Hudson, New York, and Bard’s net- lege for the Episcopal church and then as an work of affiliates and partners across the institution emphasizing the arts and human- globe; and (3) the virtuous circle that links ities, it has grown into a vibrant liberal arts student engagement and institutional en- and sciences institution enrolling more than gagement. 6,000 students annually in degree programs Bard’s “ecosystem of engagement” across the United States and the world. is worth examining because it provides les- What is unique about Bard is that its leader- sons for other higher education institutions. ship has not simply paid lip service to the It demonstrates that with determination, for- link between education and civic engage- titude, and a willingness to tolerate risk, a ment and shunted engagement activities to a rural, primarily undergraduate institution few isolated offices (Musil, 2003; Battis- can be civically engaged in meaningful toni, Longo, & Jayanandhan, 2013). In- ways locally, nationally, and globally. It stead, it sees civic engagement as central to also demonstrates the unwavering power of its mission and has developed programs that liberal education as both a tool and objec- have significant impacts locally, nationally, tive of civic engagement efforts. Finally, it and globally. It has done this despite being demonstrates the capacity for institutions to under-resourced, with a fraction of the en- tap into the idealism of students to develop dowment of other highly selective liberal initiatives that have a salutary effect on arts colleges, let alone major universities. people and public policy. In this reflective essay, I will pri- marily seek to answer the following ques- LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES EDU- tion: What distinguishes Bard’s approach to CATION AS CIVIC ENGAGEMENT: civic engagement? In so doing, I will high- SCOPE AND IMPACT light three intertwined factors: (1) the use of liberal arts and sciences education, particu- Andrew Latham of Project Pericles larly in underserved communities, as both a states that civic engagement “is a contem- means and an end for civic engagement ef- porary expression of the historic liberal arts 38 © Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education Copyright © by Indiana State University. All rights reserved. ISSN 1934-5283 Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education Volume 11, Number 1 mission of preparing students for public life to begin a rigorous liberal arts and sciences as citizens and leaders” and “responding to education. They are based on Bard College the social needs of the local and global at Simon’s Rock in Massachusetts, a 50- communities in which we live” (Latham, year-old institution granting Associate of 2003). His description highlights two im- Arts (AA) and Bachelor of Arts (BA) de- portant components of the understanding of grees that became part of Bard in 1979. The civic education: “student as citizen,” the BHSECs are four-year public high schools traditional notion of education as preparing that—in grades 11 and 12—provide stu- students to become engaged citizens who dents with a two-year, tuition-free college will contribute to their communities and course of study in the liberal arts and sci- country (Mathews, 2015); and “institution ences, taught by university-level faculty, as citizen” (Thomas, 2000), which positions that can lead to an associate’s degree. The colleges or universities not simply as facili- early colleges operate in cooperation with tators of civic engagement within and out- local boards of education and are situated in side the classroom, but as civic actors in five locations: Manhattan, Queens, Newark, their own right through what can be called Baltimore, and Cleveland, with a new early “institutional engagement.” college set to open in Washington, DC, in Bard seeks to merge these two by 2019. Bard has also launched new and inno- playing to its strength and harnessing the vative models of early college, building on progressive and democratizing values of the growth and success of the BHSEC mod- liberal education. Its mission statement as- el. These new approaches include partner- serts, “Bard acts at the intersection of edu- ships with charter schools and with consor- cation and civil society, extending liberal tia of rural schools and include an AA- arts and sciences education to communities granting campus in New Orleans and a half- in which it has been underdeveloped, inac- time early college program in Hudson, New cessible, or absent.” Bard’s engagement York. In all, Bard enrolls nearly 3,000 stu- with liberal arts and sciences education as a dents in early college programs, with more tool of social change can be witnessed than 1,250 in degree-granting programs. through numerous programs, from the Life- Bard’s Vice President for Early Colleges time Learning Institute in Annandale-on- Stephen Tremaine calls this extension of Hudson, which provides nearly 70 classes liberal education “community enrollment,” annually for 300 local lifetime learners, to which he explicitly juxtaposes with the the Clemente Course in the Humanities—a more common phrase and institutional prac- not-for-profit that, in collaboration with tice of “community service.” Community Bard, offers free, year-long credit-bearing enrollment means sharing the resources that courses in liberal arts and sciences educa- define an academic institution, instead of tion to non-traditional adult learners, en- “serving” a community in possibly useful, compassing more than 300 students in 20 but also potentially patronizing and even locations across the country. Before de- damaging, ways that, intentions notwith- scribing how Bard’s ecosystem operates, I standing, can exclude the community from will examine three areas that best illustrate the core institutional value: education Bard’s work in using liberal education as a (Tremaine, 2015). tool of social change: early college learn- Recent data and research demon- ing, prison education, and international lib- strate that the Bard Early College model is eral education. extraordinarily effective in positioning young people to succeed in higher educa- Early College Education tion. In the BHSEC Class of 2018, 83% of The Bard High School Early Colleg- students earned an AA degree along with a es (BHSECs) provide a unique opportunity high school diploma, with many others re- for high school students across the country ceiving more than a year-and-a-half of col- 39 © Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education Copyright © by Indiana State University. All rights reserved. ISSN 1934-5283 Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education Volume 11, Number 1 lege credit. In Newark, where only 13% of grams in 15 states that brings other institu- the population holds a bachelor’s degree or tions, particularly liberal arts institutions, higher, 100% of the class of 2018 graduated into the prison education process. with a high school diploma and 72% also BPI not only provides an opportuni- received an associate’s degree. To date, ty for its incarcerated students to reach their more than 90% of BHSEC graduates have potential, but has also helped reshape the completed their baccalaureate degrees, a regional and national debate over the cost significantly higher percentage than the and impact of incarceration (an issue that, 59% national rate. This is particularly im- uncharacteristically for the United States, pressive given that the BHSECs are public has been taken up by both sides of the polit- schools and approximately 70% of BHSEC ical spectrum), established efficacy of pris- students come from underrepresented com- on education programs, and, most im- munities. Indeed, an independent, quasi- portantly, highlighted the capacity, dignity, experimental matched-pair analysis on the and worth of incarcerated individuals. BPI BHSEC campuses in New York City not students who have been released from pris- only demonstrated better outcomes in terms on have extraordinarily low recidivism of bachelor degree completion compared rates: 2.5% for those who have completed with traditional, selective, and specialized degrees and 4% for students who have tak- high schools, but that African-American en even one class. This compares favorably students at BHSECs were twice as Likely to with national rates of 40% to 50% finish a BA or Bachelor of Science (BS) as (Karpowitz, 2017; Zimmerman, 2017). their peers at traditional public schools, and More than 20 BPI graduates have gone on males were 40% more likely to do so. to pursue graduate degrees at places like To get a sense of the scope, in 2019, Columbia, New York University, and Yale, Bard’s network of public early colleges will with many specializing in public health. award over 500 AA degrees, tuition free, to The victory over Harvard by the BPI De- a student body of whom half are the first in bate Union at Eastern New York Correc- their families to earn a college degree.
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