Advancement of Public Action: Related Content
Will Greer '24 is the Vermont State Representative for Bennington-2 State House District. He reflected on how his education shaped his path forward into politics, where he now advocates for the broader Bennington community.
Jessica Smith '23 is a second-year law student at Vermont Law and Graduate School. She reflected upon how her Bennington education prepared her for her professional path.
Micky Hillman '60 recently retired after a long career in fundraising for a number of nonprofits and activist organizations.
The Advocate highlighted Will Greer '24 and his campaign for Vermont state representative in the Bennington 2 district.
Almost a century ago, under the looming threat of fascism, Franklin D. Roosevelt warned Americans about global conflicts pitting representative governments founded on individual liberty against emerging fascist dictatorships. Reflecting on John Dewey’s progressive education philosophy, FDR said, “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”
Inspired by American democracy and its potential, his faculty members, and his fellow students, Abraar Arpon ’26, who studies Computer Science and Public Action at Bennington, built a website that aims to make voting in the upcoming U.S. presidential election easier for everyone.
Saving Democracy Together, an innovative non-partisan online and in-person course open to students, alumni, and the public, attracted more than 250 online registrants and 100 in-person participants in its first of seven sessions on Thursday, September 5.
Seven-week program features high-profile speakers to inspire Gen Z engagement in crucial election year.
On May 17 and 18, Bennington's Prison Education Initiative (PEI) gathered together a small group to engage in conversation around access and opportunities to higher education for people serving life or virtual life sentences in America.
Mehedi Sizar '25 studies Mathematics and Computer Science at Bennington, but he also has a personal passion for protecting the environment. His experience as a 2024 Endeavor Foundation Environmental Action Fellow allowed him to return to his birthplace of Bagmara, Rajshahi, Bangladesh to work with BD Clean, the largest environmental group in Bangladesh.
The American writer and political activist Alice Walker said “Activism is my rent for living on the planet.” This could have been the theme for this year’s Endeavor Environmental Action Fellowship.
On a chilly early spring day at Purple Carrot Farm, Lilliana Kelly ’25 took a break from the crew repositioning a silage tarp to recount her history with the place.
Paulo Araujo ’26 was home in Mozambique in 2019, the year two powerful cyclones, the most destructive in decades, hit the country within just a few weeks. It was the first time in recorded history two strong tropical cyclones struck in the same season. The storms killed 603 people, injured more than 1,500, and put 2.5 million people in need of humanitarian services.
A native of Washington state, Genevieve Hammatt ’26 came to Bennington with a plan to study social justice and social work but quickly realized that she could incorporate her lifelong passion for the environment into her studies.
Presentation to address storytelling as a form of social activism on April 16, 2024.
Susan Sgorbati, director of Bennington College’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA), shared her work with the Transboundary Water In-Cooperation Network (TWIN) and their international cooperation to develop a new United Nations convention on conserving the river deltas (UNCCRD) with the Reporter Danielle M. Crosier of the Bennington Banner.
Ahmad Yassir ’20 stayed in the town of Bennington after graduation and works as a digital advertising and marketing specialist for the Bennington Banner. He had an amazing 2023.
Bennington College was on the ground in Dubai as the 28th round of UN sponsored climate negotiations got underway.
Souleymane Badolo’s people gave him dance, and dance gave him opportunities to learn, choreograph, and teach around the world. Now, he is using his influence to provide greater access to a crucial resource: water.
In December 2022, when the Taliban’s ban on tertiary education took effect in Afghanistan, Aisha Khurram was about to finish her law degree. She and her classmates mourned the painful repeat of history. Two decades of progress for women’s rights—which in 2020 related to more than 100,000 Afghan women enrolled in public or private universities and more than 2,000 female lecturers at higher education institutions—were being reduced to ashes.
Alma Reiss Navarre ’24 is from Harlem. They had ballet instruction from the time they could walk and were on track to join a professional dance company when the pandemic struck and canceled performances for the foreseeable future.
Dancer, choreographer, and activist Souleymane Badolo MFA ’13 has been named the 2023 recipient of Bennington College’s Dr. Elizabeth Coleman Visionary Leadership Award. This annual award recognizes an engaged Bennington alumni who has successfully demonstrated leadership and confident willingness to step forward and take risks in order to solve problems and achieve results in the areas of education, government, the arts and sciences, or industry.
Experts on Iranian culture and politics blur the lines between the familiar and the unfamiliar.
Peter Welch, one of two United States senators representing the state of Vermont in Washington, D.C., will hold a public Town Hall Meeting at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, April 4 at Bennington College’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA). The event aims to build consensus and trust among people with different political perspectives.
Bennington County’s leadership and collaboration efforts were highlighted during a first-of-its-kind public safety summit held at Bennington College.
Through a thought-provoking Q & A, Susan Sgorbati, the Director of Bennington College’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA), reveals a refreshing philosophy and original means of working toward a better world. Interview by Chief Writer Ashley Jowett.
The director of Bennington College’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA), Susan Sgorbati, will join Asim Zia, PhD, Director, the Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security, Professor of Public Policy & Computer Science, Department of Community Development and Applied Economics & Department of Computer Science at the University of Vermont, and Oluowo Freeman of the African Centre for Climate Actions and Rural Development Initiative (ACCARD) and others to present an event at the 2023 United Nations (UN) Water Conference.
The drive to connect and make food more accessible during Field Work Term inspired students and faculty to reimagine and expand a pandemic-era program with BIPOC students in mind.
Will Greer ’25 spoke with Paige Colby ’25 on his work in local politics and his time at Bennington.
Bennington College’s Prison Education Initiative (PEI) has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation to continue and expand a program bringing quality liberal arts education to incarcerated students at Great Meadow Correctional Facility, a maximum-security men’s prison in Comstock, NY.