This list of notable people associated with Bennington College includes matriculating students, alumni, attendees, faculty, trustees, and honorary degree recipients of Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont.
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Kevin Alter | 1985 | associate dean for graduate programs, Sid W. Richardson Centennial Professor of Architecture; director of the Summer Academy in Architecture; and associate director of the Center for American Architecture and Design at The University of Texas at Austin | B.A. | |
David Choi | 1996 | principal, CHOIDESIGN + Partners; winner of Coptic Church International Design Contest, Edge as Center Competition | B.A. | |
Judith Munk | artist and designer associated with Scripps Institution of Oceanography | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Deborah Borda | 1971 | president and CEO, the Los Angeles Philharmonic; former president and CEO of the New York Philharmonic | B.A. | |
Dan Cameron | 1979 | former director, visual arts, Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans), Chief Curator of the Orange County Museum of Art | B.A. | |
Kathy Halbreich | 1971 | associate director, The Museum of Modern Art (New York) | B.A. | |
Maren Hassinger | 1969 | director, the Rinehart School of Graduate Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art | B.A. | |
Lindsay Howard | art curator in New York | B.A. | ||
Harvey Lichtenstein | 1953 | chair, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Local Development Corporation; former executive director and president emeritus of the Board of Trustees, Brooklyn Academy of Music | B.A. | |
Matthew Marks | 1985 | founder and owner, Matthew Marks Gallery | B.A. | |
Sharon Ott | 1972 | former artistic director, Seattle Repertory Theater; Tony and Obie Awards; faculty, Savannah College of Art & Design; executive board member, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society | B.A. | |
Virlana Tkacz | 1974 | founding director of Yara Arts Group | B.A. | |
Anne Waldman | 1966 | director and cofounder, Jack Kerouac School, The Naropa Institute; the Dylan Thomas Memorial Prize and NEA fellowships | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Betty Haas Pfister | aviator | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Bruce Berman | 1974 | chairman and CEO, Village Roadshow Pictures; executive producer, The Matrix, Ocean's Eleven, Analyze This, Mystic River, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | B.A. | |
Deborah Borda | 1971 | president and CEO, the Los Angeles Philharmonic; former president and CEO of the New York Philharmonic | B.A. | |
Ashley Gjøvik | 2005 | former Apple Inc. employee; labor activist and whistleblower | [1] | |
Judith Jones | 1945 | vice president and senior editor, Knopf; author of The Tenth Muse: My Life with Food and The Pleasures of Cooking for One | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Liz Lerman | 1969 | choreographer, founder/director, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange; 2002 MacArthur "Genius" Award winner | B.A. | |
Lisa Nelson | 1971 | choreographer; former editor, Contact Quarterly; director of Videoda | B.A. | |
Sara Rudner | 1999 | director of dance, Sarah Lawrence College; former principal dancer, Twyla Tharp Dance; recipient of Bessie Award and Guggenheim grant | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Judith Butler | 1978 | professor and chair of comparative literature and rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley; author, Gender Trouble | B.A. | |
Sheila Miyoshi Jager | 1984 | professor of East Asian Studies at Oberlin College | B.A. | [2] |
Ellen McCulloch-Lovell | 1969 | president, Marlboro College; former deputy assistant to President Clinton | B.A. | |
Sally Liberman Smith | 1950 | founder/director, Lab School, Washington, DC | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Citation |
---|---|---|---|---|
Betty Aberlin | 1963 | actress and poet, Mister Rogers′ Neighborhood | B.A. | |
