The developed portion of campus occupies about 100 acres; the remainder comprises meadows, forests, wetlands, a tidal estuary, and the Saw Kill, a Hudson River tributary. The campus is bounded by the Hudson River to the west and is part of the Hudson River Direct Drainage area, Saw Kill Subwatershed. The Saw Kill provides the College with its drinking water. Wastewater is returned to the Saw Kill after it is treated at our sewer treatment plant. Bard seeks to continuously improve its practices related to water conservation, wastewater, and stormwater. The Bard Farm at the north end of campus has views of the Catskills.
Land Acknowledgment for Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson
Developed in Cooperation with the Stockbridge-Munsee Community
In the spirit of truth and equity, it is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are gathered on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, who are the original stewards of the land. Today, due to forced removal, the community resides in Northeast Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We honor and pay respect to their ancestors past and present, as well as to future generations, and we recognize their continuing presence in their homelands. We understand that our acknowledgment requires those of us who are settlers to recognize our own place in and responsibilities toward addressing inequity, and that this ongoing and challenging work requires that we commit to real engagement with the Munsee and Mohican communities to build an inclusive and equitable space for all.
This land acknowledgment, adopted in 2020, required establishing and maintaining long-term, and evolving, relationships with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. The Mellon Foundation's 2022 Humanities for All Times grant for “Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck” offers three years of support for developing a land acknowledgment–based curriculum, public-facing Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) programming, and efforts to support the work of emerging NAIS scholars and tribally enrolled artists at Bard.
This land acknowledgment, adopted in 2020, required establishing and maintaining long-term, and evolving, relationships with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. The Mellon Foundation's 2022 Humanities for All Times grant for “Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck” offers three years of support for developing a land acknowledgment–based curriculum, public-facing Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) programming, and efforts to support the work of emerging NAIS scholars and tribally enrolled artists at Bard.
Food, Water, and Land Use Initiatives
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Food and Farming on CampusThe Bard Farm produces vegetables for Bard Dining and has a seasonal weekly Farm Stand on Thursdays. The Bard Farmer & Educator, Rebecca Yoshino, works with a team of students to restore the carbon content of farm soil and provide food to our campus. Staff, students, and faculty collaborate through BardEATS.Food and Farming on Campus
The Bard Farm produces vegetables for Bard Dining and has a seasonal weekly Farm Stand on Thursdays. The Bard Farmer & Educator, Rebecca Yoshino, works with a team of students to restore the carbon content of farm soil and provide food to our campus. Staff, students, and faculty collaborate through BardEATS.
- Spread 150,000lbs Bard compost at the Bard Farm and Community Garden
- Built 15 no-till beds including a traditional Colombian Muisca spiral garden to host our 3 Sisters seed garden
- Grew 17,000 lbs produce for Bard Dining and at our market; 70 different crops from vegetables, to flowers to mushrooms to dye plants
- Distributed $2,000 farm stand vouchers through Bard's Food Pantry.
- Supplied 3 Bard Prison Initiative gardens with student-grown sustainable plant starts
- Nurturing Three Sisters seed crops donated to the farm by the Stockbridge Munsee Community and various crops from the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library along with all of our dye garden crops.
- Over 300 volunteer hours worked at Bard Farm, 24+ workshops, lectures, site based installation and performance art events, 20+ classes visited, had a lecture and/or volunteered at Bard Farm.
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Stormwater and WastewaterStormwater comes from rain or melting snow that doesn’t soak into the ground but runs off into waterways. Non-point source pollution from stormwater runoff, including road salt applications, is a leading cause of stream health degradation in New York State and increases in salinty of groundwater.Stormwater and Wastewater
Stormwater comes from rain or melting snow that doesn’t soak into the ground but runs off into waterways. Non-point source pollution from stormwater runoff, including road salt applications, is a leading cause of stream health degradation in New York State and increases in salinty of groundwater. Bard was awarded funding from New York State to implement a Regional Green Infrastructure Demonstration Project at the Olin parking lot that addressed stormwater runoff from a 9-acre drainage area on the Bard campus. As well, the Director of Buildings & Grounds installed a brine system starting in the winter of 2023 that has lowered the use of road salt on campus pathways and roads.
The Projects:
Bard "Brines"
With funding from the Sustainability Council, the Director of Buildings & Grounds installed a brining system for campus to pre-treat campus roads and pathways with a water/salt mixture. This project has reduced salt use and over time for the winters of 2023 and 2024. It also makes campus a healthier place to be for our amphibious friends. For the amphibians, the College continues to partner with the NYSDEC Amphibian Migration and Road Crossing Project and Saw Kill Watershed Community group to help amphibians cross the road during spring migrations.
Olin Parking Lot
The Bard Regional Green Infrastructure Demonstration Project at Olin addresses storm-water runoff from a 9-acre drainage area on the Bard campus. The project used permeable asphalt, porous paver walkways, a constructed wetland, bioretention and bioswales. The project filters stormwater water before it enters the Saw Kill, which is Bard’s drinking water source. Does it work? Professor Robyn Smyth's Environmental & Urban Studies students use the site as a living laboratory for their classwork.
Low Impact Development / Green Infrastructure Features – how we slow down water and help clean it up:- 81-space permeable parking lot (asphalt); 25,500 square feet
- Constructed wetland – walk around the path and find a frog
- Permeable paver walkway
- (2) small bioswales in the lawn south of Henderson computer lab
- Native planting along east side of parking lot
- Vegetated bioretention swale on the west side
- Does it work? the Hose Test
- Installing at the north end
- Rainy day drive into south end,
- Bucket Demo
- North end under construction (includes ponding on walkway, porous parking working at entrance)
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Micro Hydropower ProjectIn 2016, Bard received $1 million from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's Energy to Lead Competition to evaluate the implementation of micro hydropower on one or both of the existing small dams on the College's 1,000-acre campus. On July 28, 2023, a 12kw project on the Annandale Dam was granted an Exemption from Licensing from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A dedicated website helps explain how this complicated, multidimensional, mutistakeholder project continues to take shape. -
Water makes up more than 75 percent of the Earth's surface, yet only 2.8 percent of it is available for human consumption. The Bard Water Lab is a student-run community lab devoted to bringing water science to water communities. The lab is an initiative of the Bard Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities (CESH) in collaboration with the Saw Kill Watershed Community.
Winnakee Land Trust land acquisition and site of trail that will connect the V. of Red Hook to Bard
Bard Campus Nature Rx
Maps and TrailsNature Rx is an emerging collaboration among campus providers who understand that spending time in nature is good for our health.
Bard Campus Interactive GIS map with locations of water refill stations (2023)Find Trails in and around Bard: