News + Events

BPI Alumnus Hancy Maxis ’15 Featured in the Hechinger Report

Hancy Maxis ’15, Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) alumnus, spoke with the Hechinger Report about the role that learning math played in his life upon his release. He recalls considering the question of, “Once I am back in New York City, once I am back in the economy, how will I be marketable? For me, math was that pathway.”

Lauren Rose on Incorporating Puzzles and Games into the Mathematics Classroom

Associate Professor of Mathematics Lauren Rose was invited to give a workshop as part of SIGMAA Inquiry-Based Learning’s Workshop Series. Rose showed that one way to develop and explore active learning strategies is through the use of puzzles and games, which can be used to introduce and explore mathematical concepts related to the course material, or as a way to invite exploration.

Five Bard College Students Win Gilman International Scholarships to Study Abroad

Five Bard College students, Ezra Calderon ’25, Adelaide Driver ’26, Dashely Julia ’26, Nyla Lawrence ’26, and Brenda Lopez ’26, have been awarded highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships by the US Department of State. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award.

Five Bard College Students Win Gilman International Scholarships to Study Abroad

Five Bard College students have been awarded highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships by the US Department of State. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award, to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. This cohort of Gilman scholars, who will study or intern in over 90 countries, represents more than 500 US colleges and universities.

Bard College Mathematics and Italian Studies double major Ezra Calderon ’25, from Harlem, New York, has been awarded a Gilman Scholarship to study at the University of Trento in Italy via exchange, for the spring semester 2025. “This scholarship provides an exciting opportunity to improve my language skills and conduct research while abroad for my Senior Project in Italian Studies,” says Calderon.

Bard College Studio Art major Adelaide Driver ’26, from Taos, New Mexico, has been awarded a $4000 Gilman Scholarship to study at Kyoto Seika University in Japan, for the spring semester 2025. “Receiving this scholarship means the world to me. I have always wanted to study abroad, but money was a concern. This scholarship provides the opportunity to study what I love in an incredible place. I am so grateful,” says Driver. She serves as a peer counselor at Bard and will be studying illustration at Kyoto Seika.

Bard College junior Dashely Julia ’26, who is jointly majoring in Architecture and Art History with a concentration in Latin American and Iberian studies, has been awarded a $3000 Gilman Scholarship to study at Bard College Berlin in Germany, for the spring semester 2025. “Winning the Gilman Scholarship holds profound significance for me. It represents the opportunity to engage with diverse cultures and gain new perspectives that will enrich my understanding of art history and architecture. As someone deeply passionate about exploring how cultural and historical contexts shape artistic and architectural practices, studying abroad is more than an academic pursuit—it is a lifelong dream come true,” says Julia, who is a Posse Puerto Rico Scholar and lead peer mentor for the Office of Equity and Inclusion at Bard.

Bard College Computer Science major Nyla Lawrence ’26, from Atlanta, Georgia, has been awarded a $5,000 Gilman scholarship to study at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan via exchange, for the spring semester 2025. “My grandmother told me this quote from Derek Bok: ‘If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.’ There is always something to be ignorant about but, I am happy the Gilman Scholarship provides others and myself the ability to learn more about the world while also studying. Studying abroad not only allows for broader education opportunities, but also life lessons and responsibility before exiting college, which I am really excited for,” says Lawrence, who will be learning Mandarin, her third language after English and German, to better communicate and traverse the land. Lawrence is currently one of three captains of the Bard women’s volleyball team and the Katherine Lynne Mester Memorial Scholar in Humanities for the 2024–2025 academic year at Bard.

Bard College Psychology major Brenda Lopez ’26, from Bronx, New York, has been awarded a $3,000 Gilman scholarship to study at Kyung Hee University in Seoul via exchange, for the spring semester 2025. “I couldn’t be more grateful, and I can’t wait to see how this scholarship helps me when spending my time in Korea,” says Lopez. At Bard, Lopez is part of the Trustee Leader Scholar Project Nicaragua Education Initiative and a clubhead for the K-DIARY club on campus.