Alan Arkin | 1955 | actor, director, composer, author; film credits include Catch-22, The Russians Are Coming, Glengarry Glen Ross, Grosse Pointe Blank, The In-Laws, Little Miss Sunshine (Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), Get Smart | B.A. | |
John Billingsley | 1982 | film and television actor with multiple credits, known for his role as Doctor Phlox on the television series Star Trek: Enterprise | B.A. | |
Chris Bowen | 1988 | senior performing director, Blue Man Group; Obie and Drama Desk Awards | B.A. | |
John Boyd | 2003 | actor, Bones, FBI | B.A. | [3] |
Carol Channing | 1942 | Broadway and film actress; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Hello, Dolly!; Golden Globe Award, Academy Award nomination | B.A. | [4] |
Spencer Cox | HIV/AIDS activist | B.A. | ||
Tim Daly | 1979 | actor, Diner, Made in Heaven; TV credits include Witness to the Execution, Wings, The Fugitive, The Sopranos, Private Practice, Madam Secretary; Theatre World and Dramalogue awards | B.A. | |
Peter Dinklage | 1991 | actor; film credits include Living in Oblivion, The Station Agent, Elf, Death at a Funeral, Saint John of Las Vegas, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, X-Men: Days of Future Past; TV credits include Nip/Tuck, 30 Rock, Game of Thrones | B.A. | |
Camelia Frieberg | Canadian film director and producer | B.A. | [5] | |
Mitchell Kriegman | 1974 | Emmy award winning director and writer, The Book of Pooh, Bear in the Big Blue House, Clarissa Explains It All | B.A. | |
Mitch Markowitz | 1975 | screenwriter, Good Morning Vietnam, Crazy People; TV credits include M*A*S*H, Too Close for Comfort, Monk | B.A. | |
Alley Mills | 1973 | The Wonder Years, The Bold and the Beautiful (Emmy and Golden Globe Award) | B.A. | |
Barry Primus | 1960 | actor/director/writer, Cagney & Lacey, The X-Files, LA Law; film credits include The Rose, American Hustle, Mistress, Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death | B.A. | |
Anne Ramsey | 1951 | actress, The Goonies, Throw Momma from the Train (Academy Award nomination, Golden Globe Award nomination, two Saturn Awards) | B.A. | |
Melissa Rosenberg | 1986 | writer/producer; TV credits include The Agency, Boston Public, Dexter; film credits include Step Up, Twilight, New Moon | B.A. | |
Suzanne Shepherd | 1956 | actress; film credits include Working Girl, Goodfellas; TV credits include Law & Order, The Sopranos | B.A. | |
Jonathan Marc Sherman | 1990 | playwright/actor plays written include: Women and Wallace, Things We Want and the musical The Connector | B.A | |
Treva Silverman | 1959 | TV writer, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Room 222, The Monkees, Captain Nice | B.A. | [6][7] |
Rider Strong | 2009 | screenwriter, director, producer: Irish Twins; actor, Boy Meets World | M.F.A. | |
Holland Taylor | 1964 | actress; film credits include To Die For, The Truman Show, One Fine Day; TV credits include Bosom Buddies, The Practice (Emmy Award), Two and a Half Men | B.A. | |
Justin Theroux | 1993 | actor, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Duplex, Mulholland Drive, American Psycho, Tropic of Thunder: Rain of Madness; TV credits include Alias, Sex and the City, Six Feet Under, The Leftovers, John Adams | B.A. | |
Virlana Tkacz | 1974 | theater director | B.A. | |
Jill Wisoff | 1977 | film composer/actor; film credits include Welcome to the Dollhouse, Smart House, Creating Karma | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Citation |
---|---|---|---|---|
Princess Yasmin Aga Khan | 1973 | vice chairman of Alzheimer's and Related Disorders Association; president of Alzheimer's Disease International | B.A. | |
Ujwal Thapa | 2000 | political activist, and co-founder of grassroots political party Bibeksheel Nepali | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Citation |
---|---|---|---|---|
James Geary | 1985 | former deputy editor of TIME magazine, Europe, Middle East, and Africa | B.A. | |
Roger Kimball | 1975 | art critic and conservative social commentator; editor and publisher of New Criterion | B.A. | |
Ted Mooney | 1973 | senior editor, Art in America magazine | B.A. | |
Wendy Perron | 1969 | editor-in-chief, Dance Magazine | B.A. | |
Alec Wilkinson | 1974 | staff writer, The New Yorker; author of eight nonfiction books; Robert F. Kennedy Book Award | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Citation |
---|---|---|---|---|
Chris Barron | 1990 | lead singer, Spin Doctors | B.A. | |
Alex Bleeker | 2008 | member of the band Real Estate and Alex Bleeker and the Freaks | B.A. | |
Mountain Man | indie folk singing trio consisting of Molly Sarlé, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, and Amelia Meath | [8] | ||
Lisa Sokolov | 1976 | jazz vocalist, improviser and composer; originator, Embodied VoiceWork; director, The Institute for Embodied VoiceWork in New York; associate professor, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts | B.A. | |
Michael Starobin | 1979 | orchestrator on Broadway for Sunday in the Park with George, Assassins, Falsettos, Guys and Dolls, King Lear, Visiting Mr. Green, Next to Normal | B.A. | |
Will Stratton | 2009 | singer/songwriter | B.A. | |
Elizabeth Swados | 1973 | composer, writer, director; three-time Obie winner | B.A. | |
James Tenney | 1958 | experimental composer; Roy E. Disney Family Chair in Musical Composition, CalArts | B.A. | |
Joan Tower | 1961 | composer; Asher Edelman Professor of Music, Bard College; Grammy Award recipient | B.A. | |
Susannah Waters | 1986 | soprano, profiled in Opera News; NYC Opera debut 1997 in Handel's Xerxes | B.A. | |
Anthony Wilson | 1990 | composer/arranger, guitarist; toured with Diana Krall | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Citation |
---|---|---|---|---|
Barrie Cassileth | 1959 | Laurance S. Rockefeller Chair in Integrative Medicine, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center | B.A. | |
Joan Hinton | 1942 | nuclear physicist, China activist | B.A. | |
Jennifer Mieres | 1982 | director, nuclear cardiology; associate professor, New York University School of Medicine | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Citation |
---|---|---|---|---|
Martha Rockwell | 1966 | Olympic cross-country skier | B.A. |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Citation |
---|---|---|---|---|
Ralph Alswang | 1987 | official White House photographer, Clinton administration | B.A. | |
Susan Crile | 1965 | painter; faculty, Hunter College | B.A. | |
Helen Frankenthaler | 1949 | painter; pioneer in abstract expressionism | B.A. | |
Anna Gaskell | 1992 | photographer; named as one of three Best and Brightest art photographers in America by Esquire magazine | B.A. | |
Maren Hassinger | 1969 | installation, sculpture, and performance artist also working in video; director of the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art | B.A. | |
Sally Mann | 1973 | photographer; named one of "America's best photographers" by TIME magazine; author, Deep South, Proud Flesh | B.A. | |
Jill Nathanson | painter, color field painting | B.A. | [9] | |
Robert Perkins | poet and artist | B.A. | ||
Anne Poor | painter and war correspondent in World War II | B.A. | ||
Nigel Poor | photographer, podcaster, cofounder of Ear Hustle | B.A. | ||
Tom Sachs | 1989 | installation artist; work appeared in New York Times Magazine, Elle Décor magazine, The New York Post, GQ | B.A. | |
Cosmo Whyte | 2001 | Jamaican-born American sculptor, painter, installation artist, educator | B.A. | [10] |
Marian Zazeela | 1960 | light-artist, designer, painter and musician | B.A. | |
Jane Zweibel | 1981 | painter, mixed media art, sculpture | B.A. | [11] |
Name | Class year | Notability | Degree | Citation |
---|---|---|---|---|
Mohammed Naseehu Ali | 1995 | author; book, The Prophet of Zongo Street | B.A. | |
Claire Blatchford | 1966 | author and deafness advocate; book, Turning: Words Heard from Within | B.A. | |
Carolyn Cassady | 1944 | author; book, Off the Road: My Years with Cassady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg | B.A. | |
Jaime Clarke | 1997 | novelist and editor | MFA | |
Kiran Desai | 1993 | author; books, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (New York Times Notable Book) and Inheritance of Loss (winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize for fiction) | B.A. | |
Gretel Ehrlich | 1967 | author; books, Arctic Heart: A Poem Cycle, Islands, The Universe, Home, This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland, The Future of Ice: A Journey into Cold; Whiting Creative Writing award, Guggenheim fellowship | B.A. | |
Jill Eisenstadt | 1985 | novelist; books, From Rockaway and Kiss Out | B.A. | |
Bret Easton Ellis | 1986 | author; books, Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, Lunar Park, The Informers | B.A. | |
Lynn Emanuel | 1972 | poet; books, Hotel Fiesta, The Dig, Then, Suddenly; National Poetry Series Award, Pushcart Prize, NEA, professor at University of Pittsburgh | B.A. | |
Elizabeth Frank | 1967 | author; Pulitzer Prize for Louise Bogan: A Portrait; Cheat and Charmer: A Novel, Joseph E. Harry Chair in Modern Languages and Literature, Bard College | B.A. | |
M. B. Goffstein | 1962 | author-illustrator; books, Natural History, An Artist, Fish for Supper, Artists' Helpers Enjoy the Evenings, Biography of Miss Go Chi: Novelettos & Poems | B.A. | |
Tod Goldberg | 2009 | author; books, Gangsterland, Living Dead Girl, Other Resort Cities, Burn Notice series | M.F.A. | |
Sandra Hochman | 1957 | poet and novelist, books, Manhattan Pastures, Jogging: A Love Story, Playing Tahoe; 1963 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award | B.A. | |
Katharine Holabird | 1969 | writer; author of Angelina Ballerina books | B.A. | |
Barbara Howes | 1937 | poet; wife of William Jay Smith | B.A. | |
Jonathan Lethem | 1986 | author; books, You Don't Love Me Yet, The Fortress of Solitude, Motherless Brooklyn (National Book Critics Circle Award), 2005 MacArthur "Genius" Award winner, Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, Chronic City, appointed Disney professor of creative writing at Pomona College | B.A. | |
Cynthia Macdonald | 1950 | poet; books, Amputations, (W)holes, I Can't Remember | B.A. | |
Kathleen Norris | 1969 | author of Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, The Cloister Walk, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York Times Notable Book), and Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life; Guggenheim fellowship | B.A. | |
Michael Pollan | 1976 | author; books, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Botany of Desire (New York Times bestseller), Second Nature: A Gardener's Education, and A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder | B.A. | |
Mary Ruefle | 1974 | poet and essayist; books, Madness Rock and Honey (National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist), A Little White Shadow, Among the Musk Ox People; recipient of William Carlos Williams Award | B.A. | |
Eva Salzman | 1982 | poet; books, The English Earthquake, Bargain with the Watchman | B.A. | |
Reginald Shepherd | 1988 | poet, books, Some Are Drowning, Wrong, Otherhood | B.A. | |
Donna Tartt | 1986 | author; 2014 Pulitzer Prize Winner for The Goldfinch; books, The Secret History, The Little Friend | B.A. | |
Anne Waldman | 1966 | poet, books, Marriage: A Sentence, In the Room of Never Grieve, professor at Naropa University | B.A. | |
Thisuri Wanniarachchi | 2016 | author; books, Colombo Streets, The Terrorist's Daughter | B.A. | |
Susan Wheeler | 1977 | poet; books, Smokes, Bag o' Diamonds, Meme; Norma Farber First Book Award and finalist for National Book Award; Director of Creative Writing at Princeton University | B.A. |
Fictional Work | Date | Fictional Person | Degree | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cheers | 1982 | Diane Chambers, a bartender in Boston | B.A. | |
Sinister | ~1992 | The film's protagonist, Ellison Oswalt, a true crime writer, graduated from Bennington. | B.A. | |
V. | 1963 | Rachel Owlglass, a wealthy woman from Long Island's Five Towns, graduated from Bennington. | B.A. |
After earning a BA at Bennington, Silverman landed a job proofreading for Esquire...