Barnard College
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Barnard College |
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| Motto | "Hepomene toi logismoi" (Following the Way of Reason) |
| Established | 1889 |
| Type | Private |
| Endowment | $159 million |
| President | Judith Shapiro |
| Faculty | 319 |
| Undergraduates | 2,356 |
| Postgraduates | 0 |
| Location | New York City, NY, USA |
| Campus | Urban |
| Colors | Blue and white |
| Mascot | Millie, the dancing Barnard Bear |
| Athletics | 15 varsity teams |
| Website | barnard.edu |
Barnard College, founded in 1889, is a leading liberal arts college and the most sought after women's college. Located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City. Barnard is affiliated with Columbia University, and it maintains an independent campus, faculty, administration, trustees, operating budget, and endowment.
The four acre (16,000 m²) campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets, adjacent to Columbia's campus, and has been used by Barnard since 1898. The neighborhood is sometimes called the Academic Acropolis; as well as being on a hill, the area is home to numerous academic institutions including the Bank Street College of Education, Jewish Theological Seminary, Manhattan School of Music, Teachers College, and Union Theological Seminary.
Barnard is a member of the group of women's colleges known as the Seven Sisters.
General information
Barnard College is an established Seven Sisters college and maintains an affiliation with Ivy League Columbia University. Barnard's original 1889 home was a rented brownstone at 343 Madison Avenue, where a faculty of six offered instruction to 14 students in the School of Arts, as well as to 22 "specials," who lacked the entrance requirements in Greek and so enrolled in science. In 1900, Barnard was included in the educational system of Columbia University, but it continued to be independently governed, while making available to its students the instruction, the library, and the degree of the University. Under the terms of the affiliation, Barnard students are awarded a University degree which carries both the Barnard and Columbia seals and is signed by the presidents of both institutions. Barnard currently pays an annual fee to Columbia to maintain the affiliation.
The College gets its name from Frederick A.P. Barnard (1809-89), an American educator and mathematician, who served as then-Columbia College's president from 1864 to 1889. Frederick Barnard advocated equal educational privileges for men and women (preferably in a coeducational setting). The school's founding, however, is largely due to the determined efforts of Annie Nathan Meyer, a talented student and writer who was not satisfied with what she saw as Columbia's half-hearted, token effort to educate women.
Meyer later wrote: "I confess to a pride in having defended the affiliated college at a time when it was neither popular or understood. To me nothing in the education of women mattered so much as the creation of right standards, and this was effected by the establishment of the affiliated college. My faith was surely justified, for in 1891 I was happy to proclaim (to the Council of Women in Washington) as an established fact: 'Barnard College is Columbia.'"[citation needed]
Barnard College was one of the Seven Sisters founded to provide an education for women comparable to that of the Ivy League schools, which (with the exception of Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania) only admitted men for undergraduate study into the 1960s. Barnard was the sister school of Columbia College, one of the undergraduate schools of Columbia University. Columbia College began admitting women in 1983 after a decade of failed negotiations with Barnard for a merger along the lines of the one between Harvard College and Radcliffe College. Today, Barnard is the most selective of the five Seven Sisters that remain single-sex in admissions. Barnard has an independent faculty and board of trustees. Most of the school's classes and activities, however, are open to all members of Columbia University, male or female, in a reciprocal arrangement to benefit the academic and social life of the entire University community[1].
Admissions
Admissions to Barnard College is highly competitive.[2] U.S. News & World Report classifies its selectivity as "most competitive." For the class of 2010, Barnard College admitted 25.5% of those who applied. The median ACT score was 30, while the median combined SAT score was 2100. Barnard's application includes several required essays.
Culture and student life
Student organizations
Every Barnard student is part of the Student Government Association (SGA), which elects a representative student government. Students serve with faculty and administrators on college committees and help to shape policy in a wide variety of areas.
