Replicable Initiative Aims to Reduce Barriers to Higher Education by Meeting Brooklynites Where They Are, With a Truly Free Degree
Collaboration between Bard, BPL Builds on Both Institutions’ Decades of Experience Providing Top-Tier Educational Resources for All
Brooklyn, NY— An innovative new program to help nontraditional students who have been deterred, discouraged or excluded from higher education to achieve liberal arts Associate degrees is coming to Brooklyn this winter, Bard College and Brooklyn Public Library announced today.
The new microcollege program, ‘Bard at Brooklyn Public Library,’ will bring a high-quality liberal arts Associate degree directly to students with the greatest barriers to education, inside the public library and at no cost. A fully accredited, tuition free, Associate in Arts degree program, Bard at BPL will admit an initial cohort of approximately 16 students. It will welcome its inaugural class this January at the Central Library in Prospect Heights.
“We are thrilled to offer the first-ever accredited Associates degree in a public library,” said Linda Johnson, President & CEO of Brooklyn Public Library. “By combining the deep experience and diverse resources of both Bard and Brooklyn Public Library, we can provide people who have previously been discouraged or excluded from higher education access to top-tier college-level liberal arts courses on a campus in the heart of Brooklyn. This program is the logical next step in BPL’s commitment to providing New Yorkers with the highest quality academic resources, at every point of their lives and at absolutely no cost.”
Max Kenner, Vice President for Institutional Initiatives at Bard College and Executive Director of the Bard Prison Initiative, said, "The crisis of college access—and the costs associated—require creative solutions. By pooling resources and sharing expertise, Bard and the Library will provide students a broad, rigorous college education, spanning the breadth of the arts and sciences, at no cost and in their home community. Each of our institutions is in the business of sharing knowledge democratically; we can do that more effectively together than separately. Twentieth-century silos that divide institutions with shared values must be broken if we are going to address tomorrow’s challenges."
Funded by the Mellon Foundation and Pell grants, and augmented by the Library’s diverse services including concurrent classes for attendees’ children, the program aims to help close the gap between lower-income or non-traditional students and their higher-income peers by avoiding some of the traditional pitfalls of applying to and attending college, such as standardized exam and application fees, the cost of books and room and board, or the difficulty of balancing education and childcare or full-time work.
Traditionally targeted for vocational degrees, these students will instead immerse themselves in the literary canon—beginning with an introductory course that makes its way from Plato’s Republic to Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women to Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain. Students will enroll in small seminars taught by experienced Bard professors, with full access to the Library’s vast collection to inform their work.
Students will also have access to an array of supplemental resources to support their success, including dedicated classroom and study space, comprehensive financial aid which includes the cost of books, academic support, and personalized guidance services to help them navigate the process of completing their Bachelor’s degrees if they choose.
Bard at Brooklyn Public Library is part of a multifaceted effort to improve college completion rates. The lack of a college degree is traditionally one of the greatest barriers to economic mobility. This dynamic is particularly challenging for families who cannot afford the cost of college tuition, room and board, and textbooks. There is an urgent need for a model that supports these families and levels the academic playing field for all.
Public libraries have long been at the center of local community development, and for decades, Brooklyn Public Library has offered a nexus of enrichment from early childhood education to literacy advocacy and continuing education for seniors. Now, BPL is continuing this work and helping to complete that educational life cycle by working in partnership with one of the most impressive liberal arts institutions in the country to bring top-tier, college level academics out of the ivory tower and into the public sphere.
Similarly, Bard College has a long-standing commitment to bringing high quality education to unlikely places. The pilot Bard Microcollege opened in August 2016 in Holyoke, MA in partnership with The Care Center, an innovative community-based educational organization that serves young mothers living in poverty. The microcolleges are the latest of Bard College’s initiatives providing high-quality college education to students at no cost. The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) is the largest college-in-prison program in the United States, enrolling over 300 students in prisons across New York and cultivating a network of similar programs in fifteen states. Bard also operates early colleges in conjunction with public high school systems in New York, Newark, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Cleveland.
The microcolleges build on the particular success of BPI, replicating its curriculum and expertise in adult learning. Like BPI, Bard at Brooklyn Public Library will create opportunities for academic success through rigorous, small-scale, in-person coursework. Also like BPI, it disrupts expectations about the kinds of students who can and will succeed in college and beyond.
Bard at Brooklyn Public Library is kicking off with a Rethinking Higher Education lectures series, which will also function as an open house for prospective students at Central Library. On October 25, Dr. Robert Fullilove, Associate Dean for Community and Minority Affairs at Columbia University’s School of Public Health, will reflect on his 50 years as an educator and explore the impact of higher education; on October 28, Craig Steven Wilder, Professor of History at MIT, will consider the early history of public education by uncovering the intersection of one of New York’s iconic high schools and the slave trade; on November 4, Daniel Karpowitz, Director of National Programs for BPI, will explore practical educational philosophy in the context of his work taking liberal arts higher education into non-conventional spaces.
Throughout the month of November, the admissions process will occur entirely in-person at Brooklyn Public Library. It requires no standardized exams and no transcripts. Students will be notified in early December and will matriculate in January 2018.
About Brooklyn Public Library
Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) is an independent library system for the 2.5 million residents of Brooklyn. It is the fifth largest library system in the United States with 60 neighborhood libraries located throughout the borough. BPL offers free programs and services for all ages and stages of life, including a large selection of books in more than 30 languages, author talks, literacy programs and public computers. BPL’s eResources, such as eBooks and eVideos, catalog information and free homework help, are available to customers of all ages 24 hours a day at our website: www.bklynlibrary.org.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 park-like acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in more than 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 12 programs; nine early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 157-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit www.bard.edu.