This list of notable people associated with Bennington College includes matriculating students,

alumni Alumni (singular: alumnus (masculine) or alumna (feminine)) are former students of a school, college, or university who have either attended or graduated in some fashion from the institution. The feminine plural alumnae is sometimes used for grou ...

, attendees, faculty,

trustees Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, is a synonym for anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility to t ...

, and

honorary degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...

recipients of

Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...

Bennington, Vermont Bennington is a town in Bennington County, Vermont, United States. It is one of two shire towns (county seats) of the county, the other being Manchester. As of the 2020 US Census, the population was 15,333. Bennington is the most populous t ...

Notable alumni

Architecture

Art administration

Aviation

Business

Dance/choreography

Education

Film/theater/television

Government/public service

Journalism/broadcasting

Music

Science/medicine

Sports

Visual arts

Writing

Fictional characters

Notable current faculty

Benjamin Anastas Benjamin Anastas (born 1969) is an American novelist, memoirist, journalist and book reviewer born in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He teaches literature and writing at Bennington College and is on the faculty of the Bennington Writing Seminars MF ...

* April Bernard * Kitty Brazelton * J Stoner Blackwell * Brian Campion *

Susan Cheever Susan Cheever (born July 31, 1943) is an American author and a prize-winning best-selling writer well known for her memoir, her writing about alcoholism, and her intimate understanding of American history. She is a recipient of the PEN New Englan ...

Franny Choi Franny Choi (born February 11, 1989) is an American writer, poet and playwright. Personal life Choi lived in Northampton, Massachusetts and now resides in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Her fascination with poetry began when she was in the third or f ...

Annabel Davis-Goff Annabel Davis-Goff (born 19 February 1942) is an Irish novelist, academic, screenwriter and advocate, active in the United States. Early life Davis-Goff was born to a Protestant family in Ireland to Anglo-Irish parents. Her father was Sir Ern ...

* Michael Dumanis *

Anaïs Duplan Anaïs Duplan (born 1992) is a Haitian writer now based in the U.S., with three book publications from Action Books, Black Ocean Press, and Brooklyn Arts Press, respectively. His work has been honored by a Whiting Award and a Marian Goodman fello ...

* Marguerite Feitlowitz *

Monica Ferrell Shana Monica Ferrell (born November 8, 1975) is an American poet and fiction writer. In 2007, she was awarded the Kathryn A. Morton Prize for her debut book of poems, ''Beasts for the Chase''. Her novel, ''The Answer Is Always Yes,'' was published ...

David Gates David Ashworth Gates (December 11, 1940 – January 5, 2023) was a American singer-songwriter, guitarist, musician and producer, frontman and co-lead singer (with Jimmy Griffin) of the group Bread, which reached the top of the musical charts ...

Mariam Ghani Mariam Ghani (Pashto/Dari: مریم غنی; born 1978) is an Afghan-American visual artist, photographer, filmmaker and social activist. Biography Mariam Ghani was born in 1978 in Brooklyn, New York, of Afghan and Lebanese descent. Her father, Mo ...

Amy Hempel Amy Hempel (born December 14, 1951) is an American short story writer and journalist. She teaches creative writing at the Michener Center for Writers. Life Hempel was born in Chicago, Illinois. She moved to California at age 16, which is whe ...

Sherry Kramer Sherry Kramer is an American playwright, born in Springfield, Missouri.Sherry Kramer Colle ...

Dinah Lenney Dinah Lenney (born Dinah Gross; November 18, 1956, New York City) is an American actress and writer. She is the author of ''Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir'', a 2007 book about the murder of her father, Republican Party politician and business ...

* Jen Liu * Mary Lum * Ann Pibal * Lynne Sharon Schwartz * Allen Shawn * Craig Morgan Teicher * Mark Wunderlich

Notable former faculty

* Kathleen Alcott: novelist *

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

: gave a series of lectures on Shakespeare in the spring of 1946; resided in the Leigh house faculty apartment * Steven Bach *

Ben Belitt Ben Belitt (May 2, 1911 – August 17, 2003) was an American poet and translator. Besides writing poetry, he also translated several books of poetry by Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca from Spanish to English.Eric Bentley Eric Russell Bentley (September 14, 1916 – August 5, 2020) was a British-born American theater critic, playwright, singer, editor, and translator. In 1998, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. He was also a member of the New ...

Henry Brant Henry Dreyfuss Brant (September 15, 1913 – April 26, 2008) was a Canadian-born American composer. An expert orchestrator with a flair for experimentation, many of Brant's works featured spatialization techniques. Biography Brant was born i ...

: composer *

Kenneth Burke Kenneth Duva Burke (May 5, 1897 – November 19, 1993) was an American literary theorist, as well as poet, essayist, and novelist, who wrote on 20th-century philosophy, aesthetics, criticism, and rhetorical theory. As a literary theorist, Burk ...

: critic * Louis Calabro: composer *

Sir Anthony Caro Sir Anthony Alfred Caro (8 March 192423 October 2013) was an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using ' found' industrial objects. His style was of the modernist school, having worked with Henry Moo ...

: British sculptor * Ronald L. Cohen: psychologist * Bernard Cooper; novelist * Nicholas Delbanco: novelist and director of the Bennington Writers' Workshop * Bill Dixon: musician *

Peter Drucker Peter Ferdinand Drucker (; ; November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was an Austrian-American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business co ...

: management guru and writer * Paul Feeley: painter * Francis Fergusson: French scholar and translator * Vivian Fine: composer *

Claude Fredericks Claude Fredericks (October 14, 1923 – January 11, 2013) was an American poet, playwright, printer, writer, and teacher. He was a professor of literature at Bennington College in Vermont for more than 30 years, from 1961 to 1992. In the late 19 ...

: poet *

Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing mo ...

* John Gardner: novelist * Martha Graham: dancer *

Milford Graves Milford Graves (August 20, 1941 – February 12, 2021) was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, Professor Emeritus of Music, researcher/inventor, visual artist/sculptor, gardener/herbalist, and martial artist. Graves was noteworthy for his e ...

: musician * Lucy Grealy: poet and writer *

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...

: art critic and historian *

Richard Haas Richard John Haas (born August 29, 1936) is an American muralist who is best known for architectural murals and his use of the ''trompe-l'œil'' style. Haas has a 1959 B.S. from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and a 1964 M.F.A. from the U ...

: artist * Edward Hoagland: writer *

Stanley Edgar Hyman Stanley Edgar Hyman (June 11, 1919 – July 29, 1970) was an American literary critic who wrote primarily about critical methods: the distinct strategies critics use in approaching literary texts. He was the husband of writer Shirley Jackson. L ...

: literary critic (whose wife

Shirley Jackson Shirley Hardie Jackson (December 14, 1916 – August 8, 1965) was an American writer known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Over the duration of her writing career, which spanned over two decades, she composed six novels, two me ...

used settings in and around Bennington College in her famous short story "

The Lottery ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

") * Susie Ibarra: musician *

Lyman Kipp Lyman Emmet Kipp, Jr. (December 24, 1929 - March 30, 2014) was a sculptor and painter who created pieces that are composed of strong vertical and horizontal objects and were often painted in bold primary colors recalling arrangements by De Sti ...

: sculptor *

Stanley Kunitz Stanley Jasspon Kunitz (; July 29, 1905May 14, 2006) was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000. Biography Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massach ...

: poet *

Ronnie Landfield Ronnie Landfield (born January 9, 1947) is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction (related to Postminimalism, Color Field painting, an ...

: painter, (guest instructor) 1968 *

Mac Maharaj Sathyandranath Ragunanan "Mac" Maharaj (born 22 April 1936 in Newcastle, Natal) is a retired South African politician affiliated with the African National Congress, academic and businessman of Indian origin. He was the official spokesperson ...

: South African politician *

Bernard Malamud Bernard Malamud (April 26, 1914 – March 18, 1986) was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseba ...

