Word: bard
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Case, in spite of some of his faculty, is not interested in experimenting much more with Bard. Rather, it is his concern to polish up and stabilize the present program. Size, again, is perhaps his main problem. He has had direct experience with it in trying to direct Bard's Glee Club. Describing his students as "individuals over-fascinated with their own idiosyncrasies," Case outlined the need for bringing a large group of "normal" students onto the campus to give it stability...
Case is exploring the possibilities of relating Bard with other colleges. After existing as St. Stephen's College from its founding in 1860, Bard joined with Columbia University in 1928, changing its name to Bard in 1934. But in 1944 Bard again became independent. Now, after ten years Case affirms that the independence has not worked well. "At present, still in the first decade as an independent college, I doubt that Bard's existence can be sustained at the present level of operation," he said. He believes, however, that possibilities of relations with other colleges "offer mutually beneficial results, educationally...
...main modification of the present educational system at Bard in mind at present is a possible synthesis or evaluation of the college education during the senior year. To Case, this brings up a considerable problem in the indefiniteness of his task and of the Bard method in general. "Golly," he exclaims, "How the hell can you measure an education?" Notwithstanding this, he says that Bard will probably begin to use graduate record examinations as one of many tests to evaluate students' work; he does not, however, expect Bard students to fare particularly well in the exams...
Essentially the problems which face Bard today are the same as those which faced Cannon Bernard Iddings Bell, the last Warden of St. Stephen's College, and which brought him to work for a union of the college with Columbia. "We believe," he said, "the day of the small college, independent of the university, definitely to be over. Some of the well-endowed and fashionable ones may go on living for years, decades, but they will be fewer and fewer and eventually even the wealthiest of them are likely to disappear...
Perhaps Bell's statement is predictive. Bard is neither well-endowed nor fashionable. It has been existing as an independent college--independent both from the Episcopal Church which founded it and from Columbia University which took it over--for only one decade. There are today more signs of decadence than of renaissance.Bard's seminars are informal, intimate discussions in which the student participates on the same level as the professor. In spring they move outside onto the spacious lawns overlooking the Hudson...