News and Events

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Interview: Multimedia Artist Julia Christensen ’00 Talks to Apollo Magazine About the Planetary Crisis that Is Upgrade Culture

Ohio-based artist Julia Christensen ’00 talks to Gabrielle Schwarz about how a visit to an e-waste processing center in India sparked an obsession with our throwaway culture, and how that has fed into a book and an exhibition titled Upgrade Available: “The concept that I’m working with, what I call ‘upgrade culture,’ is this sort of relentless notion that we constantly have to upgrade our electronics and media to remain relevant. I became interested in this, how this was culturally happening, because I visited, by a crazy chain of events, an e-waste processing centre in India several years ago. It was the first time I was faced with this global aggregate of e-waste, mountains of old computers and printers, etc. As a member of the consumer public I just had never thought about what happens when I take my computer to the recycling centre to be recycled. And of course I’m a media artist. I use a camera, I have a phone. I am part of this whole thing, so I began to think critically about what it means [to participate in upgrade culture]. It’s hard to connect the little phones in our pockets to this larger global issue, which is what it is. We are enacting a planetary crisis right now with electronics.”

Post Date: 10-18-2020

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Podcast: Disease Ecologists Felicia Keesing and Rick Ostfeld Discuss the Interplay of Biodiversity and Pandemics

Bard’s Felicia Keesing and Rick Ostfeld of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies address the topic of infectious disease spillovers, and talk about the pathogens that cause diseases like COVID-19. Preserving and promoting biodiversity—including reducing carbon pollution, consuming fewer animal products, and supporting science-based decision-making—is key to preventing disease transmission from animals to humans, the scientists say. “This is a really pivotal election in the United States for thinking about whether we want to have science and science-based decision-making playing a role as we go forward and rebuild—the sort of ‘build back better’ theme I think is important to bring in here,” says Keesing. “We are going to need to rebuild our economy in different ways, our energy infrastructure, our employment infrastructure, our health infrastructure, and our environmental infrastructure as we come back from this. If we’re wise, and informed by this experience, we can do a better job so that we make this less likely to ever happen again.”

Post Date: 10-08-2020

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Bard MBA in Sustainability Professor Kathy Hipple on Factors Affecting Oil and Gas Company Decisions to Drill in the Arctic

Hipple tells Sierra magazine that oil executives at major companies make decisions about exploration and development based on long-term forecasts—sometimes decades out. “We see that the oil companies are starting to diverge on where they view peak oil demand,” says Hipple. “Some of the companies such as Exxon are saying, as recently as its second-quarter earnings call, nothing has fundamentally changed. Whereas BP has said, ‘Things have fundamentally changed; we are radically rethinking our business.’”

Post Date: 08-26-2020

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Bard College Biology Professor Felicia Keesing Coauthors Overview of New Global Study Showing that Human-Caused Changes to Ecosystems Favor Species Most Likely to Cause Human Illness

Large-Scale Study, Published in Nature, Supports Findings of Keesing and Colleague Richard S. Ostfeld’s Two Decades of Research on Lyme Disease Ecology and Other Linkages Between Ecology, Conservation, and Human Health

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered by a coronavirus of animal origin has awakened the world to the threat that zoonotic diseases pose to humans. While examples of land-use changes increasing the risk of zoonotic disease have been accumulating for decades, questions have remained about the scale of the pattern and its specific underlying mechanisms. In a new large-scale study, “Zoonotic host diversity increases in human-dominated ecosystems,” Rory Gibb, Kate Jones, and their coauthors find global evidence that human land use changes natural habitats in ways that favor animals more likely to cause human illness. The study, published today in the journal Nature, strongly supports the findings of Bard College Biology Professor Felicia Keesing and her husband and research partner Richard S. Ostfeld’s two decades of extensive research on Lyme disease ecology and other linkages between ecology, conservation, and human health.

“The transformation of forests, grasslands, and deserts into cities, suburbs, and agricultural land has caused many species to decline or disappear and others to thrive,” write Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies, and Keesing in a general overview of the primary study published concurrently by Nature. “The winners are often generalists that are small, abundant and have ‘fast’, short lives, such as rats and starlings. Gibb et al. show that, worldwide, these winners are much more likely to harbor disease-causing agents (pathogens) than are the losers. As a result, when we convert natural habitats to our own uses, we inadvertently increase the probability of transmission of what are known as zoonotic infectious diseases, which are caused by pathogens that can jump from animals to humans.”