The Department of State awarded the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship to approximately 1,600 American undergraduate students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, in this fall 2024 cycle. All scholarship recipients are US undergraduate students with established high financial need as federal Pell Grant recipients. On average, 65 percent of Gilman recipients are from rural areas and small towns across the United States, and half are first-generation college or university students.

Since the program’s inception in 2001, more than 44,000 Gilman scholars have studied or interned in more than 170 countries around the globe. Supported by the US Congress, the Gilman Scholarship is an initiative of the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and is aided in its implementation by the Institute of International Education. To learn more about the Gilman Scholarship and its recipients, including this newest cohort, visit gilmanscholarship.org.

Post Date: 01-07-2025

More Math News

Alumna Mona Merling ’09 Wins Association for Women in Mathematics 2025 Joan and Joseph Birman Research Prize

Alumna Mona Merling ’09 Wins Association for Women in Mathematics 2025 Joan and Joseph Birman Research Prize

The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) has announced that Bard math alumna Mona Merling ’09 has won the 2025 AWM Joan and Joseph Birman Research Prize in Topology and Geometry. Merling was recognized for her innovative and impactful research in algebraic K-theory, equivariant homotopy theory, and their applications to manifold theory.

“I would not be here today without the many amazing women I was lucky to have as role models at every step of the way: from my math teacher back in Romania, Mihaela Flamaropol, who ignited my passion for math competitions; to my undergraduate mentor at Bard College, Lauren Rose, who early on inspired me about both research and teaching; to some of the senior leaders in my field who initiated and fostered the Women in Topology Network, Maria Basterra, Kristine Bauer, Kathryn Hess, and Brenda Johnson, who I was very privileged to be able to collaborate with as part of these workshops and who have always served as a huge inspiration and a source of endless support to me and other younger women in homotopy theory,” said Merling, who is currently associate professor of mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. She was previously a J.J. Sylvester Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Johns Hopkins University, and received her PhD in Mathematics at the University of Chicago in 2014.

In a statement, AWM wrote: “Merling is an exceptional researcher whose work in algebraic topology has both depth and breadth. She is a recognized authority on equivariant homotopy theory and its applications to equivariant manifolds. Her recent work generalizes and reinterprets results in differential topology in the equivariant context. Her work is the first progress seen in decades on certain foundational questions about equivariant manifolds.”

The AWM Joan & Joseph Birman Research Prize in Topology and Geometry serves to highlight to the community outstanding contributions by women in the field and to advance the careers of the prize recipients. The prize is awarded every other year and was made possible by a generous contribution from Joan Birman, whose work has been in low dimensional topology, and her husband, Joseph, who was a theoretical physicist specializing in applications of group theory to solid state physics.

Read more at AWM

Post Date: 09-10-2024

Bard Physicists Paul Cadden-Zimansky, Li-Heng Henry Chang ’23, Ziyu Xu ’23, and Shea Roccaforte ’21 Coauthor Cover Story in the American Journal of Physics

Bard Physicists Paul Cadden-Zimansky, Li-Heng Henry Chang ’23, Ziyu Xu ’23, and Shea Roccaforte ’21 Coauthor Cover Story in the American Journal of Physics

Associate Professor of Physics Paul Cadden-Zimansky and three recent Bard graduates in physics and mathematics Li-Heng Henry Chang ’23, Ziyu Xu ’23, and Shea Roccaforte ’21, have coauthored the cover story in the July 2024 issue of the American Journal of Physics. Their peer-reviewed research article, “Geometric visualizations of single and entangled qubits,” presents a new way of visualizing the phenomenon of quantum entanglement between two interacting objects. Intended for a range of audiences—from students just starting to learn about concepts in quantum mechanics to active researchers who are using quantum bits ("qubits") to create new types of computers, sensors, and secure communication systems—the article focuses on visual tools and maps that can be used to complement the formal mathematics and algebra of quantum mechanics.

