September 2020 | Students Develop Art Commission for U.S. Consulate in Thailand
April 2017 | Theaster Gates
November 2017 | Empty Bowls
June 2016 | True North
2014-2015 | Cities Art Forum
September 2014 | Art in Embassies: Oslo Project
March 2014 | Participating in Politics: Art, Anthropology, & Advocacy in Afghanistan

Environment and Public Action

Clean Water

September 2019 | Protecting Our Ponds, Lakes, Rivers, and Drinking Water
November 2018 | Water Film Festival
September 2017 | Clean Water: What Will it Take to Clean the Waters of Vermont?
2016 | Paran Creek Watershed Project
November 2015 | Vermont Water Forum
April 2012 | The Water Dialogues

Climate Change

April 2021 | White Nationalism from Trumpism and Beyond
April 2021 | Root and Branch: Climate Migration, Racial Crises, and the History and Future of Climate Justice
March 2021 | CAPA Interview Series: Carmen Yulín Cruz
November 2019 | Climate Change and the American South
November 2019 | Climate Change and Human Rights
October 2019 | Governing in the Era of Climate Change
September 2019 | Agriculture and a Changing Climate
September 2019 | Vermont's Changing Climate: What to Expect and How to Prepare
March 2018 | Our Impending Crisis: Climate Change, Failing Elites, and Economic Transformation
April-May 2015 | Climate, Capitalism, Creativity
September 2014 |Climate Change: Our Shared Home

Energy Efficiency

September 2019 | Vermont's Energy Future
December 2016 | The Paran Creek Watershed Project Feasibility Study Presentation for Hydropower
September 2015 | Vermont's Energy Future
April 2015 | Bennington Contractor Meeting on Energy Efficiency
April 2015 | Energy Efficiency Training for Students and Homeowners
October 2014 | Film Screening and Panel Discussion: "DamNation"
2013 | LED Project

Environmental Protection

October 2018 | Form-Based Standards for Municipal Land Use Planning: A Public Workshop with Randall Arendt
March 2018 | POSTPONED–The Trump Assault on Environmental Protection and What You Can Do About It
May 2017 | Chicago Environment Conference
May 2017 | Breaking Away
May 2017 | Living In and Against Planetary Crisis
May 2017 | The Storms Already Among Us
May 2017 | Between the Planetary and the Personal
May 2017 | Sensing an Unruly Beyond

Food Security and Justice

October 2020 | Gather: The Fight to Revitalize our Native Foodways
October 2020 | Storage Crops
September 2020 | Community Gardens and Gentrification in New York City: Appropriation and Resistance
September 2020 | Fall Preparations for Winter Gardens
August 2020 | Food Preservation
May 2020 | Resilience Gardening in Bennington
April 2020 | Local Farmer Responses to COVID-19
April 2020 | POSTPONED–Bennington Food Summit on Relocalization
February 2020 | Forgotten Farms: Film Screening and Panel Discusssion
November 2019 | Uprooting Racism in the Food System
September 2018 | Food And Social Justice
April 2017 | Bennington Seed Fest
2017 | Empty Bowls
November 2016 | Empty Bowls Event

Plastic Pollution

March 2020 | Frontline's Plastic Wars
October 2018 | Turning our Oceans into Landfills: The Growing Problem of Plastic Pollution

PFOA, PFAS, and Pesticides

April 2020 | Norlite: Press Release and Fact Sheet
April 2020 | Norlite: Map of Sample Sites
April 2020 | Norlite: Full Laboratory Results
April 2020 | Norlite: Audio of News Conference
October 2018 | The Environmental and Health Impacts of Herbicides and Pesticides
August 2018 | PFOA Research: Press Release
August 2018 | PFOA Research: Fact Sheet
August 2018 | PFOA Research: Community Health Questionnaire
December 2018 | Film Screening: "The Devil We Know"
May 2017 | Taconic Mountain Student PFOA Conference
November 2016 | PFOA Series: Chris Higgins
October 2016 | PFOA Series: Gloria Post
October 2016 | PFOA Series: Dr. Joyce Donohue, EPA
April 2016 | Non-stick Stain Repellent Chemicals: A Poisoned Legacy