Ostfeld, and Keesing write that the patterns that Gibb and his coauthors detected from their analyses—which explored 6,801 ecological communities and 376 host species worldwide—were striking and provide strong evidence to lingering questions about the global scale and mechanisms of zoonotic disease transmission. “Is it simply a coincidence that the species that thrive in human-dominated landscapes are often those that pose zoonotic threats, whereas species that decline or disappear tend to be harmless? Is the ability of animals to be resilient to human disturbances linked to their ability to host zoonotic pathogens?” write Ostfeld and Keesing. “Gibb et al. found that the animals that increase in number as a result of human land use are not only more likely to be pathogen hosts, but also more likely to harbor a greater number of pathogen species, including a greater number of pathogens that can infect humans.”

With awareness of and concern about zoonotic diseases surging in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ostfeld and Keesing write that—by showing that the greatest zoonotic threats arise where natural areas have been converted to croplands, pastures, and urban areas—Gibb et al correct the widespread misperception that wild nature is the greatest source of zoonotic disease. This study and others strongly suggest that restoring degraded habitat and protecting undisturbed natural areas would benefit both public health and the environment. “Going forward, surveillance for known and potential zoonotic pathogens will probably be most fruitful if it is focused on human-dominated landscapes,” they write.

To read the full study in Nature, click here. To read Ostfeld and Keesing’s overview, click here.

Felicia Keesing, David and Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of Science, Mathematics, and Computing, has been on the Bard faculty since 2000. She has a B.S. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Since 1995, she has studied how African savannas function when the large, charismatic animals like elephants, buffaloes, zebras, and giraffes disappear. She also studies how interactions among species influence the probability that humans will be exposed to infectious diseases. Keesing also studies Lyme disease, another tick-borne disease. She is particularly interested in how species diversity affects disease transmission. More recently, she has focused on science literacy for college students, and she led the re-design of Bard College’s Citizen Science program. Keesing has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, among others. She has been awarded the United States Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2000). She is the coeditor of Infectious Disease Ecology: Effects of Ecosystems on Disease and of Disease on Ecosystems (2008) and has contributed to such publications as Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ecology Letters, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Ecology, BioScience, Conservation Biology, and Trends in Ecology & Evolution, among others.(8.5.20)
 

Post Date: 08-05-2020

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Bard Welcomes New Dining Service

After careful consideration, the College has decided to contract with a new dining services provider, Parkhurst Dining, to create the new Bard Dining. Parkhurst is a family-owned company that has been operating for more than 20 years. We chose Parkhurst on the basis of its reputation for providing high quality food and service, and their emphasis on the human element throughout their partnerships.

Parkhurst cites their “passion for creating and enjoying good food drives our approach to offering meals that are fresh, made from scratch and cooked in small batches.” They add that “the campus community will be able to select from a creative mix of nutritionally balanced entrées prepared with fresh-cut vegetables, lean proteins and healthy grains, as well as international foods and vegetarian and vegan entrees prepared fresh daily.”

Parkhurst has been a leader in supporting sustainability and in the farm-to-table movement since 2002, when it developed its FarmSource^TM program. The program finds and partners with local growers and family-owned farms for produce and artisanal products, resulting in more than 20 percent of food served by Parkhurst being sourced locally. Parkhurst’s sustainability philosophy will be coupled with the BardEATS program, elevating the local sourcing and sustainability practices at Bard.

Parkhurst has committed to:

• Increasing sustainability practices to ensure more local and sustainable ingredients
• Utilizing the Bard Farm and maximizing the harvest used for meal offerings in dining venues across campus
• Using great care in accommodating those with food allergies and specific dietary needs
• Engaging students and campus organizations in celebrations and explorations centering on people and culture within traditions of community and food

The well-being of the current dining team was a critical piece in our negotiations with Parkhurst. They have already begun the onboarding of our current team as an integral part of the new Bard Dining. The Bard community values the hard work and service our dining team members provide us each day, and we’re pleased that Parkhurst shares that appreciation and commitment to the community.  

In preparation for the fall 2020 semester, Parkhurst is working closely with the College and our partners at Nuvance Health to implement safety protocols throughout the dining experience, including social distancing, proper use of PPE, and take-away services.

If you have any questions for the Parkhurst Dining team at Bard, please reach out to Tony Williams at twilliams@parkhurstdining.com. 

About Parkhurst Dining

Parkhurst Dining provides exceptional culinary experiences and dining services to guests at the finest educational institutions and corporations. Founded in 1996, Parkhurst Dining has become an industry leader in local sourcing and sustainable dining experiences. For more information, visit www.parkhurstdining.com. 

Post Date: 07-22-2020

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Bard MBA in Sustainability Professor Kathy Hipple on Fracking Firms Rewarding Executives Prior to Bankruptcy

“It seems outrageous that these executives pay themselves before filing for bankruptcy,” said Hipple to the New York Times. “These are the same managers who ran these companies into bankruptcy to begin with.”

Post Date: 07-13-2020