President Coleman Speaks at TED

President Coleman delivered the closing speech at the 25th annual TED Conference in February 2009, anchoring a lineup that included Al Gore, Bill Gates, Oliver Sacks, and Herbie Hancock. TED brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, challenging them to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. In her talk, President Coleman delivered a call-to-arms for radical reform in higher education.

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7 Capacities You Need to Change the World

Move into new domains, ask the right questions, observe. Bennington students and fellows share seven capacities that will help individuals shape a better world.

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Intersections

How is building a chair like working in government? Where does a movement in music intersect with a social movement? Why does solving climate change involve more than the study of the environment? Bennington students describe the intersections.

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Field Work

Each academic year, students participate in a seven-week, off-campus winter term called Field Work Term (FWT). During each of their four FWTs, students bring their studies to the world, confronting the challenges of implementation firsthand and refining their questions to further shape their on-campus experiences.

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The First Fellows

An Internet pioneer.

A global health policy analyst.

The chief medical officer for the state of Tennessee.

A communications strategist.

The technology advisor to the mayor of Boston.

What brings them all to Bennington?

The College’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action: CAPA.

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A Bennington Legacy

Since its founding in 1932, Bennington College has been a hub for innovators in every field who want to apply their individual talents to addressing global issues of urgent concern.

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CAPA Construction: 2 Years in 2 Minutes

The Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) is a state-of-the-art, green, academic facility that morphs the studio of the artist, the laboratory of a scientist, the workshop of a craftsman, and the think tank of a policy wonk. Designed by award-winning architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, the Center opened in June 2011.

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Center for the Advancement of Public Action

Bennington's Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) invites you to put the world's most pressing problems at the center of your education, or to incorporate it into your work in other disciplines. Poverty, war, the environment, public health crises, the struggle for democracy, even the state of education itself - imagine an education where the problems of the world are your subject matter and doing something about them is your aim.

You can choose to focus your work at Bennington on public action. Under the guidance of your faculty, you develop a Plan that integrates course work and field work, drawing on the full breadth of Bennington's curriculum as well as a range of interdisciplinary courses on understanding the complex variables that define critical public issues and building the capacities necessary to effect lasting change.