The report from our project on artificial intelligence at Bard College, carried out over the past fifteen months, is now available. Click here to read or download the pdf. This timely project, initially developed in Fall 2024, was designed to address knowledge gaps about how Bard students use and view AI tools. Bard’s Language, Culture and Justice Hub, in collaboration with the Bard Language Center and Department of Anthropology, launched the project in January 2025, after approval by the College’s Institutional Review Board.
Over Spring 2025, a group of seventeen Bard undergraduates, with faculty and staff guidance, undertook ethics and ethnographic training and devised a set of appropriate questions. The researchers then conducted 34 qualitative, one-on-one interviews with their fellow students—selected based on their availability and willingness to participate—which were subsequently transcribed and analyzed. The interviews, lasting between 30 and 60 minutes, covered a range of topics, including the kinds of AI tools typically used, understandings of the nature of AI, reasons for turning to generative AI, the impacts of AI on the Bard learning experience, sense of student control over the technologies, and stigma and shame attached to their use. Both domestic and international students were part of the interviewee pool.
During Summer 2025, a handful of Bard students, under close supervision, further analyzed the transcripts and, over the past six months, finalized the project report. We hope that our study will foster a better understanding of where Bard students stand regarding AI tools in the academic sphere. Ideally, such an understanding will assist the College as it shapes effective and fair policy around AI technologies in the years to come.
Report Authors
Arghawan Bani ‘26
Caroline Der ‘26
Leigh Swigart, Coordinator, Language, Culture and Justice Hub
Research Team
Angel Brito Arias ‘28
Arghawan Bani ‘26
Samira Hussaini ‘25
Sabina Chiva ‘25
Naira Chopra ’25
Caroline Der ‘26 – Project Coordinator
Nia Jorbenadze ‘26
Robin Kaikull ‘26
Liza Eristavi ‘25
Kateryna Panikhina’26
Fatima Rahimi ‘26
Saba Kvinikadze ‘26
George Matitashvili ‘26
Francesca Oppenheimer ‘28
Ángel Ramirez ‘25
Sayed Zubair Sadat ‘26
Keta Tavartkiladze ‘26
Project Supervisors
Stephanie Kufner, Academic Director of the Bard Center for Foreign Languages and Cultures
Laura Kunreuther, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Theresa Law, Assistant Professor of Computer Sciences
Leigh Swigart, Coordinator, Language, Culture and Justice Hub