Read in the American Journal of Physics

Post Date: 07-09-2024

Professor Lauren Rose Interviewed on the Today Show and in the New York Times about Using the Rubik’s Cube as a Teaching Tool

Professor Lauren Rose Interviewed on the Today Show and in the New York Times about Using the Rubik’s Cube as a Teaching Tool

On the occasion of the Rubik’s Cube’s 50th anniversary, Associate Professor of Mathematics Lauren Rose was interviewed on the Today Show and quoted in the New York Times about using the Rubik’s Cube as a teaching tool. Invented by Erno Rubik in 1974, the Rubik’s Cube has 43 quintillion permutations, and an estimated one in seven people in the world have played the puzzle. Rose, who can solve the cube in under a minute, uses the Rubik’s Cube to teach both math majors and non-STEM majors. “I can get students who hate math to learn how to solve the cube and then I can say, ‘You know, you just did math,’” says Rose. She believes the Rubik’s Cube’s enduring appeal is that it is “so fun and accessible.”

Watch on the Today Show

Read more in the New York Times

Post Date: 07-02-2024

Bard Conservatory Student Hannah Park-Kaufmann ’24 Awarded Knight-Hennessy Scholarship

Bard Conservatory Student Hannah Park-Kaufmann ’24 Awarded Knight-Hennessy Scholarship

Hannah Park-Kaufmann ’24, who is graduating with dual degrees in piano performance and mathematics, has won a Knight-Hennessy Scholarship for graduate-level study at Stanford University. Park-Kaufmann will pursue a master's degree in computational and mathematical engineering at Stanford University School of Engineering. After completing her master’s degree at Stanford through Knight-Hennessy, she will matriculate into the PhD program in applied mathematics at Harvard University, a program to which she has already been accepted. As a pianist, Hannah became fascinated by human fine-motor movement. She aspires to help more people reach mastery in physiologically complex professions by using experiment, theory, and computation to explore what simpler patterns might underlie our movements, and turning this understanding into new educational paradigms.

At Bard, Hannah was president of the Association for Women in Mathematics Chapter, tutored mathematics in New York state prisons through the Bard Prison Initiative, and gave a TEDx talk on a research study she designed and led at MIT on the physiological correlates of healthy versus injury-prone piano playing. She participated in the Polymath Jr., Emory and CMU mathematics REUs, and has coauthored multiple papers published in peer reviewed journals. Her teams’ projects won first place at the international hackathon HackMIT in the tracks Sustainability (2022) and Education (2023, with Elliot Harris ’24). She is the recipient of the Bard Distinguished Scientist Scholar Award, the Community Action Award, the Mind, Brain and Behavior Award, the Seniors to Seniors Award, and the Conservatory Scholarship.

Established in 2016, the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship program seeks to prepare students to take leadership roles in finding creative solutions to complex global issues. Scholars receive full funding to pursue any graduate degree at Stanford and have additional opportunities for leadership training, mentorship, and experiential learning across multiple disciplines.

Post Date: 05-07-2024

Bard Mathematician Lauren Rose Gives Talk at Hope College about Her Card Game, Quads

Bard Mathematician Lauren Rose Gives Talk at Hope College about Her Card Game, Quads

The Mathematics and Statistics Department at Hope College invited Bard Associate Professor of Mathematics Lauren Rose to give an interactive discussion to faculty and students about the card game Quads, which she invented with Jeffrey Pereira ’13, who helped design Quads as part of his Senior Project. During her talk “Quads: A SET-like Game with a Twist,” Rose explained the rules of the game—players try to create as many quad groupings as they can, given several conditions—and participants had a chance to try their hand at it. “SET is a popular card game that you can teach a five-year-old (because you don’t need to be able to read) but there’s a ton of math in it,” said Rose. “SET contains three cards … so we asked, ‘What if we did four cards?’” Although the rules are straightforward, the game and its variations apply mathematical concepts including combinatorics, probability, geometry, and algebra. Rose and other mathematicians continue to study the underlying layers of math and logic that drive the game play. The paper, “How Many Cards Should You Lay Out in a Game of EvenQuads,” coauthored by Tim Goldberg ’02, Raphael Walker ’21, Julia Crager ’23, Felicia Flores ’23, Darrion Thornburgh ’24, and Daniel Rose Levine ’24, was recently published the journal La Matematica. The cards in the official Quads game, published as EvenQuads by the Association for Women in Math, feature images and biographies of female mathematicians on one side, which Rose hopes will encourage women to consider entering the traditionally male-dominated field of mathematics.

