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Main Image for Engaged Liberal Arts + Sciences

Engaged Liberal Arts + Sciences

Connecting classroom theory with civic engagement

Student Resources     Faculty Resources     Community Resources   
Spring 2023 Grant Now Open!


Download the Online Engaged Learning Handbook
What is Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences?

What is Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences?

Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences (ELAS) courses bring theory to practice by linking coursework, critical thinking, and engagement activities. A form of experiential learning, ELAS courses allow students to test ideas in the real world and develop creative approaches to social, cultural, and scientific issues. A significant portion of ELAS learning takes place outside of the classroom: students learn through engagement with different geographies, organizations, and programs in the surrounding communities or in collaboration with partners from Bard's national and international networks. ELAS students and teachers often collaborate with non-profits, community groups, and government agencies whose goal is to serve the public good.

Fall 2022 Courses

GIS for Environmental Justice
Jordan Ayala

Campaign 2022
Simon Gilhooley

Homer's Illiad
Rana Liebert

Mathematics of Puzzles and Games
Lauren Rose

Digital Literacies
Jeremy Hall

Documenting Voter Suppression and Exclusion
Lisa Katzman

Queer Tango
Chungin Goodstein

Landscape Studies the Hudson River Valley
Jana Mader

Revolutionary Theory and Practice
Mie Inouye

Air Quality Research
Eli Dueker

Ancient Peoples before the Bard Lands
Chris Lindner

All Politics is Local
Jonathan Becker and Erin Cannan

Introduction to Urban Sociology
Peter Klein

The Environment and Society
Peter Klein

Introduction to Environmental Studies
Monique Segarra and Beate Liepert


Early College Courses

Innovative Newark

Newark; Jazmin Puicon

Environmental Humanitites Course
Baltimore; Elisabeth Gambino

Chapbooks and the Small Press
New Orleans; Julia Carey Arendell
History of Washington D.C. College Seminar Course
D.C.; Virginia Butler

Forensic’s Lab
D.C.; Dr. Parul Kashyap

Community Garden
D.C.; Patrick Harhai

Chemistry of Cooking Class
D.C.; Dr. Kim Huyn

Sustainable Local Food in the Berkshires
Simon's Rock

Food Studies: Cheese
Simon's Rock

Urban Environmental Justice Communities: Practicum on Housing, Green Space, and Activism
Simon's Rock

Community Zones: Psychology & Literature
Simon's Rock

Transdisciplinary & Experimental Studio: Future Callings
Simon's Rock

ELAS Videos

  • ELAS Information Session
  • Bard Studio Arts Engaged Learning
  • Engaged Learning

The Benefits of Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences

For Students
Students from Cammie Jones and Deirdre d'Albertis' Women and Leadership course. This literature course works with a range of perspectives that take students closer engage with stories in ways that only they can tell with a focus on outreach to people and organizations with a focus on gender.

For Students

  • Increases relevant coursework by bringing academic instruction to life.
  • Develops meaningful involvement with the local and regional communities.
  • Prepares individuals to participate in internships and research.
  • Applies concepts from the classroom to their service.
  • Provides platforms to analyze and discuss civic values.
  • Allows exploration of career options.
  • Develops a sense of community and civic responsibility.
  • Teaches workforce skills.
  • Increases a sense of self-efficacy, analytical skills and social development.
  • Develops connections with people of diverse cultures and lifestyles.
  • Provides opportunities to accommodate different learning styles.

For Faculty
Students in Chris Lindner's Historical Archaeology class working with visiting students from a local middle school to teach and observe archeological field methods at a site located on Bard's campus.

For Faculty

  • Enriches and enlivens teaching by providing a new understanding of how learning occurs.
  • Identifies new areas for research and publication, and thus increases opportunities for professional recognition and reward.
  • Enhances student learning and teaching qualities.
  • Increases awareness of current social justice issues as they relate to the academic areas of interest.
  • Provides opportunities for application of professional expertise and research.
  • Increases diversity in the classroom by accommodating a wide variety of learning styles.

For the Community
A moment from the Engaged Citizenship class where students engaged with Speed Networking. Community partners from surrounding towns and the College met with students and listened to their ideas for projects while also talking about the various types of service available to students.

For the Community

  • Enhances positive relationships with the College.
  • Provides awareness-building of community issues, agencies and constituents.
  • Contributes to positive exposure in the community.
  • Creates ways to expand current services.
  • Provides opportunities for participating in the educational process.
  • Develops short and long term solutions to pressing community needs.
  • Creates ways to expand current services.
  • Increases human resources for problem solving.
  • Enriches roles for supervisors.

