curriculum faculty community life 1 9 9 8 - 1 9 9 9 B BENNINGTON COLLEGE The Academic Structure 2 Other Academic Programs 3 "Be ennington regards education as a sensual and ethical, no less Community Life 4 Facilities 6 than an intellectual, process. It seeks to liberate and nurture the Admissions 7 Financing Your Education 10 individuality, the creative intelligence, and the ethical and aesthetic sensibility of its students, to the end that their richly varied natural CURRICULUM Anthropology 14 endowments will be directed toward self-fulfillment and toward Architecture 14 Biology 15 constructive social purposes. We believe that these educational goals Ceramics 18 are best served by demanding of our students active participation in the Chemistry 18 Community, Culture, and Environment 19 planning of their own programs, and in the regulation of their own lives Computer Studies 21 Dance and Movement 22 on campus. Student freedom is not the absence of restraint, however; it Design for Dance and Drama 24 is rather the fullest possible substitution of habits of self-restraint for Drama 25 Education and Childhood Studies 27 restraint imposed by others. The exercise of student freedom is the very History. Political History. and Society 28 Language Studies/RCLC 30 condition of free citizens, dedicated to civilized values and capable of Mathematics 34 35 creative and constructive membership in modern society." Media Studies Mind. Brain. Body 35 Music 36 -Traditional Benn ington College commencement statement, read at every graduation since 1936. Painting 39 Philosophy 39 Photography 40 Ph yslcs/Astronom y 40 Printmaking/Etching/Drawing 41 Psychology 41 Reading and Writing 42 Sculpture 46 Video 46 FACULTY 49 OFFICE OF ADMISSIONS & THE FIRST YEAR OFFICE OF ADMISSIONS & THE FIRST YEAR Bennington College Bennington College Bennington , Vermont 05201 Bennington , Vermont 05201 800-833-6845 800-833-6845 Fax: 802-442-6164 Fax: 802-440-4320 (direct Admissions line) E-mail : [email protected] E-mail : [email protected] B £ N N N G T 0 N C 0 L L E G E Bennington College is a four-year, liberal arts college offering courses of study leading to a Bachelor of Arts degree in disciplines within the humanities, natural sciences, mathematics, social and behavorial sciences, and visual and performing arts. Total enrollment is approxi- mately 500 students. In addition, the College offers Masters of Fine Arts degrees in dance, drama, music, visual arts, and writing and literature; a Master of Arts in Teaching degree; a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies degree; and a Postbaccalaureate Certificate in premedical and allied health sciences. Since its inception in 1932, Bennington has been recognized as an innovator in higher education; most recently, it has broken new ground in academic restructuring, creative uses of new technologies, and foreign language learning. Bennington has adhered throughout its history to a distinctive set of ideals and practices, resulting in a liberal arts curriculum that grants equal weight to arts and sciences, focuses on the making of new work as the central learning experience, includes an annual Field Work Term internship, uses written reports as the core of each student's evaluation, and offers programs of study tailored to students' interests and needs. All academic programs at Bennington are undertaken in a common frame: a first year of grounding and exploration that does not ask students to defer pursuing their own interests, but insists that they engage the diversity of intellectual and imaginative life; sophomore and junior years of increasing immersion and field work; and a senior year that faces outward, exploring and deepening the relationship between individual work and the outside world. THE ACADEMIC STRUCTURE tion on their academic progress and plans for future FIELD WORK TERM OTHER ACADEMIC PROGRAMS study. At the completion of the first year, those plan Field Work Term (FWT), an essential part of the aca- statements include a discussion of how students intend demic program that constitutes a requirement for to progressively focus their efforts. At the close of the graduation, extends over the months of January and OFF-CAMPUS PROGRAMS Bennington has a distinctive academic structure. third year, those statements include ideas for expand- February. Students are required to work at jobs or School for Field Studies. Bennington is a charter Rather than organizing around departments, it centers ing outward from the focus of the preceding years. internships for a minimum of 30 hours per week dur- member of a consortium associated with the School for on a faculty of teacher-practitioners-artists, scientists, In addition to these ongoing statements of inten- ing this time. The FWT/Career Center helps students Field Studies (SFS). This program, involving courses in writers, choreographers, composers-who maintain tion, students are encouraged to prepare a CD-ROM find meaningful work experiences by providing job field biology taught at field research sites on five con- lively