Human Rights and Peacebuilding

Bennington Translates

November 2019 | Translation to Save Your Life: Matt Zeller and Janis Shenwary
September 2019 | Translators Without Borders: Language as a Means of Survival in Humanitarian Crisis
April 2018 | A Writer in Egypt: Basma Abdel Aziz in Spring 2018 Consortium Convening
April 2018 | Conversation with Elisabeth Jaquette
April 2018 | Diasporic Translations: A Conversation with Katrina Dodson
February 2018 | Translating the Classics
November 2017 | Imagining Arabic Literature Beyond Politics
November 2017 | Locating and Translating New World Blacknesses
May 2017 | Ancestors
March 2017 | Translation and Autobiography: Augustine, Rousseau, Solzhenitsyn
March 2017 | Ruth Ewing Lecture Presents: Esther Allen
April 2016 | The Power of Language to Save Lives
April 2016 | Translating Catastrophe: Yiddish Translation After the Wars
March 2016 | The Dakota Prisoner of War Letters
March 2016 | Publishing the World: Words without Borders
May 2015 | Bennington Translates: Jeffrey Yang
April 2015 | Bennington Translates: Eduardo Berinstein
March 2015 | Bennington Translates: Luke Mogelson and Habib Zahori
March 2015 | Bennington Translates: Chad Post and Jennifer Zoble
March 2015 | Bennington Translates: Marjorie Bancroft
March 2015 | Bennington Translates: Ellen Elias-Bursac

Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement and Education

April 2021 | White Nationalism from Trumpism and Beyond
April 2021 | Root and Branch: Climate Migration, Racial Crises, and the History and Future of Climate Justice
March 2021 | CAPA Interview Series: Carmen Yulín Cruz
September 2019 | Translators Without Borders: Language as a Means of Survival in Humanitarian Crisis
May 2019 | Addressing the Mental Health Consequences of Fleeing Persecution and Seeking Refuge
April 2019 | The Kurdish Youth Immigration to the U.S.: Legal Aspects
March 2019 | Destitution Economies of Migration Control: Poverty, Legality, and the Production of Value
March 2019 | Four Ways to Think About Forced Migration
April 2018 | Spring 2018 Consortium Convening
April 2018 | A Writer in Egypt: Basma Abdel Aziz in Spring 2018 Consortium Convening
March 2018 | Tracking Hate and Nativism: The Southern Poverty Law Center and Non-Violent Resistance
November 2017 | Dignity, Compassion, and Action: In Conversation with Saria Samakie
November 2017 | The Peace Petition and the Academic Purge in Turkey
November 2017 | The ABCs of Immigration
October 2017 | Immigration: Policy and Practice

Human Rights

March 2020 | Conversation About Diversity and Racial Justice in Vermont
November 2019 | Uprooting Racism in the Food System
November 2019 | Climate Change and Human Rights
October 2019 | The Great Transformation at 75
Fall 2014–2018 | CAPA Leadership Institute
March 2014 | Rebecca Tinsley: 20 Years Since Rwanda Genocide

Incarceration in America

October 2019 I Incarceration in America Conference
April 2019 | Freeing the Mind and Building a Future: The Role and Future of the Liberal Arts in Prison Education
May 2018 | Incarceration in America: Immigration Detention
October 2017 | Incarceration in America: Prison Education and Reform in Vermont
May 2017 | Incarceration Conference
April 2017 | The Future of Higher Education in Prison
November 2016 | Film Screening and Panel Discussion: "13th"
September 2016 | Women's Community Justice Project
October 2015 | Incarceration in America Forum
May 2015 | Effecting Change Conference
March 2015 | The Castle
October 2014 | Incarceration in America Conference
2014-2015 | Incarceration Taskforce
April 2015 | Think Tank: Higher Education in Prisons
April 2014 | 40 Years Later: Rightsizing the United States Criminal Justice System

Peacebuilding

November 2019 | Translation to Save Your Life: Matt Zeller and Janis Shenwary
March 2019 | Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Mass Atrocity
March 2019 | Film Screening: "Welcome to Refugeestan"
April 2019 | The Role Of Memory and Memorialization in Atrocity Prevention
2015-2018 | CAPA Improvisation Archive
April 2012 | The Water Dialogues

Other Projects & Events

April 2019 | Addressing Stigma and the Social Determinants of Opioid Substance Use Disorder
2015 | Armenian Genocide Commemoration
2014 - 2020 | GANAS

