The Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC)

In 2015 we established the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC), a scholarship program that is aimed at young, promising, strong-willed individuals from regions of crisis or conflict. The extreme indignity and ruthlessness that define our times call for a new and resolute generation of citizens who are committed to initiate change – idealistic and impactful change that is targeted toward increasing the communal well-being instead of the individual being well-off.

Since 2015, Bard College Berlin has been able to award 55 four-year scholarships to Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan, Palestinian, Greek, Brazilian and Eritrean students. This number makes up ten percent of the total student body of the college. In light of the jarring worldwide figures of displaced people, 55 does seem a negligible number but in comparison to the number of refugees actually entering BA programs either in Europe or abroad, it is a remarkable achievement. The PIESC students enroll in one of the two available curricular tracks and at the end of four years, students who meet the requirements graduate with a dual American and German BA degree.

The aim of the program is to contribute to a new generation of change agents and multipliers that are needed not only in the regions of crisis where the students originate from, but also in Europe and the “West” at large. We want to educate the future politicians, journalists, teachers, entrepreneurs, artists and intellectuals that are able to act locally in a concentrated and pragmatic way all the while being driven and informed by intercultural and interdisciplinary thinking. Only this mode of thought and action can succeed in translating and mediating between the fronts of our conflict-ridden world.