Bernard F. Rodgers, Jr. Vice President and Dean of
Simon's Rock College, also an English professor. B.S.,
magna cum laude,
Mount Saint Mary's College; M.A.,
University of Bridgeport;
Ph.D.,
University of Chicago.
Dr. Rodgers has been a vice president of Bard College and the dean of Simon's Rock since 1987; he came to Simon's Rock as Dean of Academic Affairs in 1985. Before coming to Simon's Rock, he was special assistant to the chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, an assistant director of the Commission of Institutions of Higher Education of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, and an assistant professor of English and humanities and chair of the College Acceleration Program of City Colleges of Chicago - a program that offered courses for college credit to high school seniors. In Chicago he was a lecturer, evaluator, and consultant for projects sponsored by the NEH, the Illinois Humanities Council, and the Chicago Public Library. He began his career as a teacher of English and director of drama at Somers Central High School in Westchester County, NY. He was awarded a Ford Foundation dissertation fellowship while at the University of Chicago and spent 1979-1980 as a Fullbright Senior Lecturer in American Literature in Lublin,: Poland.
Dr. Rodgers is the author of Philip Roth (Twayne United States Authors Series, 1978) and Philip Roth: A Bibliography (Scarecrow Press, 1974; revised and expanded edition, 1984). His essays and reviews on modern and contemporary American literature and culture, as well as on writers such as Aharon Appelfeld, Milan Kundera, Czeslaw Milosz, and Salman Rushdie, have been published in the Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual, Magill's Literary Annual, Magill's Survey of World Literature, Masterplots II, Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction, Chicago Review, the Chicago Tribune, Illinois Issues, the Berkshire Eagle, and The World & I, and broadcast on WBBM-AM and WNIB-FM in Chicago.
Dr. Rodgers has served as a member of the board of directors of the Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce, chair of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, vice president of the board of trustees of Fairview Hospital, a corporator of the Berkshire Museum and Berkshire Health Systems, and a visiting team chair for the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
Bernie also teaches a damn fine Sophmore Seminar class.