Food, Water, Land

The Bard Campus: nearly 1,200 acres in the Hudson River Valley
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.

Food, Water, and Land Use Initiatives

  • Micro Hydropower Project
    In 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.
    microhydrony.org
  • 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.
  • 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.  Select Farm Stats for 2024:
    • 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.  Bard Farm  BardEATS
  • Drinking Water and Water Conservation
    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.  New: interactive map with locations of in-line filtration refill stations.
Bard Campus Nature Rx
Winnakee Land Trust land acquisition and site of trail that will connect the V. of Red Hook to Bard

Bard Campus Nature Rx

an emerging collaboration among campus providers who understand that spending time in nature is good for our health

Maps and Trails

Find Trails in and around Bard:

Bard Campus Interactive GIS map with locations of water refill stations (2023)

Food, Water, Land Use