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Four
characteristics distinguish Barnard College: It is a liberal
arts college with a long tradition of excellence; it is part
of a great research university; it is in New York City, and
it is a college for women. Each aspect of the College offers
students unique distinctive learning opportunities. The effect
is transformative.
Enrolled at Barnard are 2,389 undergraduates from throughout the nation, 48 states and 39 countries, who take degrees in about 50 fields in the humanities, social sciences, arts, natural sciences, and interdisciplinary areas. Thirteen percent of Barnard students are African-American or Latina. Seventeen percent are Asian. The College is known for the achievement of its graduates. In recent years, Barnard has ranked third among more than 1,000 undergraduate colleges for the number of graduates who earned Ph.D.'s between 1920 and 1995; first among graduates of chemistry programs who go on to teach chemistry at the college level; and its 29,000 graduates have written and edited over 4,100 books and earned seven Pulitzer Prizes.
A
LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE
 Barnard's
intellectual tradition has evolved over more than a century.
Founded in 1889 as the only college in New York City, and
one of a very few in the nation then, where women could have
the same rigorous education as men, Barnard has become known
for its distinctive academic culture. At once challenging
and nurturing, Barnard enables students to find new ways to
think about themselves, their world and their roles in changing
it.
At
Barnard, intense intellectual discussions don't end at classroom
doors, but spill out into hallways, faculty offices, and dorm
rooms. Barnard students are excited about ideas and aren't
afraid to take intellectual and creative risks, whether the
topic is economics, 18th-century American literature, oceanography,
Latin American politics, ethnography, or Taoism.
Three hundred and nineteen faculty members animate the adventure both
in the classroom and on a personal level. They open new doors
for students, involving them in their own research, pointing
out unrealized strengths, suggesting new approaches, listening,
and guiding - but ultimately allowing each student to make
her own discoveries. Seventy percent of the courses that
Barnard offers have fewer than 20 students.
The
faculty includes editors of leading scholarly journals, prize-winning
novelists and translators, and frequent winners of awards
from respected foundations, corporations and government agencies,
including the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation
and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In the past two years,
Barnard faculty members were awarded 85 grants totaling about
$9 million. The faculty includes: Mark Carnes, co-editor of
the 23,040-page American national Biography; Demetrios James
Caraley, president of the Academic of Political Science, Anne
Prescott, author of Imagining Rabelais in Renaissance England;
James Basker, president of the Gilder Lerhman Institute of
American History; and Rae Silver, president of the Society
for Research in biological Rhythms.
Through
Barnard's General Education program, each student receives
an education of both depth and breadth, that builds skills
of analysis, independent thought, and self-expression. Students
take First-Year Seminar, First-year English, and courses fulfilling
the nine Ways of Knowing: Reason and Value, Social Analysis,
Cultures in Comparison, Language, Laboratory Science, Quantitative
and Deductive Reasoning, Historical Studies, Literature, and
Visual and Performing Arts.
President
Judith Shapiro notes the requirements "successfully capture
the mission of the college to provide an excellent liberal
arts education that is intellectually focused, challenging,
and responsive to emerging developments in scholarship, pedagogy,
and society."
To
help Barnard students navigate through the extraordinary range
of academic choices available to them, the College has developed
an advising system that puts students in close contact with
faculty members immediately and throughout their college experience.
The academic adviser follows and guides each student's progress
during the first two years, explaining curricular requirements,
writing recommendations for internships or study abroad programs,
listening to concerns, and helping her match courses to her
goals interests. Advice at Barnard is both formal and informal
and can come from many sources - class deans, faculty members,
residence hall directors, and peers, among others. All are
committed to helping each student determine her future direction.
THE COLUMBIA CONNECTION
 Barnard
occupies a unique niche in American higher education. Added
to its status as a highly selective liberal arts college for
women, it is affiliated with Columbia, the Ivy League university
known for contributions in fields from journalism to medicine.
Barnard is located just across Broadway from Columbia's main
campus and is one of four undergraduate schools within the
Columbia University system (the others are Columbia College,
the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science,
and the School of General Studies). In an arrangement unique
in American higher education, Barnard has its own campus,
faculty, administration, trustees, operating budget and endowment,
while students earn the degree of the University.
Barnard's 2,389 students and 319 faculty members are a vital part of the University community, which includes about 7,400 undergraduates and about 17,000 graduate students in more than 15 graduate and professional divisions. Each year, Barnard faculty, who are tenured both by Barnard and Columbia, teach about 40 graduate courses at the University.
Cross-registration
flows across Broadway in both directions, allowing Barnard
and Columbia students to take classes on either campus. In
a typical year, there are 6,900 Barnard student course registrations
at Columbia, and 6,300 Columbia student course registrations
at Barnard. Highly motivated Barnard students may take graduate-level
courses at Columbia in such as international affairs, business,
law, and arts and sciences.
