Design Matters

Elizabeth Coleman has been the ninth president of Bennington College since 1987. Her vision for the liberal arts and their role and reinvigoration in society has been widely recognized in the United States and abroad. She speaks nationally and internationally, and in 2009 delivered the concluding presentation at the 25th anniversary TED Conference. Prior to assuming the presidency at Bennington, Coleman was the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and a professor of humanities at the New School for Social Research in New York, where she founded and directed the school's first ventures in undergraduate education, and a professor of literature at SUNY-Stony Brook. She received her doctorate from Columbia, her master's degree from Cornell, and bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago.