Director: Alan Dye (Associate Professor of Economics)
Committee: Flora Davidson (Professor of Political Sciene and Urban Studies), Owen Gutfreund (Associate Professor of History and Urban Studies), Peter Levin (Assistant Professor of Sociology), Debra Minkoff (Professor of Sociology), Lorraine Minnite (Assistant Professor of Political Science), Richard Pious (Professor of Political Science), Rosalind Rosenberg (Professor of History), David Weiman (Professor of Economics)
Visiting Faculty: Liz Abzug (Adjunct Professor of Urban Studies), Thomas Kamber (Adjunct Professor of Urban Studies)
For a complete list of
faculty on leave see:
http://www.barnard.edu/provost/facleavelist.html
For more than a century, Barnard College has been at the forefront of advancing the roles and position of women in society. The Barnard Leadership Initiative (BLI) is a multifaceted, interdisciplinary program that combines curriculum and co-curricular opportunities to prepare women for the challenges of undertaking roles as potential leaders in environments including, non-profit, for profit, and public sectors. Students will explore concepts of leadership, how institutions and systems work, and common systemic barriers faced by potential women leaders. The program offers critical perspectives on gender, institutional and leadership issues. The goal of the program is to provide tools and strategies to enable women to advocate for, and assume, full participation in positions of leadership at the highest levels of achievement in our society.
The Leadership Initiative does not constitute a major; instead, students pursue it in conjunction with a major in one of the College's departments or programs.
The program culminates in the Interdisciplinary Senior Seminar (BLIC BC3997-BLIC BC3998), which is taken concurrently with the senior requirement in one's major department. Instruction, discussion and presentations in the BLI Interdisciplinary Seminar enhance the capstone experience in one's major while serving also as a capstone for the BLI sequence by bringing together the senior BLI participants, using multiple disciplinary approaches, to identify and compare perspectives and analysis from their respective disciplines and the BLI curriculum. The Seminar includes discussion of selected readings and topics and opportunities for participants of the seminar to present their senior research projects in the Seminar and at the end-of-year BLI symposium. Students in the Seminar are eligible to receive associated BLI grants to fund expenses associated with their senior research projects.
Students who plan to participate in the program should file a Declaration of Intent, typically by the end of the sophomore year, with the director of the program.
Six courses are required to complete the program: Women and Leadership (AMST BC3450), three elective courses selected from the BLIC cross-listed coures; and the two-semester Interdisciplinary Senior Seminar (BLIC BC3997-BLIC BC3998). Courses taken to satisfy the requirements of the BLI Curriculum may also be counted as credit toward one's major. Suitable electives other than those explicitly cross-listed for the BLI Curriculum may be substituted with the director’s permission.
Enrollment in the BLIC BC3997-3998 BLI Interdisciplinary Senior Seminar is limited. Eligibility depends on prior completion of AMST BC3450 and two of the three elective BLI course requirements. Admission is based on prior academic achievement and on the suitability of the senior research project for the focus of the Seminar. If the third elective has not been completed prior to enrollment in the Seminar, it must be completed concurrently.
Students who plan to participate in the program should file a Declaration of Intent, typically by the end of the sophomore year, with the director of the program.