Barnard College

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Barnard College


Motto	"Hepomene toi logismoi" (Following the Way of Reason)
Established	1889
Type	Private
Endowment	$155 million
President	Judith R Shapiro
Faculty	319
Undergraduates	2,356
Postgraduates	0
Location	New York City, NY, USA
Campus	Urban
Colors	Blue and white
Mascot	Millie, the Barnard Bear
Athletics	15 varsity teams
Website	www.barnard.edu

Barnard College, founded in 1889, is an independent college of liberal arts and sciences as well as a women's college, located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City. Barnard is affiliated with Columbia University, but maintains an independent campus, faculty, administration, trustees, operating budget, and endowment, although there is much overlap.

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 because it is mostly on a hill, and, in addition to Barnard and Columbia, is the location of Bank Street College of Education, Jewish Theological Seminary, Manhattan School of Music, Teachers College, and Union Theological Seminary.

Barnard is a member of the Seven Sisters, and is one of the five members that still is a women's college as of 2007.

1 General information
2 Notable alumnæ and faculty
3 Popular culture
4 References
5 Sources
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] 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 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.

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].

[edit] Notable alumnæ and faculty

See main article: List of Barnard College people

This article includes a list of Barnard College alumnæ exclusively. For a full list of individuals associated with Columbia University and its affiliates see the List of Columbia University people.

[edit] Popular culture

"I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can": An episode of The Simpsons where Lisa Simpson is tempted in a dream 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. [1]

Woody Allen's character in his 1992 film Husbands and Wives is a Barnard English professor who becomes romantically interested in a student played by Juliette Lewis.

Parts of the 2003 MTV reality show Rich Girls, starring Ally Hilfiger and her best friend, Jaime Gleicher, were shot on Barnard's campus as the latter was a Barnard student at the time.

The Bedford Diaries, a short-lived 2006 television series based on a seminar on sexuality at the fictitious Bedford College. Outdoor scenes for the show were filmed entirely on Barnard's campus.