Student groups include theatre and vocal music groups, language clubs, literary magazines, a weekly news magazine called the Barnard Bulletin, community service groups, and others. Barnard students can also join extra-curricular activities or organizations at Columbia; Columbia students are allowed in most, but not all, Barnard organizations.
Traditions
- The Midnight Breakfast takes place the night before finals begin every year.
- On Spirit Day, the deans serve ice cream to students and the whole student body celebrates. The school sells the popular "I Love BC" T-shirts, and gives out free Barnard goodies.
- At the Fall Festival, cider and caramel apples are served.
- During the fall semester, students help to construct--and then quickly devour--a mile-long sandwich known as THE BIG SUB.
- In the spring of each year, Barnard holds the Greek Games, which brings together each class for friendly competition.
Athletics
Barnard athletes compete in the NCAA Division I and the Ivy League through the Columbia/Barnard Athletic Consortium. There are 15 intercollegiate teams, and students also compete at the intramural and club levels.
Scandals and controversies
In March 1968, The New York Times ran an article on students who cohabited, identifying one of the persons they interviewed as a student at Barnard College from New Hampshire named "Susan". Barnard officials searched their records for coeds from New Hampshire and were able to determine that "Susan" was really 20 year old Linda LeClair, who was living with 20 year old Peter Behr, a student at Columbia University. She was called before Barnard's student-faculty-administration judicial committee and faced the possibility of expulsion. The student protest took the form of 300 other Barnard coeds signing a petition admitting that they too had broken the regulations. In the end, the judicial committee compromised: Leclair would be allowed to remain in school, but would be denied use of the college cafeteria and barred from all social activities. LeClair briefly became a focus of intense national attention.[3]
A minor national controversy grew around the issue of granting tenure to Nadia Abu El Haj, an anthropology professor. Critics allege that her book, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, denies the existence of the ancient Israelite kingdoms.
Nine Ways of Knowing
There is a program of required courses for graduation termed the Nine Ways of Knowing. Requirements include one course in each of the following disciplines: Social Analysis, Cultures in Comparison, Historical Studies, Reason and Value, Quantitative and Deductive Reasoning, Visual and Performing Arts, and Literature. Each student is also required to take two courses in one Laboratory science, and study a language through the fourth semester.
Notable alumnæ, faculty & medalists
This article includes lists of Barnard College alumnæ, faculty and medalists exclusively. For a full list of individuals associated with Columbia University and its affiliates see the List of Columbia University people.
References
- ^ The Barnard / Columbia Partnership, accessed July 26, 2006
- ^ [http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/directory/brief/drglance_2708_brief.php ]. Accessed May 29, 2007.
- ^ Newsweek, April 8, 1968, p. 85 and Newsweek, April 29, 1968, p. 79-80.
Sources
- Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993 (2nd edition).
See also
External links
- Barnard College, Columbia University
- About Barnard
- Barnard College Fact Book
- Barnard's Books Etc.
- Graduation Requirements
| Seven Sister Colleges |
|---|
| Barnard • Bryn Mawr • Mount Holyoke • Radcliffe (defunct) • Smith • |
| Current women's universities and colleges in the United States |
|---|
| Agnes Scott •
Assumption • Alverno •
Barnard • Bay Path • Bennett • Blue Mountain • Brenau • Bryn Mawr • Cedar Crest • Chatham • College of Notre Dame of Maryland • College of
Saint Mary • Columbia College (Columbia, South
Carolina) • Converse • Cottey •
|
| Schools of Columbia University |
|---|
| Columbia College • School of General Studies • Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science • Barnard College (Affiliate) • Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation • School of the Arts • Graduate School of Arts and Sciences • Graduate School of Business • School of Continuing Education • College of Dental Medicine • School of International and Public Affairs • Graduate School of Journalism • Columbia Law School • School of Nursing • College of Physicians and Surgeons • Mailman School of Public Health • School of Social Work • Jewish Theological Seminary (Affiliate) • Teachers College (Affiliate) • Union Theological Seminary (Affiliate) |
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