iile.bard.eduBard Institute for International Liberal Education

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Get Involved Engaged Learning Student Leadership Grow Your Network About CCE Our Partners Newsroom sub-menu News + Events News + Events Newsroom Events Calendar Video GalleryPress Releases Office of Communications Special Events Open House for Accepted StudentsCommencement Weekend Alumni/ae ReunionCommencement + Reunion Fisher Center + SummerScape Family and Alumni/ae Weekend Athletic Events Join the Conversation About Bard sub-menu About Bard About Bard College Bard History Campus Tours Employment Visiting Bard Support Bard Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Sustainability Title IX and Nondiscrimination Board of Trustees Bard Abroad Open Society University Network The Bard Network Give Search Search The Institute for International Liberal Education Photo credit: AnnAnn Puttithanasorn ’23 IILE Menu IILE Menu Home Support for Afghan Students Ukrainian Student Refuge Program Eurasian Student Refuge ProgramCommunity Science Lab Water Quality AnalysisThe Institute for International Liberal Education (IILE) was formed at Bard in 1998. Its mission is to advance the theory and practice of international liberal arts education. We believe that international educational partnerships must be based on mutuality and equality, and that it is important for international exchange to occur at the undergraduate level. Our Mission Our long-term partnerships are characterized by the exchange of students, faculty, and curricular elements. Comprehensive exchanges afford the best possibility for the participants, both in and out of the classroom, to enter into direct, sustained dialogue on intellectual and cultural issues–precisely the kind of international dialogue that is needed to respond to the global challenges of the 21st century. Unlike the unilateral exchanges” of the past, such substantive academic partnerships foster mutual respect and understanding and enrich learning and teaching for all students and faculty at Bard and participating institutions, not just those individuals who go abroad themselves. The Institute does not seek to export American models and methods. Rather, our aim is to create dynamic relationships through which we and our partner institutions learn from each others’ ideas and experience. What We Do International Student and Scholar Services Bard Abroad Programs Open Society University Network Visiting and Exchange Students Bard Study Abroad Support for Afghan Students IILE Staff Who We Are Jen Murray , Dean of International Studies and Director, IILE and Bard Abroad Trish Fleming , Study Abroad Adviser, IILE Lauren Cooke , Berlin Programs Manager, Bard Abroad Tatiana Orlova , Eurasians Program Manager, Bard Abroad Gillian Brundrett , Assistant to the Dean and Financial Coordinator, IILE Dylan Short , International Program Assistant, IILE Carmen Smith , OSUN Student Mobility Manager Stephen Mattos , Director of Visa and Immigration Services, OISSS Manishka Kalupahana, Senior International Student Adviser, OISSS Abbie Swartvagher , Assistant International Student and Scholar Advisor, OISSS and Afghan Student Support Fellow, IILE More about the IILE Our History Our History × Our History Bard’s involvement in international education was stimulated by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Over time, we have expanded our interests and partnership programs from Eastern and Central Europe to Southern Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. In 1991, we began sponsoring undergraduate students who came to Bard from Eastern and Central Europe as part of the Program in International Education (PIE), which continues to this day. For a remarkable number of these young people, the nature of learning at Bard was the most profound experience of a transformative year. They encouraged us to explore possibilities for collaboration with institutions abroad that were interested in educational reform. When faculty members from St. Petersburg State University (SPbU) approached Bard after the end of the Soviet Union, we joined together to initiate the joint venture that would become the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences (FLAS - Smolny). Smolny offers a dual B.A. degree in liberal arts from Bard and SPbU. U.S. undergraduates also apply through IILE to participate in the Bard-Smolny program, which offers the unique opportunity to study abroad in liberal arts classrooms with Russian students. The overthrow of Apartheid inspired us to expand our reach to South Africa and Zimbabwe. In 2000 we created the International Human Rights Exchange (IHRE). Originally a summer program run by a partnership of 13 Southern American universities and American liberal arts colleges, IHRE became a semester program jointly offered by Bard and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. At the time, IHRE was the only semester-long multidisciplinary human rights program in the world. IHRE is now available directly through the University of Witwatersrand. In 2008, we were approached about the possibility of forging a partnership with Al-Quds University in Palestine. We gladly accepted, hoping to make a concrete contribution to peaceful development and a just solution to the problems of the Middle East. The Al-Quds Bard partnership is becoming Bard’s most comprehensive international partnership to date. It includes the creation of the a liberal arts college within Al-Quds University, a Master of Arts in Teaching Program (the first in the region), and a model school. In 2009, Bard signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the American University of Central Asia (AUCA) that commits Bard and AUCA to offering a dual B.A. degree. AUCA, which is located in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, was founded in 1997 and has 1,300 students. Instruction is in English. This partnership offers opportunities for students from North American colleges and universities to spend a semester or a year at AUCA as visiting exchange students. Bard and AUCA have also collaborated on a successful summer practicum program, Development, Sustainability, and Conflict: Contemporary Issues in Central Asia. The Institute, acting as Bard Abroad, also administers direct exchanges of students with several leading international universities and language intensives for undergraduates. In 2002, the Institute became home to Words Without Borders , an online translation journal that opens doors to international exchange through translation of the world’s best writing. Words Without Borders also serves as an advocacy organization for literature in translation and supports high school teachers who desire to incorporate the literature and culture of other countries into their lesson plans. In 2006, we undertook the creation of the first comprehensive dictionary of the Igbo language, in partnership with the Chinua Achebe Foundation. Additional activities have included conferences on Translation as Cultural Transmission. Toward a Politics and Poetics of Translation.” (1989), Accounting for Atrocities. Prosecuting War Crimes Fifty Years After Nuremberg” (1998), and The Hungarian...