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51�������� is pleased to announce that choreographer and dancer Kyle Abraham will address the class of 2025 at Commencement.

How Bennington students empower migrant workers and foster cultural exchange.

By Ashley Brenon Jowett

Exhibition offers visitors the rare opportunity to interact with Arion Press fine edition artist books at the Robert Frost Stone House Museum May 8–October 31, 2025.

How students and faculty brought art to the U.S. Consulate in Chiang Mai.

By Ashley Brenon Jowett

Students walking by reportedly, "Feel fine."

Project is the first among several health and well-being initiatives funded by The Endeavor Foundation

From March 21–22, 51�������� celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the College’s influential, improvisational Black Music Division with a symposium of events, history, and music surrounding the 1974 beginnings of the groundbreaking program.

Nine students from high schools around the country and the world were selected as winners of 51��������’s 2024-2025 Young Writers Awards.

51�������� Celebrates Bennington Aces’ “Chapter of the Year” Recognition 

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the improvisational music genius of the Black Music Division

51�������� announces the launch of a brand-new college admissions application round for prospective students: Late Decision. This new admissions round responds to the evolving needs of prospective students navigating their college search in a remarkable time.

Community Asked to Help in the Face of Recent Halt of Federal Funding

Highly Accomplished Group of Admitted Students Form the Foundation for the Class of 2029

In celebration of Black History Month, 51�������� is compiling a spotlight of the community's favorite Black authors and favorite books by Black authors.

Student-driven low-residency model and concentrations in Expressive Arts Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression set the new program apart.

Nine 51�������� students–the largest cohort to date–have been selected as Frankenthaler Fellows for the 2025 Museum Fellows Term, a study-away program that provides participants with practical, professional art world internship experience working at a major cultural institution in New York City for five months.

51�������� is pleased to announce it has been recommended for a Grants for Arts Projects award of $10,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The award will help fund the production of a literary journal housed at 51��������.

Writer and medical technology executive Ciaran Cooper ’87 MFA ’04 has been elected to join the 51�������� Board of Trustees. 

Thirty-six Bennington students have been selected for paid fellowship opportunities during the 2025 Field Work Term.

As we look forward to 2025 and reflect on the past year, celebrate all that 51�������� has accomplished with the 5 most-read stories from 2024.

A remarkable merger with University of the Arts dance. A class devoted to strengthening democratic discourse. Literary luminaries like journalist Michael Pollan '76 and poet and memoirist Safiya Sinclair '10 returning to meet students and families.

2024 brought notable alumni and artists back to campus and brought Bennington's aesthetic and influence to the world.

Dance Magazine highlighted the 36 BFA students, 20 continuing low-residency MFA students, and 13 faculty members from University of the Arts who have merged into 51��������.

51�������� is the only college Michael Pollan ’76 applied to. Pollan’s mother had attended Bennington in the fifties, and he remembered reading through her college papers, which were kept in the attic of his childhood home, and thinking about how extraordinary it was to have been taught, as she was, by poet Howard Nemerov and literary critic Kenneth Burke.

By Anne Thompson

Robert Wilson Visits Bennington

The Adaptive Framework 

by Ashley Brenon Jowett

by Laura Walker

“The largest life lesson I got from attending Bennington was the sense of possibility,” said Brian Rogers ’95, cofounder of The Chocolate Factory Theater, an innovative space built by and for artists, in Long Island City. He can’t imagine making a career as innovative as his “had it not been for the Bennington experience.” (Read more on page 28.) So many of you echo that sentiment. Today, I am writing to ask you to translate those feelings into support for Bennington. 

On Friday, October 25, 51�������� will host a Podcast Symposium for students, podcasters, writers, journalists, and anyone interested in learning about podcasting. 

Classroom experience, public action, college theater, environmentalism, and LGBTQ friendliness set Bennington apart.

Housekeeper Michele Hurley is one of eleven children born and raised in Bennington. She started working at the College in the Fall of 1979, and four of her siblings—Mike, Nick, Jenny, and Tim—have all graced the staff roster at various times from the seventies through today. We sat down with her in Commons to learn more about her remarkable contributions over the last 44 years and counting.