Origins and early years , founder of St. Stephen's College During much of the nineteenth century, the land since owned by Bard was mainly composed of several
country estates. These estates were called Blithewood, Bartlett, Sands and Ward Manor/Almont. In 1853,
John Bard and Margaret Bard purchased a part of the Blithewood estate and renamed it Annandale. John Bard was the grandson of
Samuel Bard, a prominent doctor, a founder of
Columbia University's
medical school, and
physician to
George Washington. John Bard was also the nephew of John McVickar, a professor at
Columbia University. The family had strong connections with the
Episcopal Church. The following year, in 1854, John and Margaret established a
parish school on their estate in order to educate the area's children. A wood-frame
cottage, known today as Bard Hall, served as a school on weekdays and a
chapel on weekends. In 1857, the Bards expanded the
parish by building the Chapel of the Holy Innocents next to Bard Hall. During this time, John Bard remained in close contact with the New York leaders of the Episcopal Church. The church suggested that he found a
theological college. With the promise of outside financial support, John Bard donated the unfinished chapel, and the surrounding , to the diocese in November 1858. In March 1860, "St. Stephen's College" was founded. In 1861, construction began on the first St. Stephen's College building, a stone
collegiate Gothic dormitory called Aspinwall, after early
trustee John Lloyd Aspinwall, brother of
William Henry Aspinwall. During its initial years, the college relied on wealthy benefactors, like trustee
Cornelius Vanderbilt, for funding. The college began taking shape within four decades. In 1866, Ludlow Hall, an administrative building, was erected. Preston Hall was built in 1873 and used as a refectory. A set of four dormitories, collectively known as Stone Row, were completed in 1891. And in 1895, the
Greek Revival Hoffman Memorial Library was built. The school officially changed its name to Bard College in 1934 in honor of its founder.
20th century growth and secularization In the 20th century, social and cultural changes amongst New York's
high society would bring about the demise of the great estates. In 1914, Louis Hamersley purchased the fire-damaged Ward Manor/Almont estate and erected a
Tudor style mansion and gatehouse, or what is today known as Ward Manor. Hamersley expanded his estate in 1926 by acquiring the abandoned Cruger's Island estate. That same year, after Hamersley's combined estate was purchased by William Ward, it was donated to charity and served as a retirement home for almost four decades. By the mid-1900s, Bard's campus significantly expanded. The Blithewood estate was donated to the college in 1951, and in 1963, Bard purchased of the Ward Manor estate, including the main manor house. The rest of the Ward Manor estate became the
Tivoli Bays nature preserve. In 1919,
Bernard Iddings Bell became Bard's youngest president at the age of 34. His adherence to classical education, decorum, and dress eventually clashed with the school's push towards
Deweyism and secularization, and he resigned in 1933. In 1928, Bard merged with
Columbia University, serving as an undergraduate school similar to
Barnard College. Under the agreement, Bard remained affiliated with the Episcopal Church and retained control of its finances. The merger raised Bard's prestige; however, it failed to provide financial support to the college during the
Great Depression. So dire was Bard's financial situation that in 1932, then-Governor of New York and College trustee
Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a telegram to the likes of
John D. Rockefeller Jr.,
George Eastman, and
Frederick William Vanderbilt requesting donations for the college. On May 26, 1933, Donald Tewksbury, a Columbia professor, was appointed dean of the college. Although dean for only four years, Tewksbury had a lasting impact on the school. Tewksbury, an educational philosopher, had extensive ideas regarding higher education. While he was dean, Tewksbury steered the college into a more secular direction and changed its name from St. Stephen's to Bard. He also emphasized the arts, something atypical of colleges at the time, and set the foundations for Bard's Moderation and Senior Project requirement. While Tewksbury never characterized Bard's curriculum as "
progressive," the school would later be considered an early adopter of progressive education. In his 1943 study of early progressive colleges, titled
General Education in the Progressive College,
Louis T. Benezet used Bard as one of his three
case studies. During the 1940s, Bard provided a haven for intellectual refugees fleeing Europe. These included
Hannah Arendt, the political theorist,
Stefan Hirsch, the
precisionist painter;
Felix Hirsch, the political editor of the
Berliner Tageblatt; the violinist Emil Hauser; the linguist
Hans Marchand; the noted psychologist Werner Wolff; and the philosopher
Heinrich Blücher. In 1944, as a result of
World War II, enrollment significantly dropped putting financial stress on the college. In order to increase enrollment, the college became co-educational, thereby severing all ties with Columbia. The college became an independent, secular, institution in 1944. Enrollment more than doubled, from 137 students in 1944, to 293 in 1947.
Donald Fagen and
Walter Becker's experiences at Bard prompted them to write the 1973 song "
My Old School" for their rock group,
Steely Dan. The song was motivated by the 1969 drug bust at Bard in which the college administration colluded. Fagen and Becker wrote another Steely Dan song, "
Rikki Don't Lose That Number", about novelist, artist and former Bard faculty spouse
Rikki Ducornet. One of Fagen's roommates at Bard, Lonnie Yongue, is a character in the Steely Dan song "The Boston Rag".
21st century In 2020, Bard College and
Central European University became the founding members of the Open Society University Network, a collaborative global education initiative endowed with US$1 billion. As part of this new initiative, the college received a US$100 million gift from the
Open Society Foundations which ranks among the largest financial contributions to a U.S. institution in recent history. In 2021, philanthropist
George Soros made a $500 million endowment pledge to Bard College. It is one of the largest pledges of money ever made to higher education in the United States. In June 2021, Bard College was declared an "
undesirable organization" in Russia, becoming the first international higher education organization to be branded with this designation. Bard president Botstein hypothesized that this tag was due to their association with and funding from the
Open Society Foundations which was also classified as undesirable in Russia and
related conspiracy theories about George Soros. Throughout the early 2010s, Bard College president Leon Botstein maintained a relationship with financier, child sex offender, and human trafficker
Jeffrey Epstein, from whom he received gifts and donations to Bard totaling $150,000. Epstein had presented himself as a philanthropist interested in Bard's educational programs, particularly its arts and music programs, as well as taking an interest in Bard's high school early college model for young gifted individuals ready to start college 2 years earlier than typically normal. Epstein made an endowment gift to the flagship
Bard High School Early College in the
Lower East Side of
Manhattan, to which he added 30% to the High School's endowment that operates separate finances from Bard College. Epstein repeatedly visited Bard, by helicopter, landing the helicopter on the south end of Bard's Campus, on the Blithewood lawn, a popular gathering site for Bard's students. On May 1, 2026, Botstein announced he would retire as president of Bard College on June 30, 2026.
College leaders At various times, the leaders of the college have been titled president, warden or dean. They are listed below: •
George Franklin Seymour (1860–1861) •
Thomas Richey (1861–1863) • Robert Brinckerhoff Fairbairn (1863–1898) • Lawrence T. Cole (1899–1903) • Thomas R. Harris (1904–1907) • William Cunningham Rodgers (1909–1919) •
Bernard Iddings Bell (1919–1933) • Donald George Tewksbury (1933–1937) • Harold Mestre (1938–1939) • Charles Harold Gray (1940–1946) • Edward C. Fuller (1946–1950) •
James Herbert Case Jr. (1950–1960) • Reamer Kline (1960–1974) •
Leon Botstein (1975–present) == Campus ==