: novelist *

Harry Mathews Harry Mathews (February 14, 1930 – January 25, 2017) was an American writer, the author of various novels, volumes of poetry and short fiction, and essays. Mathews was also a translator of the French language. Life Born in New York City to an ...

: poet, novelist, essayist *

Donald McKayle Donald McKayle (July 6, 1930 – April 6, 2018) was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and writer best known for creating socially conscious concert works during the 1950s and '60s that focus on expressing the human con ...

: dancer and choreographer * Roland Merullo: author *

Howard Nemerov Howard Nemerov (March 1, 1920 – July 5, 1991) was an American poet. He was twice Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1988 to 1990. For ''The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov'' (1977) ...

: poet *

Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...

: painter *

Jules Olitski Jevel Demikovski (March 27, 1922 – February 4, 2007), known professionally as Jules Olitski, was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Early life Olitski was born Jevel Demikovsky in Snovsk, in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( ...

: painter *

Mary Oliver Mary Jane Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019) was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary ...

: poet *

Camille Paglia Camille Anna Paglia (; born April 2, 1947) is an American feminist academic and social critic. Paglia has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1984. She is critical of many aspects of modern cultu ...

: critic * Gail Thain Parker President and author. *

Wendy Perron Wendy Perron is an American dancer, choreographer, and teacher who was the editor-in-chief of '' Dance Magazine'' from 2004 to 2013. She is the author of ''Through the Eyes of a Dancer, Selected Writings'', published by Wesleyan University Pres ...

: dancer/choreographer *

John Plumb John Plumb (6 February 1927 – 6 April 2008) was an English abstract painter who emerged in Britain after World War II.* Plumb was born in Luton, England and he attended the Byam Shaw School of Art in London at the age of 20. He also studied ...

: painter *

Mark Poirier Mark Jude Poirier is an American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. He grew up in Tucson, Arizona, the fifth child in a family of eleven children. He lives in New York City with his partner, Edward Cahill. Career He wrote the novel ...

: novelist and short story writer *

Larry Poons Lawrence M. "Larry" Poons (born October 1, 1937) is an American abstract painter. Poons was born in Tokyo, Japan, and studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician. After ...

: painter *

Theodore Roethke Theodore Huebner Roethke ( ; May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963) was an American poet. He is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation, having won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book ''The Wa ...

: poet *

Mary Ruefle Mary Ruefle (born 1952) is an American poet, essayist, and professor. She has published many collections of poetry, the most recent of which, ''Dunce'' (Wave Books, 2019), was longlisted for the National Book Award in Poetry and was a finalist f ...

: poet *

Joel Shapiro Joel Shapiro (born September 27, 1941 New York City, New York) is an American sculptor renowned for his dynamic work composed of simple rectangular shapes. The artist is classified as a Minimalist as demonstrated in his works, which were mostly ...

: New York sculptor * Brando Skyhorse: novelist *

Barbara Herrnstein Smith Barbara Herrnstein Smith (born 1932) is an American literary critic and theorist, best known for her work ''Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory''. She is currently the Braxton Craven Professor of Comparative Lit ...

: professor and author * David Smith: sculptor *

Glen Van Brummelen Glen Robert Van Brummelen (born May 20th, 1965) is a Canadians, Canadian historian of mathematics specializing in historical applications of mathematics to astronomy. In his words, he is the “best trigonometry historian, and the worst trigonometr ...

: historian of mathematics, former president of Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Mathematics: founding faculty member of

Quest University Quest University (officially Quest University Canada) is a private, not-for-profit, secular liberal arts and sciences university. The university opened in September 2007 with an inaugural class of 73. The university has an enrolment of around ...

* Phillip B. Williams: poet *

Isaac Witkin Isaac Witkin (10 May 1936 – 23 April 2006) was an internationally renowned modern sculptor born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Witkin entered Saint Martin's School of Art in London in 1957 and studied under Sir Anthony Caro and alongside artis ...

: sculptor * Robert Woodworth: botanist and pioneer of time-lapse photography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Bennington College People Bennington College people

People by university or college in Vermont