Bennington regards education as a sensual and ethical, no less than an intellectual, process. It seeks to liberate and nurture the individuality, the creative intelligence, and the ethical and aesthetic sensibility of its students, to the end that their richly varied natural endowments will be directed toward self-fulfillment and toward constructive social purposes. We believe that these educational goals are best served by demanding of our students active participation in the planning of their own programs, and in the regulation of their own lives on campus. Student freedom is not the absence of restraint, however; it is rather the fullest possible substitution of habits of self-restraint for restraint imposed by others.”

The principle of learning by practice underlies every major feature of a Bennington education: the teacher-practitioner model of teaching; the requirement that students direct the course of their own education; the winter Field Work Term, which gives students work experience and connects them to the greater community.

The College's commitment to learning across the disciplines extends to the faculty, who teach what is uppermost in their minds, exploring new pursuits as well as ongoing areas of study and work. Bennington is grounded in the conviction that as a college education develops students' professional capacities, it should also prepare them to be deeply thoughtful and actively engaged citizens of the world.