Since its founding in 1999 as the European College of Liberal Arts, ECLA has provided liberal arts education in a diverse, international community, dedicated to sound scholarship, collaboration, and dialogue, with an emphasis on personal growth, set in one of Europe’s most vibrant and rapidly developing capital cities - Berlin.

These principles of international community and personal growth have been embedded in the structure of ECLA since its birth, and now as part of Bard College, ECLA of Bard is experiencing its own exciting period of growth and inclusion into Bard’s international community. The Bard community is a worldwide network of institutions with campuses in the United States; West Bank; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; Budapest, Hungary; and St. Petersburg, Russia. ECLA of Bard joins Bard College’s well-established tradition of advancing international liberal education.

ECLA of Bard welcomes inquisitive minds open to an experience that goes beyond earning a professional qualification. In the words of ECLA of Bard’s Rector and Provost, Prof. Dr. Thomas Rommel: “Studying at ECLA of Bard promises more than excellent academics; it provides genuine Bildung—a process of self-reflection, which is education in the broadest sense.”