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Barnard College, founded in 1889, is an independent college of liberal arts and sciences as well as a women's college, located in the borough of Manhattan, in New York, New York, United States. Barnard is part of Columbia University, but maintains an independent campus, faculty, administration, trustees, operating budget, and endowment, although there is much overlap. Barnard College students receive Columbia University degress.
The four acre (16,000 m²) campus is adjacent to Columbia's Morningside Heights campus, and has been used by Barnard since 1898. The neighborhood is sometimes called the Academic Acropolis because it is mostly on a hill, and is the location of Bank Street College of Education, Columbia University, Jewish Theological Seminary, Manhattan School of Music, Teachers College, and Union Theological Seminary.
General information
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 affiliated with 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, Columbia University actually awards degrees to graduates of Barnard College. Barnard College, in fact, was created for the female students of the University, which traditionally admitted only men.
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 (but 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.'"
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 Harvard College and Radcliffe College. Today, Barnard is the most selective of 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.
Notable Alumnæ
- Elsie Clews Parsons 1896, first woman elected President of the American Anthropological Association.
- Freda Kirchwey 1915, journalist, editor and publisher of The Nation.
- Léonie Adams 1923, poet
- Margaret Mead 1923, anthropologist, writer
- Zora Neale Hurston 1928, Harlem Renaissance writer
- Patricia Highsmith 1940, writer
- Helen M. Ranney 1941, first woman to lead a university department of medicine in the U.S., to be president of the Association of American Physicians, or to serve as a Distinguished Physician of the Veterans Administration
- Judith Coplon 1943, Soviet spy in U.S. Justice Department whose convictions were overturned on technicalities
- Marion Davis Berdecio, Accused Soviet spies in U.S. State Department, comrade of Coplon and Wovschin
- Flora Wovschin, Soviet spy in U.S. State Department, stepdaughter of CoIumbia professor/Soviet spies Enos Wicher
- Jeane Kirkpatrick 1948, first woman to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
- Peggy McCay 1951, actress
- Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum 1952, Manhattan federal court judge
- Francine du Plessix Gray 1952, writer
- Joan Rivers 1954, star comedian, TV host
- Joyce Johnson 1955, writer
- Sidra Stone, 1957, author and co-creator of Voice Dialogue.
- Judith Kaye 1958, first woman in highest position in state judiciary, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals
- Martha Stewart 1963, businesswoman, TV host imprisoned for lying in ImClone stock scandal
- Twyla Tharp 1963, choreographer, dancer
- Erica Jong 1963, writer
- Naomi Foner, screenwriter
- Laurie Anderson 1969, musician, NASA's first artist-in-residence
- Sarah Charlesworth 1969, photographer and conceptual artist
- Judith Miller (journalist) 1969, Aspen Strategy Group member, ex-correspondent for New York Times who reported now-discredited story of Iraq's WMD program
- Ntozake Shange 1970, writer
- Anna Quindlen 1974, author and columnist for Newsweek who won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1992
- Jacqueline Barton 1974, CalTech chemist and MacArthur Fellows Program "genius grant" winner
- Suzanne Bilello 1977, author who with Rose Marie Arce (class of '86) was a member of a Newsday team in 1992 that shared the Pulitzer for spot news reporting.
- Natalie Angier 1978, author and science writer for the New York Times who won the Pulitzer for beat reporting in 1991
- Robin Wagner 1980, figure-skating coach
- Suzanne Vega 1981, singer-songwriter famous for Luka, Tom's Diner, etc.
- Jeanine Tesori 1983, Broadway composer
- Maria Hinojosa 1984, correspondent for CNN, NOW (TV series) on PBS, and host of NPR's Latino USA
- Sanya Popovic 1986, Barnard professor of political science, fiancée of Pan Am Flight 103 victim Bernt Carlsson
- Lauren Graham 1988, actor, plays Lorelai Gilmore on TV show Gilmore Girls
- Cynthia Nixon 1988, actor, played Miranda Hobbes on TV show Sex and the City
- Janna Levin 1988, cosmologist
- Jhumpa Lahiri 1989, writer, Pulitzer winner
- Ann Brashares 1989, author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
- Edwidge Danticat 1990, writer
- Atoosa Rubenstein 1993, founder of CosmoGirl and editor-in-chief of Seventeen (magazine); youngest ever editor of a teen magazine.
- Sharon Blynn 1993, creator of "Bald Is Beautiful" campaign, cancer awareness advocate
- Stacey Borgman 1993, member of 2004 Olympics crew team
- Erinn Smart 2001, 2004 Olympic fencer
- Sprague Grayden actress, played Judith Montgomery on Joan of Arcadia
- Bettye B. Binder 1960, 1) on governing council of the New York Committee for Democratic Voters, that successfully removed Tammany Hall and its leader, Carmine DeSapio, from power in 1961. 2) listed in Who’s Who In America for international acclaim as a past-life regressionist and author.
Popular culture
- I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can: an episode of The Simpsons where Lisa Simpson is tempted by the Siren-like representatives of the Seven Sisters (and George Plimpton), who offer a free ride to the Sister school of her choice (and a George Plimpton hot plate) if she will throw a Spelling Bee *.
See also
References
- 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).
External links
- Barnard College, Columbia University
- About Barnard
- Barnard College Fact Book
- Barnard's Books Etc.
- Graduation Requirements
Universities and colleges in New York City | Columbia University | Women's universities and colleges in the United States | Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
"Barnard College"