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This fall will see the launch of the Paran Creek apartments—a new, experimental housing community for Bennington students in North Bennington, a short walk from campus.

51�������� Faculty Members David Bond, Janet Foley, and Tim Schroeder have been awarded a $300,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to deepen and expand the College’s response to PFOA contamination in New York and Vermont.

51�������� President Mariko Silver recently joined mayors, governors, other leaders in higher education, businesses, and investors in declaring, via an , that they will continue to support climate action to meet the Paris Agreement.

51�������� celebrated the achievements and the future promise of the Class of 2017 at Commencement this year, with an inspiring and rousing sendoff by Cornell William Brooks, a leading civil rights activist and former head of the NAACP. 

The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article by Duncan Dobbelmann about the challenges–and opportunities–presented by offering pop-up courses.

Mariko Silver was interviewed for two articles featured on Linkedin.com about the role that mentoring can play in professional success.

The third floor of Commons was the crossroads of intellectual and cultural life of the 20th century: where Helen Frankenthaler '49 and Paul Feeley painted, where Martha Graham danced, where Bob Dylan sang, and where Gunnar Schonbeck made his instruments. Now, it fully reopens for the first time since the 80's and the last time before a complete renovation of the building for a visual and performative arts show. 

The town of Bennington was named the third most arts-vibrant small community in the country by the National Center for Arts Research. 

The artist, curator, urbanist, and facilitator Theaster Gates was in residence at 51�������� in April, speaking to students, faculty, and staff about making place and making change, the two driving forces of his work. The highlight of his time on campus was the Adams–Tillim Lecture, which he delivered on April 25. By Aruna D'Souza

The Boston Globe covered the fifth annual First Generation College Student summit, and highlighted the work that Bennington does to support international and first generation students through mentorship and advising. 

Hydropower developer Bill Scully ’94 is working with Bennington students on two new power generation projects in the village of North Bennington.

Bennington’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) hosted a talk by two United Nations delegates on women's empowerment and the changing role of women in the workplace.

NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks will address the class of 2017 at 51��������’s 82nd commencement dinner on Friday, June 2nd, at 7:00 pm on Commons Lawn.

President Mariko Silver spoke with Psychology Today about some of the gender-based challenges still facing female leaders today despite the increasing representation of women in leadership roles. 

On Monday, February 20th at 8 pm at The Pershing Square Signature Center in New York City, 51��������, in association with The 24 Hour Plays, will present The 24 Hour Plays®: A Bennington Tribute to Spencer Cox. This one night–only event will take place at The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre and will bring together 51�������� alumni and friends—including Emmy, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and Obie winners and nominees—to write, cast, rehearse, and present six one-act plays within a 24-hour period. Ticket sales and donations will benefit the Spencer Cox ’90 Scholarship for student activists at 51��������.

Today, President Mariko Silver sent the following memo to the Bennington community.

President Silver published about student expectations that protests will be part of their college experience, and the role of educators in helping them learn how to effect change.

The Philadelphia Inquirer published an article about the role of college presidents in the age of Trump that featured Mariko Silver. 

Bennington is the home of individualized education, but it is also a shared endeavor. We are a community of creative thinkers who are constantly generating new ideas and ways of working—together—on campus and out in the wider world. Every single day, we make the decisions, clear the spaces, and extend the invitations that allow us to build the College, collectively and collaboratively, according to our most deeply-felt principles, ideals, and aspirations.

The following statement was issued by President Mariko Silver to the campus community recently.

In the wake of the election this November, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an opinion piece by Mariko Silver called "Learning How to Be Together." 

A group of students is starting a public seed-sharing library at Crossett Library, 51�������� that is free and open to the community. 

51�������� President Mariko Silver joins more than 100 other college and university presidents in an open letter to President-elect Donald Trump that urges him to forcefully “condemn and work to prevent the harassment, hate, and acts of violence that are being perpetrated across our nation, sometimes in your name, which is now synonymous with our nation’s highest office.”

Inside Higher Ed wrote about Bennington’s pop-up courses, highlighting the flexibility of the model, and the breadth the pop-up courses offered by faculty members across the disciplines.

Best Kept College Secrets featured a piece about Bennington's return to its "proper place" in the educational "pantheon" in the wake of a Forbes article, which labeled Bennington as one of tomorrow's hot colleges. BKCS profiles "superior institutions" that have "excellent reputation[s and are] highly regarded by those who know colleges." 

In an essay in Inside Higher Ed, President Mariko Silver argues the presidential campaign has underscored that sexual harassment is widespread throughout American society, and colleges must take a similarly broad-based approach to address it.

President Mariko Silver was among the thought leaders and college presidents approached byThe Chronicle of Higher Education to weigh in on the future of higher education. 

Mariko Silver is a featured guest speaker at the Liberal Arts Imperative in the Digital Age: A Higher Education Summit hosted by Northeastern University and the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The two-day summit aims to "convene leading thinkers on higher education to explore [the] proposition: the liberal arts matter more than ever in the 21st century, and they matter for everyone." Silver will be participating in two panels, "Integrating the Liberal Arts & Experiential Learning at Home and Abroad," and "The Liberal Arts Imperative, STEM, and Professional Education."

Following on the heels of a mention in the Princeton Review, 51�������� was featured in a MSN Lifestyle list of "the best college dorms in America." 

"A tour of the United States through books" on Electric Lit features The Secret History by Donna Tartt '86 as the recommended book for the state of Vermont. MFA faculty member Alexander Chee's novel Edinburgh represents the state of Maine.