While many people were involved, the four central figures in the founding of Bennington were Vincent Ravi Booth, Mr. and Mrs. Hall Park McCullough, and William Heard Kilpatrick.

[5] A Women's Committee, headed by Mrs. Hall Park McCullough, organized the Colony Club Meeting in 1924, which brought together some 500 civic leaders and educators from across the country.

One of the trustees, John Dewey, helped shape many of the college's signature programs such as The Plan Process and Field Work Term through his educational principles.

[7] President Leigh resigned in 1941, at the age of 50, saying he thought no college should be "shackled by executive leadership gradually growing stale, feeble or lacking in initiative".

Frederick H. Burkhardt, who had been ready to decline an invitation to become president of the college, visited the campus was impressed with the cohesion and support of the community in the face of this tragedy and accepted the offer.

[9] In 1951 the U.S. State Department issued a documentary on Bennington highlighting its unique educational approach as a model for the Allied rebuilding of German society after the War.

[11] The presidency of Gail Thain Parker from 1972 to 1976 was marked by controversy over curriculum reform, affirmative action, and relations between faculty and administration.

Arguing that the college suffered from "a growing attachment to the status quo that, if unattended, is lethal to Bennington's purpose and pedagogy",[13] the board of trustees "solicit[ed] ... concerns and proposals on a wide and open-ended range of issues from every member of the faculty, every student, every staff member, every alumna and alumnus, and dozens of friends of the College.

[14] The results of the process were published in June 1994 in a 36-page document titled Symposium Report of the Bennington College Board of Trustees.

[24] President Coleman responded that the decision was fundamentally "about ideas", stating that "Bennington became mediocre over time" and that the college was in need of radical change.

"[25] In a letter to The New York Times, John Barr, chairman of the board of trustees, asserted that Coleman was "not responsible for the redesign of the college ...

[26] In May 1996, 17 of the faculty members terminated in the 1994 firings filed a lawsuit against Bennington College, seeking $3.7 million in damages and reinstatement to their former positions.

[27] In December 2000, the case was settled out of court; as part of the settlement, the fired faculty members received $1.89 million and an apology from the college.

[34] Notably, Bennington was also featured in a 2016 article by Forbes as one of "Tomorrow's Hot Colleges" highlighting the institution's recent flourishing "under bold, entrepreneurial leadership".

[41] At Bennington, students receive graduate-style advising from a faculty member who assists with course selection, internship and job applications, graduate school preparation, and more.

[44] Field Work Term is a required annual internship program that gives students the opportunity to gain professional experience beyond the classroom before graduating.

Field Work Term experiences often inform students' decisions about career planning and can even lead to job opportunities post graduation.

[46] Bennington college offers the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in multiple disciplines and the Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program.

[53] Core faculty has included fiction writers David Gates, Amy Hempel, Alice Mattison, Jill McCorkle, Rick Moody, Lynne Sharon Schwartz, and Paul Yoon; nonfiction writers Eula Biss, Jenny Boully, Susan Cheever, Melissa Febos, Phillip Lopate, and James Wood; and poets April Bernard, Jennifer Chang, Amy Gerstler, Major Jackson, Timothy Liu, Ed Ochester, Carmen Giménez Smith, Craig Morgan Teicher, and Mark Wunderlich.

[citation needed] Notable alumni of the program include Bill Ayers, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Jasmin Darznik, Amy Gerstler, Tod Goldberg, Nathalie Handal, Erica Hunt, Angela Jackson, Suleika Jaouad, Morgan Jerkins, Molly Jong-Fast, Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Susan Scarf Merrell, Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Ivy Pochoda, Rolf Potts, Jamie Quatro, Mark Sarvas, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, and Sarai Walker.

[citation needed] The MFA in Dance is designed as a two-year, four-term program; however, those who cannot commit to four consecutive terms are encouraged to propose an alternative schedule when applying.

It was a one-year program, beginning and ending in June, and it covered the basic requirements for medical school and other health profession tracks.

Dodge designed Commons, the 12 original student houses, as well as the reconfiguration of the Barn from a working farm building into classrooms and administrative offices.

Anne Ramsey, Actress Faculty has included Wharton and James biographer R. W. B. Lewis, essayist Edward Hoagland, literary critics Camille Paglia and Stanley Hyman (whose wife Shirley Jackson referenced Bennington College in her writing, particularly Hangsaman), rhetorician Kenneth Burke, former United Artists' senior vice-president Steven Bach, novelists Arturo Vivante, Bernard Malamud and John Gardner, trumpeter/composer Bill Dixon, saxophonist and pianist Charles Gayle, composers Allen Shawn, Henry Brant, and Vivian Fine, painters Kenneth Noland, Mary Lum and Jules Olitski, politicians Mansour Farhang and Mac Maharaj, poets Léonie Adams and Howard Nemerov, sculptor Anthony Caro, dancer/choreographer Martha Graham, drummer Milford Graves, author William Butler (author of The Butterfly Revolution), economist Karl Polanyi and a number of Pulitzer Prize-winning and acclaimed poets including W. H. Auden, Stanley Kunitz, Mary Oliver, Theodore Roethke, Donald Hall, and Anne Waldman, and educator Joseph S. Murphy, the future Chancellor of the City University of New York.

Robert Frost lived in the colonial era home in Shaftsbury, VT from 1920 to 1929, during which time he wrote many of his well known works including the poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".

[69] Frost was involved in the founding of Bennington during the 1930s, suggesting the use of narrative evaluations which became a core aspect of the college's academic process.

[69] Camden College, a fictionalized version of Bennington, appears in the works of Bret Easton Ellis, Jill Eisenstadt, and Jonathan Lethem.

[citation needed] Bennington graduate Donna Tartt uses the same Bennington-inspired backdrop for her 1992 novel The Secret History, but for her it is Hampden College.