ELAS by the Numbers

ELAS by the Numbers

In 2020, over 800 students participated in 83 courses and collaborated with more than 95 community agencies/organizations.

  • 89%
    of students report greater awareness of community issues
  • 88%
    of students say engagement helped their learning
  • 88%
    of students would take another ELAS course
  • 91%
    of faculty would teach another ELAS course

ELAS Course Development

Promoting Active Citizenship

Promoting Active Citizenship

Each year, more than 300 Bard students enroll in ELAS courses that challenge them to develop creative and practical approaches to social, cultural, and scientific issues while partnering with community and civic organizations. CCE invites proposals from Bard and Bard Early College faculty to design and support ELAS courses that connect students’ classroom experiences with the community, enhancing learning and promoting active citizenship. Visit our Resources Library for course development tools.

Download the Online Learning Handbook
Resources Library

Catch up with ELAS

Read Our Fall 2022 One Pager

Read the Spring 2022 ELAS Newsletter

View Past Courses

ANTH 211 Ancient Peoples of the Bard Lands: Archaeological Methods and Theory  Christopher Lindner
ANTH 219  Divided Cities  Jeff Jurgens
ANTH 220 Doing Ethnography, Memory  Laura Kunreuther
ANTH 225 Anthropology of the Institution: Making Change through Social Service and Community Organizing. Gregory Morton
ANTH 239 Action Research: Social Service, Community Organizing, and Anthropology  Gregory Morton
ANTH 289 0 Gig Life: Anthropology of the "Sharing Economy"  Sophia Stamatopolou-Robbins
ANTH 290 Archaeology of African American Farms, Yards, and Gardens  Crhis Lindner
ANTH 323 The Politics of Infrastructure. Sophia Stamatopolou-Robbins
ANTH 324 Doing Ethnography  Gregory Morton
ANTH 351 The interview. John Ryle
ANTH/Film 224 Ethnography in Image, Sound and Text   Jackie Goss and Laura Kunreuther
ART 100 Digital 1: Digital to Physical. Maggie Hazen
ART 126 Mapping: You Are Here  Ellen Driscoll
ART 132 Art and Climate Change. Adriane Colburn, Ellen Driscoll
ART 206 Sculpture II: Air, Water, Earth  Ellen Driscoll
ART 206 ED Sculpture II: Fluid Dynamics  Ellen Driscoll
ART 209 BG Print II: Silkscreen/Stencil  Beka Goedde
ART 250 M/H Extended Media II: This Class is a Podcast. Margaret Hazen and Dave McKenzie
ARTH 225 Art Through Nature: Landscape, Environment, and Design in America  Julia Rosenbaum
ARTH 260 New/Old Amsterdam  Susan Merriam
ARTH 315 Material Worlds and Social Identities  Julia Rosenbaum
BGIA 301 New York: Center of the World  James Ketterer
BIO 116 Food Microbiology: Cider Making. Gabriel Perron
BIO 117 Botany for Herbivores  Emily Pollina
BIO 118 Conservation Biology  Cathy Collins
BIO 124 Measuring Nature. Gabriel G. Perron
BIO 157 Food Microbiology  Gabriel Perron
BIO 202 Conservation Biology  Cathy Collins
BIO 240 Biostatistics  Gabriel G. Perron
BIO 308 Plant Ecology  Cathy Collins
BIO 311 Field Ornithology. Bruce Robertson
BIO 340 Metagenomics  Gabriel Perron
BIO 433 AAdvanced Community Ecology: Diversity. Cathy Collins
BLC Placemaking Centered-Design. Josh Livingston
BLC 215 Essays and Evidence. Jim Keller
BLC 220 Digital Literacies  Jeremy Hall
CHEM 123 Art & Science of Fermentation. Swapan Jain
DAN 361 Dancing Migrations: Tracing Mexico's Points of Access and Departure  Yebel Gallegos
ECON 209 Local Community Currencies. Leanne Ussher
EUS 102 Intro to Environmental & Urban Science. Robin Smyth
EUS 221 Water  Eli Dueker
EUS 222 Air Eli Dueker
EUS 232 (Urban) Oceanography. Elias Dueker
EUS 304 Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration. Robin Smyth
EUS 305 Farm to Institution: Bard’s Current and Future Food System  Katrina Light
EUS 305 EUS Practicum: Multimedia and Environmental  Storytelling. Jon Bowemaster
EUS 308 EUS Practicum: Culture Through Nature: Landscape Environment and Design into the 21st Century. Margie Ruddick