Read more

Post Date: 04-03-2024

Bard College Named a Top Producer of Fulbright Students for 2023–24

Bard College Named a Top Producer of Fulbright Students for 2023–24

Bard College is proud to be included on the list of U.S. colleges and universities that produced the most 2023–24 Fulbright students and scholars. Each year, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces the top producing institutions for the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes the lists annually.

Seven graduates from Bard received Fulbright awards for academic year 2023–24. Getzamany “Many” Correa ’21, a Global and International Studies major, and Elias Ephron ’23, a joint major in Political Studies and Spanish Studies, will live in Spain as Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs). Biology major Macy Jenks ’23 will be an ETA in Taiwan. Eleanor Tappen ’23, a Spanish Studies major, will be an ETA in Mexico. Juliana Maitenaz ’22, who graduated with a BA in Global and International Studies and a BM in Classical Percussion Performance, was selected for an independent study–research Fulbright scholarship to Brazil. Bard Conservatory alumna Avery Morris ’18, who graduated with a BA in Mathematics and a BM in Violin Performance, won a Fulbright Study Research Award to Poland. Evan Tims ’19, who was a joint major in Written Arts and Human Rights with a focus on anthropology at Bard, received a Fulbright-Nehru independent study–research scholarship to India. Additionally, Adela Foo ’18 won a Fulbright Study Research Award to Turkey through Yale University, where she is a PhD candidate in art history.

“As an institution, Bard College is proud and honored to be included in the list of Top Producing Fulbright Institutions for 2023-2024,” said Molly J. Freitas, Ph.D., associate dean of studies and Fulbright advisor at Bard. “We believe that Fulbright's mission to promote and facilitate cross-cultural exchange and understanding through teaching and research is in perfect alignment with Bard's own institutional identity and goals. We wish to extend our congratulations to our newest Fulbright awardees and reiterate our gratitude to the faculty, staff, and community members who have supported these students during the Fulbright application process and throughout their time as Bard students.”

“Fulbright’s Top Producing Institutions represent the diversity of America’s higher education community. Dedicated administrators support students and scholars at these institutions to fulfill their potential and rise to address tomorrow’s global challenges. We congratulate them, and all the Fulbrighters who are making an impact the world over,” said Lee Satterfield, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Fulbright is a program of the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program.

Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 41 heads of state or government, 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, and countless leaders and changemakers who build mutual understanding between the people of the United State and the people of other countries.

Read more

Post Date: 02-13-2024

Mathematics Events

2024 Past Events

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Reem-Kayden Center 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Join our December graduating seniors as they present their senior project research!
Saturday, December 7, 2024
Albee 3rd Floor Math Lounge 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Association for Women in Mathematics is hosting a math-themed cookie decorating event. Snack and beverages included! Everyone is welcome.
Friday, November 22, 2024

Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium 1:30 pm EST/GMT-5
Majoring (or interested) in math or physics but unsure about whether grad school is right for you?

The Distinguished Visiting Professorship of Mathematics and Physics is sponsoring a panel discussion, Q&A, and networking event with recent alums, admissions administrators, and faculty. We’ll talk about what MA and PhD programs are out there, what they are like, and how to optimize the rest of your time spent at Bard.

Open to all Bard students, especially those moderated in mathematics or physics.

Panelists:

Chuck Doran
Distinguished Visiting Professor of Mathematics and Physics, Bard College

Hal Haggard
Associate Professor of Physics, Bard College

Andrew Harder
Director of Graduate Admissions, Mathematics Department, Lehigh University

Stefan Mendez-Diez
Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Bard College

Clara Sousa-Silva
Assistant Professor of Physics, Bard College

Santanu Antu
Graduate Researcher, Yale Quantum Institute

Hannah Park-Kaufmann
Knight-Hennessy Scholar, Stanford University
Thursday, November 21, 2024

Reem-Kayden Center Lobby 5:30 pm EST/GMT-5
Come and join us for a game night! Refreshments for all and prizes for winners. Games to play include: Quads, SET, Rubik's Cube Solving/Mosaics and more.
Friday, October 25, 2024

Reem-Kayden Center 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Join our summer research students as they present their work!
Tuesday, October 8, 2024

George D. Rose, Bard class of ’63
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Since Galileo, the goal of scientific understanding is to explain complex phenomena with a compact description, a model. Yet today, artificial intelligence –specifically, machine-learning using neural nets– has engendered a radical departure from traditional approaches. Machine-learning using neural nets is not grounded in a unifying theory. There are no hypotheses being tested. Instead, the goal is to find parameters (often billions of them) that can capture the phenomenon under consideration and to then utilize the parameters predictively. This approach has met with stunning success in multiple venues, but it is no longer science as we have come to know it.

