Local Impact: Related Content

Bennington College has received a $3,000 grant from the Vermont Community Foundation’s Opportunity Fund for Southshire Youth. This award will be used to implement Student to Student, a college access mentoring program that will pair first-generation students  from Mount Anthony Union High School with first-generation Bennington College students.

A celebration of collaborative problem-solving and empowerment, Young Hacks Academy Team Elektra all-girls program explores how the combination of digital tools and creative expression can make a difference in the local and global community.

Mariam Shah ’14, who runs garam garam, a growing food venture devoted to Pakistani cuisine, hosted a February pop up at Pangaea in Bennington. 

While Lulu Mulalu ’18 was a student at Bennington College, her studies, which ranged from psychology, drama, voice, writing, and French, always circled back to the importance of language and storytelling.

Greetings from beautiful Bennington, where the trees are frosted with snow and students are making final preparations for Field Work Term. The past few months have brought new opportunities for artistic discovery and intellectual collaboration. Students dove into fall term eager to flex their creative, analytic, and democratic muscles and start building a better world. We are excited to share with you all the great work that is under way. 

Students in Judith Enck's Plastic Pollution: What Can We Do About It? course have written letters to the editor about the need to protect the environment and marine life from the growing problem of plastic pollution.

Bennington College announced today that former Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Judith Enck is launching a project, Beyond Plastics, that will work with college students and community leaders around the country to reduce plastic pollution.

Bronwyn Edwards ’19 initially entered Bennington intending to study literature and pursue publishing. As her time at the College evolved, she discovered a love for theatre and used her Field Work Terms (FWT) and internships to delve into experiences at Primary Stages, New York Public Radio, the New York State Council for the Arts, and more.

In preparation for the United States midterm elections on Tuesday, November 6, Bennington students, staff, and faculty have been collaborating on voter education and registration programs, encouraging college students and beyond to participate in the democratic process.

During visiting faculty member Judith Enck's presentation, "Turning Our Oceans into Landfills: The Growing Problem of Plastic Pollution," Enck, a former EPA regional administrator, encouraged students to work locally to enact change around single-use plastics. 

Starting this fall, Bennington College will participate in a four-college consortium focusing on the global refugee crisis, supported by a $2.5-million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

A new initiative to bring cutting-edge computer science training to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals in New York and Vermont has been awarded a $300,000 National Science Foundation grant.

As we round the corner into the new academic year at Bennington, we carry the momentum of all that our community accomplished over the past year. The feats of our students, faculty, and staff—enlivened by Bennington’s pioneering spirit—astonish year after year, as you’ll see for yourself below.

The survey, which was distributed by the College and completed by 443 people in Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh, NY, and Bennington VT, investigated cases of cancer and other illness tied to the presence of PFOA in drinking water.

Associate Director of Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) and faculty member David Bond was interviewed by Spectrum News regarding the findings of the College's most recent PFOA study.

Bennington College celebrated the achievements of the Class of 2018 at Commencement this year with speaker Liz Lerman, who bestowed upon graduates a series of wishes for their futures.

Faculty members David Bond, Janet Foley, and Tim Schroeder, who together run a National Science Foundation-funded research project on PFOA, have conducted a regional soil study that suggests airborne PFOA contamination that is more extensive than originally thought. 

Faculty member Kirk Jackson stars in Living Room Theatre's internationally relevant new adaptation of Anton Chekov's Three Sisters at the historic Park-McCullough House.  

President Mariko Silver and faculty members Anne Thompson, director and curator of the Usdan Gallery; Megan Mayhew Bergman, director of special programming and the Robert Frost Stone House Museum; and Dina Janis, artistic director of the Dorset Theatre Festival; spoke with the Bennington Area Chamber of Commerce about the region's arts landscape.

Hundreds of residents gathered in Exeter, NH, for a two-day summit on perfluorinated compounds like PFOA. Hosted by the EPA, this inaugural summit brought together impacted communities, state agencies, and EPA leaders to discuss the ongoing response to PFOA contamination in New England and beyond.

When asked why they love to write, the high school students at the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont (GIV) Young Writers Institute are quick to reply.

The Robert Frost Stone House Museum at Bennington College is pleased to announce its participation in the Blue Star Museum program.

Dear Elected Leaders,

The Vermont House has passed H.911, which we believe, if enacted, will fundamentally change the nature of charitable giving in Vermont. Its negative effects will hurt Vermont non-profits, and more importantly, diminish our ability to serve Vermonters in our communities.

On the evening of June 1, Bennington College’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) will be orange, in observance of the goal of ending gun violence.

Over spring break at the Village School of North Bennington (VSNB), Bennington students transformed the gymnasium into a hands-on science museum.

On Thursday, May 3 from 4 to 6 PM, the public is invited to celebrate the re-opening of the Robert Frost Stone House Museum, which was acquired by Bennington College last December as a gift from the Friends of Robert Frost, in recognition of the College’s long and lauded literary history.

On April 12, Bennington College participated in Middle School Access Day, an event designed to give local middle school students a preview of college opportunities. 

How can food capture what makes a community distinctive? As a graduating senior studying Visual Arts, Public Action, and Dance, Isabella Poulos ’18 has devoted her time at Bennington to studying the intersection of food, art, and community.

Since its launch in 2015, Bennington College’s Prison Education Initiative (PEI), a program of the Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) founded by faculty members David Bond and Annabel Davis-Goff, has worked to bring liberal arts programming to the maximum-security men’s prison Great Meadow in Comstock, NY.

On Friday, March 8, Judith Enck addressed the College and local community on "The Trump Assault on Environmental Protection and What You Can Do About It" as part of CAPA's Environment and Public Action Initiative.