Progressive Education

Events and Conferences

April 2018 | Spring 2018 Consortium Convening
December 2017 | Interview with Jordan Thomas '92
November 2017 | The Peace Petition and the Academic Purge in Turkey
May 2017 | Taconic Mountain Student Water Conference: PFOA
November 2016 | Davis Project for Peace Presentation
October 2016 | Peacebuilding In Action Panel Discussion
September 2016 | VT Legislative Forum: Act 77
September 2016 | Reunion/Improvisation Discussion and Screening
October 2015 | Education Forum on Act 46
May 2015 | Towards an Ethnography of Experimental Psychology
April 2015 | CAPA Fellow Convening
April 2015 | Corporate Science
March 2015 | Rowland Foundation Conference on Education
2015 | Southern Bennington County Educational Assets Map
2014-2015 | Bennington Kid's Gym
September 2014 | CAPA Leadership Institute
November 2013 | CAPA Fellow Convening
September 2013 | TEDxBennington
September 2012 | 05201 Marathon
September-October 2011 | CAPA Opening Weekend

Teaching Languages and Cultures in K-6

Started in 2013, this program set up advanced Bennington students of Spanish, French, and Chinese to provide weekly language instruction to students pre-K through 6th grade at the Village School of North Bennington (VSNB). Learn more here.

Vermont Act 77

Based on the original and ongoing pedagogy related to the Plan Process at Bennington College, CAPA was asked by the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union to join a committee to work with them on the policy and implementation of Act 77 in the public schools in Bennington, VT. Learn more here.

Regenerative and Resilient Communities

Addressing Food Insecurity in Bennington County

In spring 2019, Bennington College was awarded $1 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to launch a three-year collaborative effort with local partners to address the systemic causes of food insecurity in Bennington County. Read more

Related Events

May 2022 | Food Summit

Quantum Leap

Founded in 1999 by Bennington College faculty members Susan Sgorbati and Daniel Michaelson, Quantum Leap addressed concerns regarding the lack of academic engagement in the population of local elementary, middle, and high school students. Learn more

Newsletter Archives

2024

2023

Past Public Policy Forums and Events

2022

3/24/22 - COVID: An Update
Fall 2022 - Public Health in our Community
10/20/22 - A Lifetime of Public Service

2021

Fall 2022 - January 6 Project

2019

9/5/19 - Vermont's Changing Climate: What to Expect and How to Prepare
9/12/19 - Vermont's Energy Future
9/19/19 - Protecting Our Ponds, Lakes, Rivers, and Drinking Water
9/26/19 - Agriculture and a Changing Climate
10/3/19 - Governing in the Era of Climate Change
10/10/19 - College Campuses and Our Responsibilities to Mitigate and Prepare

2018

See full list here.

9/6/18 - Public Policy and How to Make Social Change
9/13/18 - Powers and Limitations of State Government Today
9/20/18 - Gender and Race in America
9/27/19 - Food and Social Justice
10/4/18 - The Environmental and Health Impacts of Herbicides and Pesticides
10/11/18 - The Trump Administration's Foreign Policy Priorities
10/18/18 - Turning Our Oceans into Landfills: The Growing Problem of Plastic Pollution
10/25/18 - Democracy Under Siege: Howard Dean
11/1/18 - What Everyone Needs to Know about the Constitution
11/8/18 - How We Got Here: Women in the Era of Trump

2017

10/12/17 - Media and Democracy: Rights and Responsibilities of a Free Press
10/10/17 - Incarceration in America: Prison Education and Reform in Vermont
10/5/17 - Foreign Policy: International Affairs in the Era of Trump
9/28/17 - The Healthcare Debate: Current Issues
9/21/17 - Clean Water: What Will it Take to Clean the Waters of Vermont?
9/14/17 - States' Rights: The Struggle Between the President and the States

2016

CAPA's Vermont Legislative Series forums addressed policies and recent bills passed in the Vermont legislature; topics included The Vermont Renewable Energy bill (Act 56), the Vermont Education bill (Act 46), the Vermont Clean Water bill (Act 64), Student-Centered Learning (Act 77), and Building a Healthy Bennington. These forums were created for the Bennington College community and for the citizens of the Town of Bennington and the Village of North Bennington communities, with the goal of educating students and the public about current restructuring of educational governance and the current policies around energy, water, education, health, and more in the state.