Barnard
provides education to all university undergraduates in architecture,
dance, education, theater, and urban studies, while programs
in music, the visual arts, computer science, and engineering
are centered at Columbia.
Barnard
women also take leadership positions in many Columbia-sponsored
organizations, from the Spectator, the nation's second-oldest
student daily, to spearheading Community Impact, an umbrella
volunteer action group.
In the sports arena, Barnard varsity athletes compete in intercollegiate
athletics through the Columbia University/Barnard College Athletic
Consortium at the NCAA Division I Level in 15 sports (archery, basketball,
crew, cross-country, fencing, field hockey, golf, indoor and outdoor track
and field, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, and
volleyball), and in the Ivy League. In the Barnard-Columbia community -
always lively, on the move, and definitely coeducational - the ambiance is
active, diversified, and highly charged. With several educational and social
environments at their fingertips, Barnard students can create their own
paths.
For
more information on the Barnard-Columbia partnership, click
here.
LIFE IN NEW YORK CITY
 The
Barnard experience is inseparable from the New York City experience.
Morningside Heights, home to Barnard and Columbia University,
is known as the Academic Acropolis and as one of the city's
most diverse neighborhoods. Historic Harlem - rich in African-American
history and tradition - Spanish Harlem, and the Upper West
Side are short distances from campus. And the 116th Street
subway stop near campus means that Chinatown, the East Village,
or Lincoln Center are accessible to students in minutes. Add
more than 2,500 internship possibilities - two-thirds of all
students undertake an internship before graduation - and the
result is a matchless college-city synergy.
For
Barnard students, New York City is a living text. The College
weaves the city into its courses and into the course of daily
life. The faculty's involvement with New York makes it easy
to call on other experts to lead classes or trade ideas. The
exchange between College and city works both ways. In Barnard's
own neighborhood, students can take courses at Manhattan School
of Music or work toward a second bachelor's degree - in Hebrew
Literature - from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Farther
afield, at Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School offers instruction
to especially talented musicians and, to a few, the chance
to earn a master's in music along with a bachelor's degree
from Barnard.
Eventually,
if not initially, Barnard students are cultured, streetwise,
self-assured. That kind of savvy comes with attending a college
located in New York City and committed to the achievements
of women.
The
College's involvement with the city means extraordinary intellectual
and cultural opportunities. Barnard students enjoy curricular
links and internships with the best New York can offer: law
(firms and organizations such as Sullivan & Cromwell and the
Legal Aid Society), medicine (Columbia Presbyterian Hospital,
Sloan-Kettering), finance (the New York Stock Exchange, Chase
Manhattan Bank), publishing (giants such as HarperCollins
and Random House as well as numerous small houses), journalism
(The New York Times, CNN), art (the Museum of Modern Art,
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, and many of
the nation's most important and influential private galleries),
and international relations (the United Nations), among others.
A COLLEGE FOR WOMEN
 Barnard
is unequivocally dedicated to the success of women. That's
immediately obvious in the way issues are considered in almost
every field of inquiry, from classical studies to the history
of science, or in the prominence of the nationally acclaimed
Barnard Center for Research on Women. Perhaps more subtle
- but inestimably important to women's success in the long
run - is the way Barnard strengthens students' abilities in
the sciences and mathematics.
Barnard
students soon discover that their classmates are among the
principal resources of their undergraduate years. Cosmopolitan
in nature, the student population includes residents of nearly
every state and some 40 foreign countries as well as those
who live within commuting distance. One of the few generalizations
that can be made safely about Barnard students is that they
are diverse; a mingling of economic, regional, ethnic, and
cultural groups is evident in campus life. Nine out of ten
students live in college housing and participate in the educational
programs, cultural events, and social activities of their
residence halls.
More
than half of the faculty are women, well above the national
average. All of them - men as well as women - believe that
the potential contributions of women should be encouraged,
recognized, and realized.
Women
have led Barnard from the beginning, from Ella Weed in 1889
to anthropologist Judith Shapiro today.
Barnard
graduates reflect the College's reputation for instilling
confidence and high aspirations. They include; Maria Hinojosa
'84, CNN Urban Affairs correspondent; Ellen Futter '71, president
of the American Museum of Natural History and the former president
of Barnard; Phyllis Grann '58, president and CEO of Penguin
Putnam; Jacqueline Barton '74, professor of chemistry at the
California Institute of Technology and a MacArthur Fellow;
Sheila Nevins '60, executive director
of programming for HBO; choreographer Twyla Tharp '63; and
Anna Quindlen '74, Newsweek columnist, journalist and
novelist.
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