Engaging BPI students beyond the classroom
A scene from A Passing Life.
Tutoring Fellowship
Tutoring Fellows work with students in a variety of ways: helping read and think about a difficult text; workshopping or talking over ideas; giving feedback on a draft or section of an essay; offering guidance on structure, argument, evidence, or any aspect of their coursework, including study skills. Fellows may be students from the main Bard College campus who come to the prison once a week, or they may be students enrolled within one of the prisons. Each semester, some Fellows are assigned to particular students from a First-Year Seminar or Writing Intensive class, while others function in a drop-in capacity for students in any class.
Debate
BPI’s Debate Union has a record of storied wins against Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Morehouse, University of Cambridge, and most recently Duke University. The team hosted and won its first public-style debate in April 2014 against West Point on the topic of “Should the United States Federal Government invest in a national high speed rail system?”
“The Debate Union has blossomed into a destination for intercollegiate debaters from colleges and universities across the globe looking to engage in competitive debate at the highest level.”
—David Register, Director of Debate
Our Lifetime Record: 12-4
Harvard University
May 2023, Winner: Harvard
Topic: The corporatization of higher education does more harm than good.
Brown University
December 2022, Winner: Bard
Topic: The number of justices on the Supreme Court should be increased.
University of Pennsylvania
April 2021, Winner: University of Pennsylvania
Topic: The United States should provide monetary reparations for Indian boarding schools.
Morehouse
December 2021, Winner: Bard
Topic: The celebration of Malcolm X as an autodidact does more harm than good.
BPI vs. BPI
May 2021, a public-style (virtual) debate in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Topic: Seeing addiction as a disease does more harm than good.
Duke University
November 2019, Winner: Bard
Topic: The United States Federal Government should provide substantial support for clinical trial of human germ-line genome editing.
University of Cambridge
April 2019, Winner: Bard
Topic: All states should have a right to nuclear weapons.
University of Pennsylvania
November 2018, Winner: Bard
Topic: Puerto Rico should be a U.S. state.
West Point
April 2018, Winner: Bard
Topic: The United States should nationalize its water resources.
Morehouse
December 2017, Winner: Bard
Topic: Race-based affirmative action in college and university admissions should be eliminated.
West Point
April 2017, Winner: Bard
Topic: the rapid automation of labor does more harm than good.
Brown
September 2016, Winner: Brown
Topic: the President of the United States should be elected by popular vote.
West Point
April 2016, Winner: Bard
Topic: American corporations should not have constitutional rights.
Harvard
September 2015, Winner: Bard
Topic: Public schools in the United States should have the ability to deny enrollment to undocumented students.
West Point
April 2015, Winner: West Point
Topic: The United States Federal Government should nationalize the pharmaceutical industry.
The University of Vermont
September 2014, Winner: Bard
Topic: NATO should be immediately disbanded.
West Point
April 2014, Winner: Bard
Topic: The United Stated Federal Government should invest in a national high speed rail system.
Acting Ensemble
“Joining the acting ensemble helped me break down barriers of judgment — it allowed me to remove the fear of failure and not worry about what other people thought of me. The activities Professor Tynes led us through allowed me to fully explore my imagination.”
—La-Meik Taylor ’23
Our Productions
A Passing Life
In 2023, the Acting Ensemble wrote, produced, and acted in BPI’s first-ever play production at Eastern Correctional Facility. The play, “A Passing Life,” was the culmination of more than a year’s worth of work by students, who developed the storyline in response to a prompt asking them to reflect on the term “passing.” The story follows “Willie James” as he tries to figure out who am I? Willie James is the head of the local Choral Society and a struggling want-to-be actor. We see how he and those around him explore what it means to “pass” as a different identity in New York City.
Gardens
Students who participate in the Garden acquire knowledge about and hands-on skills related to organic gardening and food production through a combination of workshops in the classroom and outdoor work in the BPI on-site garden. Students learn about soil and plant health, the current conventional agriculture and industrial food systems, organic and other natural methods for growing and producing food, alternative and unconventional garden techniques, and methods for achieving food sovereignty.
Students exposed to a garden throughout the growing season and should be able to start and maintain a garden of their own or find employment on a commercial garden or farm.
