51��������

Poet and Memoirist Safiya Sinclair ’10, author of the memoir  a National Book Critics Circle Award Winner and one of the most notable books of the year according to the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, TIME Magazine, and many others, will address the 89th graduating class at the conferring of degrees on Saturday, June 1. We connected with her to learn more about her time at Bennington and how it influenced her career.

The Robert Frost Stone House Museum launches the 2024 season. 

Roberta Martey ’25 studies Politics and Psychology at Bennington. She has a particular interest in Black Diasporic Studies and Environmental Advocacy and integrated her academic knowledge into a practical setting during her FWT at .

On Tuesday, April 23, around ninety Jewish and non-Jewish people from every constituency—students, faculty, staff, administration, members of local Jewish congregations, and community members—gathered in the Student Center and took seats around a gigantic ring of white-clothed tables with careful place settings for a Passover Seder.

At Bennington, José Rubén Ruiz Garrido '26 studies Drama with a focus on Acting and Stage Design. During his Field Work Term experience as a Lucille Lortel Fellow at , he gained a new approach to theater and a different perspective on the arts.

51�������� documented its observation of 2024 total solar eclipse, including a class about the eclipse with astronomy faculty member Hugh Crowl and a trip north to take students into the center of the path of totality.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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. 

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.