professional connections to the world outside the portfolio of their work throughout the four years. In so leads, offering career-related workshops, and providing tinents, can provide students with a hands-on educa- College. Faculty members teach their disciplines and doing they can create an invaluable record of their professional career counselors. Students are encour- tional experience that addresses some of the world's also form multidisciplinary program groups, joining achievements and learn to apply the power of new aged to begin their job searches early in the fall term most critical environmental issues. For one term, stu- with colleagues to develop dynamic new programs and technologies. Students are required to provide their and are required to report their job(s) to the dents may pursue such topics as marine ecology and course work. Together with these teachers, who are also own compatible personal computer equipment. See FWT/Career Center before leaving for the term. management, biogeography, patterns of ecological advisors, students at Bennington shape individualized page 6 for details. Upperclass students have the option of spending one diversity, and marine mammal biology and conserva- plans of study. term in independent study. tion in one of the five main centers SFS operates: the By structuring its curriculum in these ways, the FACULTY ADVISING For first-year students, whose academic aims may Center for Rainforest Studies in Australia; the Center College aims to facilitate in students a certain kind of Advising is at the core of a Bennington education. It is still be undefined, FWT is designed to complement for Marine Resource Studies in the Caribbean; the reflectiveness about education, so that progress the context in which students develop the habit of academic studies and help clarify or confirm prospec- Center for Wildlife Management Studies in Kenya; the through their course of study evolves into the shaping reflecting on their work as well as the capacity to tive interests. For upperclassmen, special efforts are Marine Mammal Studies Program in Baja, Mexico; of their intellectual and imaginative identities. The become responsible and articulate about intentions made to find work directly related to their studies. and the Center for Studies in Sustainable Develop- emergence of such a shape, the working through of and accomplishments. During the first year students Many students return to the same FWT job in subse- ment in Costa Rica. In addition, there are 10 satellite short-lived passions and the discovery of abiding ones, usually meet once a week with their advisor. The cen- quent years, during summers, or after graduation. The environmental "hot spots" around the world where the cultivation of abilities and the locating of tral challenge of this year is for the student to develop contacts established during FWT often prove invalu- students may choose to study. Bennington's affiliation resources, the development of areas of interest-in the understanding necessary to create a plan of study able in pursuing postgraduate careers. gives students priority for enrollment, SFS financial short, the most extraordinary experiences of a student's for the coming years. This involves a continuous During FWT, students document their work aid, and the opportunity to incorporate SFS courses undergraduate years-are galvanized by the non- process of students and advisors working together to experiences using a field notebook. After completion into their Bennington plan. traditional academic structure. This shaping process is, discover, and then to articulate, the beginnings of a of FWT, each student writes a summary of the experi- at its heart, the same process Bennington's faculty compelling academic design that does justice to the ence and each supervisor provides a written evaluation Study Abroad. Through collaborations with a number members experience in constructing the courses they students' intellectual and imaginative potential and of the student's performance. These evaluations are of other institutions, Bennington offers students a teach. It is a process to which this College is dedicated. provides what they need to negotiate future goals and part of the cumulative academic record for which a range of options for study abroad. The Office of the expectations effectively. As students progress in subse- degree is awarded. Dean of the College can provide specific information THE OVERALL DESIGN quent years, the nature of the advising relationship International students are not permitted to work on availability of and requirements for these programs. A Bennington education has three major phases. At shifts appropriately, as do the statements of purpose at off campus for pay during their first nine months of the center is the experience of immersion within a field the completion of years two and three. U.S. residency due to federal immigration laws. Most GRADUATE STUDY of inquiry, usually the focus of the second and third opt either to work on campus or to return to their Master of Fine Arts.