EUS 309 EUS Colloquium / Practicum: Environmental Justice: Art, Science, and Radical Cartography  Eli Dueker and Krista Caballero
EUS 311 Climate and Agroecology. Jennifer Phillips
EUS 316 Waste Cluster Ellen Driscoll, Eli Dueker, Sophia Stamatopolou-Robbins
EUS 321  GIS for Environmental Justice  Susan Winchell-Sweeney
EUS 412 The Food Energy Water Nexus. Robin Smyth
EUS 415 Microbial Remediation (Waste Cluster). Elias Dueker
EUS/SOC 319 Hudson Valley Cities and Environmental (In)Justice  Peter Klein
FILM 248 Framing the Election  Jacqueline Goss
FIN 190 Accounting  Leanne Ussher
HIST 117 Inclusion at Bard  Myra Armstead
HIST 123 The Window at Montgomery Place in the Nineteenth Century  Myra Armstead
HIST 195  Living Black in America:  Major Themes in African American History  Myra Armstead
HIST 2242 US – Russian Relations and the Founding of The United Nations. David Woolner
HIST 230 US-Russian Relations: From Tehran to Yalta   David Woolner
HIST 291 The Past in the Present  Myra Armstead
HR 105 Human Rights Advocacy  Thomas Keenan
HR 153 Eleanor Roosevelt  Anya Luscombe
HR 218 Free Speech  Roger Berkowitz
HR 219 Mapping Police Violence. Kwame Holmes
HR 250 Black Lives Matter  Ariana Gonzalez Stokas
HR 253 Abolishing Prisons and the Police  Kwame Holmes
HR 321 Advocacy Video: Clemency  Thomas Keenan and Brent Green
HR 347 Social Action: Theories and Practice  Paul Marienthal
HR 355 Scholars at Risk Thomas Keenan
HUM T200 Exploring Human Connection through Argentine Tango. Chungin Goodstein
IDEA 125 Getting Schooled in America. Derek Furr and Erica Kaufman
IDEA 226 Writing, Science, and Environmental Issues: The Hudson River  Elias Dueker and Susan Rogers
LIT 131 Women and Leadership  Deirdre D'Albertis and Cammie Jones
LIT 153 Falling in Love  Maria Cecire
LIT 3152  Jeanne Lee's Total Environment  Alex Benson
MAT 115 Tutoring Theory and Practice  Rachel Cavell
MAT ED151 Pedagogy and Practice in Civic Engagement. Mary Leonard and Michael Murray
MATH 116 Mathematics of Puzzles & Games Lauren Rose and Silvia Saccon
MATH 199 Racial Disparities in Mathematics  John Cullinan
MATH 290 Mathematics and Civic Engagement  Lauren Rose
​​​​​​​MUS 185  Introduction to Ethnomusicology​​​​​​​  Whitney Slaten
PS 122  American Politics: Issues and Institutions. Simon Gilhooley
PS 155 Contested Jerusalem  James Ketterer
PS 209 Engaged Citizenship: Civic Engagement Locally, Nationally and Globally. Jonathan Becker and Erin Cannan-Compolong
PS 385 Civic Action and Research  Jonathan Becker and Erin Cannan-Compolong
PS 251 Political Organizing: Theory and Practice  Mie Inouye
PS 257 Nations and Nationalism  Chris McIntosh
PS 261 Voting and Elections Jonathan Becker
PS 265 The Campaign 2016 Simon Gilhooley
PS 265 Campaign 2020  Simon Gilhooley
PS 270 All Politics is Local  Jonathan Becker
PS 2010 Student as Citizen: Civic Life in America and the World  Jonathan Becker and Erin Cannan-Compolong
PS/GIS 207 Global Citizenship. Michelle Murray
PSY 371 Science and Identity  Kristin Lane
REL 358 Sanctuary: Theology and Social Action  Bruce Chilton
REL/WRIT 328 The River and the Desert in Writing & Religious Imagination  Dinaw Mengestu and Samuel Secunda
SOC 138 Introduction to Urban Sociology  Peter Klein
SOC 305 Legal Practices & Civil Society  Laura Ford
SST 145  Early Childhood Engagement: Pedagogy of Play and Care  Carol Murray
SST 145 Pedagogy and Practice Carol Murray
WRIT 231 Reading and Writing the Birds  Susan Rogers

Contact Us

ELAS Staff
Jovanny Suriel  Director of Career Development, Assistant Dean of Civic Engagement
Eric Dougherty  Experiential Learning Coordinator

Faculty Liaison
Peter Klein  Assistant Professor of Sociology and Environmental and Urban Studies
 

Bard College Center for Civic Engagement
Bard College
Campus Road, PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-5000
civ[email protected]
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