Smet Foundation Competitors

For more than 300 years, Yale University has inspired the minds that inspire the world. Based in New Haven, Connecticut, Yale brings people and ideas together for positive impact around the globe. A research university that focuses on students and encourages learning as an essential way of life, Yale is a place for connection, creativity, and innovation among cultures and across disciplines.

Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences with a 150-year history of academic excellence. From a 540-acre parklike campus in the Hudson River Valley, the College offers the bachelor of arts degree with concentrations in nearly 50 academic programs in four divisions: Arts; Languages and Literature; Science, Mathematics, and Computing; and Social Studies. Bard also offers dual-degree options, including a five-year B.A./B.S. degree in economics and finance and the undergraduate program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, in which students earn both a bachelor’s degree in music and a B.A. in another field in the liberal arts or sciences. Over the past 30 years, Bard has broadened its scope beyond undergraduate academics. The College now operates high school programs and graduate programs, and has expanded to encompass a network of regional, national, and global satellites. Bard has built such programs as the Bard Prison Initiative, which grants college degrees to New York State inmates, and the Bard High School Early Colleges, where students earn a high school diploma and an A.A. in four years. Bard’s philosophy sets a standard for both scholarly achievement and engagement in civic and global affairs on campus, while also taking the College's mission to the wider world.

The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, located on 17 acres overlooking the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., is America's living memorial to President Kennedy as well as the nation's busiest arts facility. The Center, which opened on September 8, 1971, continues its efforts to fulfill President Kennedy's vision by producing and presenting an unmatched variety of theater and musicals, dance and ballet, orchestral, chamber, jazz, popular, world, and folk music, and multimedia performances for all ages.