Where do we go from here? In this talk, George D. Rose will address this question using the protein folding problem as an example.
Monday, September 30, 2024

Campus Center, Yellow Room 214 11:45 am – 12:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
You are warmly invited to join us for an insightful coffee chat with Caitlin Myers, Professor of Economics at Middlebury College, who will be discussing her latest research on the impact of anti-abortion legislation on women.

Professor Myers' research examines issues related to gender, race, and the economy, with a particular focus on the effects of reproductive policies. Her work has been published in journals including the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Labor Economics, the Journal of Human Resources, and the Journal of Public Economics. It also has been featured by media outlets such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Salon, Vice, and Vox.
Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Sylvester James Gates, Jr.
Clark Leadership Chair in Science, Distinguished University Professor, and Regents Professor at the University of Maryland
Blithewood 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
In 1995 Edward Witten, described by Brian Greene as “a million times smarter than we are,” proposed a solution to the “quantum gravity problem” that evaded Stephen Hawking. Until 2020, no solution consistent with Richard Feynman’s view of quantum theory had been found. Einstein believed “...science and art tend to coalesce,” and following this connection the speaker and two PhD students found the first such solution. This talk describes how artwork solved a mathematics problem. Reception to follow

The inaugural MathScape combines an international workshop on cutting-edge research in mathematics with a public lecture linking to the arts and humanities. MathScape 2024 features the mathematics used by the physicists in their quest to create a “theory of everything”.

MathScape 2024 is supported by Chuck Doran, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Mathematics and Physics
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Monday, May 20, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Sunday, May 19, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Thursday, May 16, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Thursday, May 16, 2024

Reem-Kayden Center 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4

Download: Senior Project Poster session booklet S24-FINAL CO
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Albee Third Floor Math Lounge 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Monday, May 13, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Sunday, May 12, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Thursday, May 9, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
RKC 111 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Samantha Rehorst and Nasif Hossain
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Albee Third Floor Math Lounge 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Monday, May 6, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Sunday, May 5, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Thursday, May 2, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Albee Third Floor Math Lounge 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Monday, April 29, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Sunday, April 28, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Friday, April 26, 2024

Yitzhak Melamed, Johns Hopkins University
Hegeman 204 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
In this paper I discuss the axiomatic manner in which Spinoza’s Ethics has been written, Spinoza’s reasons for choosing this manner of exposition, and its development throughout Spinoza’s writing career.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Albee Third Floor Math Lounge 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Monday, April 22, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Sunday, April 21, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Albee 3rd floor Math Lounge 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Albee Third Floor Math Lounge 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
A great place to study math, meet with your study group, and consult with a math tutor.
Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Geillan Aly, Compassionate Math
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
The field of STEM offers many personal and professional rewards. However, emotions may stand in the way of such rewards. In this workshop, we will explore imposter syndrome and other socioemotional phenomena which may affect one’s ability to engage with and succeed in a field as competitive and demanding as those in STEM. Participants will have an opportunity to explore and reflect on their feelings towards studying STEM. Participants begin by reflecting on and sharing their previous learning experiences to place these experiences in context, learning that: (1) they are not alone; (2) their experiences are likely not tied to them as an individual, but are a result of sociohistorical forces. This allows students to think deeply and critically about how they approach their studies. Participants then reorient themselves based on these new realizations and their motivation to succeed. This reorientation includes strategies and tips for studying, focusing on learning mathematics in particular. Finally the workshop gives participants an opportunity to work on a mathematical problem, setting the stage for a positive opportunity to engage with mathematics and their other studies. All participants are encouraged to participate in small-group and whole session discussions throughout the program, reducing the “I’m alone” stigma and forming bonds with others in the group. They are also encouraged to continue working and studying together after the workshop is completed.

Dr. Geillan Aly, the Founder of Compassionate Math, is a math educator who centers the socioemotional factors that contribute to success in mathematics. She holds the fundamental assumption that learning math is both an emotional and cognitive endeavor. A former award-winning Assistant Professor who has taught for over fifteen years, Dr. Aly transforms math classrooms through engaging professional development and student-focused workshops that center emotions while establishing a culture of engaging with rigorous mathematics. She received her PhD in Teaching and Teacher Education and Master’s in Mathematics from the University of Arizona. Underlying Dr. Aly’s work is a dedication to equity and social justice. She enjoys traveling and seeing live music and is an avid chef, wife, and mother to a beautiful boy.
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Hegeman 106 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Come celebrate Pi Day with us by enjoying pizza, pie, and games!
Friday, March 8, 2024

Sophia Stone, Lynn University
Hegeman 204A 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Plato reserved high esteem for mathematics, even saying in the Laws that learning mathematics was a necessity, that without the use or knowledge of mathematics, ‘a man cannot become a God to the world, nor a spirit, nor yet a hero, nor able earnestly to think and care for man.’ Bertrand Russell remarks on this passage in The Study of Mathematics, “Such was Plato’s judgment of mathematics; but the mathematicians do not read Plato, while those who read him know no mathematics, and regard his opinion upon this question as merely a curious aberration,” (Russell 1963, p. 85).

Reflecting on Bertrand Russell’s ruminations about Plato, it is well known, though we no longer have direct evidence, that before the entrance to Plato’s Academy was the inscription, “no one should enter here unless he is a geometer.” Sprinkled throughout Plato’s dialogues are geometry problems (Meno), statements about the Odd and the Even (Phaedo, Euthyphro, Parmenides), and of course, that well known claim in his Republic VII, 526g-527c that while there are two kinds of numbers, those used in practical endeavors like star gazing and military soldier formation on the one hand, and those that can only be grasped in the mind on the other, that even those who are slow at calculation or reasoning, if they are educated in it, even if they gain nothing else, improve and generally become sharper in thinking than they were. So if mathematics, and especially the study of geometry, improves the quality of the soul and makes it easier to see the form of the Good (526e-527b6-8), then could Plato’s treatment of mathematics in his dialogues tell us something about his theory of forms?

In this talk, I’ll lay out some of the problems of understanding Plato’s theory of forms and why we have yet to solve these problems. While Plato saw the form-sensible relation as essentially a non-expressible mathematical relation, contemporary scholars commonly think of the form-sensible relation in terms of sets and its members. My own view is that we are unable to solve the problems of understanding Plato’s theory of forms because of our own advances in mathematics.

Contact Us

Ethan Bloch
Mathematics Director
Phone: 845-758-7266
Email: [email protected]

News + Events

BPI Alumnus Hancy Maxis ’15 Featured in the Hechinger Report

BPI Alumnus Hancy Maxis ’15 Featured in the Hechinger Report

Lauren Rose on Incorporating Puzzles and Games into the Mathematics Classroom

Lauren Rose on Incorporating Puzzles and Games into the Mathematics Classroom

Five Bard College Students Win Gilman International Scholarships to Study Abroad

Five Bard College Students Win Gilman International Scholarships to Study Abroad

Alumna Mona Merling ’09 Wins Association for Women in Mathematics 2025 Joan and Joseph Birman Research Prize

Bard Physicists Paul Cadden-Zimansky, Li-Heng Henry Chang ’23, Ziyu Xu ’23, and Shea Roccaforte ’21 Coauthor Cover Story in the American Journal of Physics

Professor Lauren Rose Interviewed on the Today Show and in the New York Times about Using the Rubik’s Cube as a Teaching Tool

Bard Conservatory Student Hannah Park-Kaufmann ’24 Awarded Knight-Hennessy Scholarship

Bard Mathematician Lauren Rose Gives Talk at Hope College about Her Card Game, Quads

Bard College Named a Top Producer of Fulbright Students for 2023–24

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