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Tisa Shrestha '26 studies Architecture at Bennington and supplements her Plan with coursework in Mathematics and Environmental Studies. During the 2024 Field Work Term, Shrestha worked at (LI-BIRD), a Nepal-based NGO that supports the sustainable management of natural resources in support of smallholder farmers.

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.

BENNINGTON, VT— At 8:00 pm Thursday, May 2, Professor from the Department of Geography and Geosciences at the University of Vermont, will give a lecture covering the latest climate change science coming out of the 2023 National Climate Assessment and the implementation of Vermont’s first ever Climate Action Plan, which was adopted in December 2021. The event, this year’s Robert H. Woodworth Lecture in the Sciences, is free and open to the public. It is scheduled for the Tishman Lecture Hall, which is labeled #3 on the campus map. 

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.

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 , the largest environmental group in Bangladesh.

On the second Monday before opening night, rehearsal for this term’s faculty production—Sweat by Lynn Nottage—started with a fight. Student actors executed a choreographed-but-believable series of punches and holds. They threw each other across the barroom set while the assistant stage manager and fight captain Tennyson Perkins ’26 took careful notes to deliver to the breathless actors at the end of the scene.  

Then they did it again. And again. And again. Each time, they incorporated Perkins’s tweaks, and each time, the action was clearer and cleaner.  

Ananda Zammaron Carbajal '26 studies Dance and Drama at Bennington, with a particular focus on acting and stage management. She spent her 2024 Field Work Term interning at , a film production company founded by Bryn Mooser ’01.

As early as their first year at Bennington, acting, music, and creative writing student and Sutton Trust Scholar Miriam Campbell ’26 heard people in their classes talking about the Lucille Lortel Fellowship.

Recognizing this urgent moment for American higher education and our democracy, 51�������� is joining sixty other college presidents of diverse institutions from across the country to advance higher education’s pivotal role in preparing students to be engaged citizens and to uphold free expression on campus.

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.

By Mollie Hawkins MFA '23

By Walter Greene '23

51��������’s Spring 2024 Visual Arts Lecture Series (VALS) welcomes photographer and educator Elle Pérez as the Adams-Tillim Lecturer on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. All VALS lectures are free, open to the public, and will take place from 7:00 – 8:30 pm in Tishman Lecture Hall on the College’s campus.

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. 

Nine students from high schools around the country were selected as winners of 51��������’s 2023-2024 Young Writers Awards.

During most ceramics classes, the pieces students make are theirs to do with what they like. They keep them or give them to family and friends. Students in Anina Major’s  in the Fall of 2023 had other plans. Each student crafted four mugs that they donated to ��dz�’s, the 51�������� cafe, this term.

Presentation to address storytelling as a form of social activism on April 16, 2024.

In honor of the celebration of Ramadan, Ahmed Shuwehdi ’25 and Muhammad Ammar ’24, co-leaders of the Muslim Student Association, asked Muslim students to respond to the prompt, "What has Ramadan felt like for you at home, and how does it feel at Bennington?” and answered the prompt themselves. The responses reveal longing, nostalgia, and an appreciation for the community at Bennington.

Five Questions with Astronomer Hugh Crowl

Hugh Crowl, astronomer and faculty member in astronomy and physics at Bennington, is teaching a class this term all about the total solar eclipse crossing nearby 51�������� on April  8. Bennington will experience a 97-percent eclipse, but the class is traveling north to Plattsburgh, NY, to be in the path of totality.

Today, 51�������� announced its plans to open a new satellite campus, which will be launched into space, buildings and all, on April 8.

Senior projects in music

51��������’s Carriage Barn Concert Series, which occurs each term in the Deane Carriage Barn, has announced its Spring 2024 lineup of talented, innovative, and classically trained musicians who will share their work with the college and local community.

Winston Foundation Grant funds 2024 Ben Belitt Colloquium on Arts and Literary Culture

51�������� is pleased to announce that poet and memoirist Safiya Sinclair ’10 will address the class of 2024 at Commencement.

Poetry at Bennington, an endowed program of short-term residencies that brings established and emerging poets to 51�������� for public readings and close work with students, has announced its Spring 2024 lineup of featured poets.

The Literature discipline at 51�������� has received a grant from the Winston Foundation to fund a new course and reading from 2024 Ben Belitt Distinguished Visiting Writer .  

More than 100 people attended the opening of Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal at 51��������’s Usdan Gallery on the evening of Tuesday, February 27, 2024. The nationally traveling exhibition gathers the multifaceted work of Milford Graves (1941–2021) to explore the practices and predilections of an extraordinary jazz innovator, tireless polymath, and legendary 51�������� professor. The exhibition is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 1:00–5:00 pm and by appointment through April 27. For more information, visit the . 

Susan Sgorbati, director of 51��������’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA), shared her work with the Transboundary Water In-Cooperation Network () and their international cooperation to develop a new United Nations convention on conserving the river deltas () with the Reporter Danielle M. Crosier of the Bennington Banner. 

51��������’s Prison Education Initiative (PEI), which serves Great Meadow Correctional Facility, a maximum-security men’s prison in Comstock, NY, is poised to become in New York State to offer incarcerated people the opportunity to pursue a bachelor’s degree. 

Ryan Chigogo ’23, energy analyst at Charles River Associates, reflects on his time at 51��������. 

Article by Gaurav Aung '24