BARNARD COLLEGE PRESIDENT
JUDITH R. SHAPIRO
TO STEP DOWN JUNE 2008
New York, NY – April 9, 2007 – Judith R. Shapiro announced today at a meeting of the College’s faculty that she will step down as president of Barnard College at the end of the 2007-08 academic year. President Shapiro has led Barnard since 1994.
Shapiro has described the presidency of Barnard as “quite possibly the best job in the world,” but points out in a letter to the Barnard community that “fourteen years is a long run on Broadway—or, for that matter, in any college or university.” She wrote, “The timing is right for this transition . . . We have arrived at a place where Barnard is among the strongest colleges in the country, and the most sought-after women’s college. We have more than justified the faith and courage it took back in the early 1980s to follow our own course as a first-rate liberal arts college for women.”
Anna Quindlen, chair of the Barnard College Board of Trustees and a 1974 graduate, said, “What a gift Judith Shapiro has been to this college! Under her leadership Barnard has experienced enormously enhanced selectivity and national stature and cemented its dedication to educating the women leaders of the future. The Shapiro years have been a golden age for Barnard College, in terms of both growth and stability, and we will move forward from a position of great strength because of Judith’s fourteen years here.”
Under Shapiro’s leadership, applications for admission to the College have soared from 2,734 in 1994-95 to an all-time high of 4,599 applicants for the class entering the College this past fall. Selectivity and yield have hit record levels: last year, the College admitted 25% of applicants—down from a 55% admittance rate in Shapiro’s first year as president—and roughly 50% of accepted students chose to attend Barnard, making it the first choice of many of the country’s best and brightest young women.
The College’s ability to recruit and retain faculty of exceptional distinction and dedication has dramatically increased under Shapiro’s leadership. This is particularly impressive considering the unusually high bar for scholarship associated with Barnard’s partnership with Columbia University. Barnard faculty are recognized as world-class scholars in their fields even as they meet the teaching and mentoring standards characteristic of a liberal arts college. Barnard’s faculty, for example, is remarkably successful at attracting outside funding for research and other scholarly endeavors—in just the past 10 years, $22 million has been raised from organizations like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health; another $24 million was awarded by private foundations, corporations and government. “But I think it’s the mentoring that sets Barnard’s professors apart,” said Eman Bataineh, senior and Student Government Association President for the 2006-07 academic year. “The faculty at Barnard are mentors not only in scholarship, but in social activism, perseverance, and ingenuity. Barnard professors are at once our teachers, our leaders, and our friends.”
Shapiro has reconfirmed and focused Barnard’s commitment to providing its students with a superior liberal arts education through consistent support of major academic initiatives. In the course of a three-year curriculum review, the major components of a general education were redefined in Barnard’s highly regarded focus on “The Ways of Knowing,” nine areas that together explore the major cross-disciplinary means by which human knowledge has been constructed. The College has also launched a number of innovative and interdisciplinary academic programs that have attracted the attention of educators throughout the nation, including “Reacting to the Past,” a unique pedagogy that teaches key historical events and texts by requiring students to participate in extended role-playing games built around episodes of historical decisions; the Barnard Leadership Initiative, a ground-breaking program that combines academic coursework and co-curricular programming for the specific purpose of preparing talented young women to move into the highest positions of leadership and authority in our society; and the award-winning environmental-simulation technology “Brownfield Action.”
Shapiro’s legacy will include dramatic enhancements to Barnard’s physical facility itself. With a constant eye to the future, she has beautifully renewed public spaces on campus, invested in the implementation of technological infrastructure, such as “smart” classrooms and lecture halls, and overseen major renovations to the College’s academic facilities, including an expanded Psychology department with new teaching labs, renovated Biochemistry and Chemistry research labs, and an elegant home for alumnae when the Deanery was transformed into the Vagelos Alumnae Center in 2002. In addition to improving existing facilities, Shapiro has guided the development of two new constructions: Cathedral Gardens, one of the first multi-use college residence halls in the country (providing shared space for students, faculty, and members of the community), and the Nexus, the highly anticipated glass-walled, multi-use building designed by award-winning architects Weiss/Manfredi. The Nexus, set to break ground in June 2007, will transform academic, cultural, and social life on campus.
Shapiro has strengthened Barnard financially as well. She
is credited with changing the alumnae culture: the pride that
Barnard women have always felt for their outstanding education
has begun to be reflected in their financial support of the
College. During Shapiro’s tenure, Barnard has not only
successfully raised funds for its many significant facilities
projects, but annual unrestricted gifts to the College have
more than doubled, and the College more than doubled its endowment
to over $171 million. Jolyne Caruso-FitzGerald ‘81,
Barnard trustee and co-chair of the Board’s Institutional
Advancement Committee, said, “Judith has a remarkable
way of reaching out to alumnae. The number of alumnae involved
with the College has more than tripled in the last 10 years—and
we're seeing that engagement result in commitment.”
Shapiro is the 10 th leader of Barnard, but the first who is a product of the New York City public schools. Having grown up in Queens, New York, Shapiro has been a strong voice for Barnard’s continued historic role in community development and advocacy. She has served on a number of community boards and committees, including the Morningside Area Alliance, the Board of the Fund for the City of New York, the New York City Partnership and Chamber of Commerce, the Executive Committee of the Board of the New York Building Congress, the New York State Leadership Council for the development of a Women’s Museum in New York City, and the Advisory Committee of Save the Children. In 2003, Shapiro forged a partnership with the New York City Women’s Commission, revived under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
A widely respected cultural anthropologist, Shapiro is a graduate alumna of Columbia University, where she received her Ph.D. in anthropology in 1972. During her tenure as president, the partnership between Barnard College and Columbia University has flourished—resulting in a strong relationship that rewards both schools with unique advantages over peer institutions.
Shapiro came to Barnard after a distinguished career at Bryn Mawr College, where she became chair of the Department of Anthropology in 1982, and then served as provost for eight years, beginning in 1986. She began her teaching career at the University of Chicago in 1970, where she was the first woman appointed to the Department of Anthropology. She received her undergraduate degree from Brandeis University. Shapiro has done pioneering research on gender differences and is the author of numerous articles on gender differentiation, social theory, and missionization, many based on her field research in lowland South America. She has occupied leadership roles in various professional societies, including the presidency of the American Ethnological Society. She is also a member of the American Philosophical Society (founded as this country’s first learned society in 1745 by Benjamin Franklin).
Shapiro is most widely known as a leading figure in the national discussion on women’s advancement. In 2001, Shapiro established a major public forum addressing issues of women’s advancement, The Barnard Summit. The inaugural Summit drew an audience of over 1,000 people for a discussion on women’s leadership; panelists included former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, activist Marian Wright Edelman, and General Claudia Kennedy, the first female three-star general. Shapiro is frequently called upon for media comment and has published or been cited in leading publications such as The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, U.S. News and World Report, and The Christian Science Monitor.
If the last thirteen years serve as any indication, Shapiro shows no signs of slowing down in the near future. In her letter to the community, she stated, “I entered with the class of 1998 and will graduate with the class of 2008. Like other members of the current junior class, I have much work to do between now and the end of the coming academic year.”
A search committee for Barnard’s next president will be formed in the next few weeks, and will include trustees and faculty.
To schedule an interview with President Shapiro, please contact Joanne Kwong at 212.854-7580 or jkwong@barnard.edu.
About Barnard College
The idea was bold for its time. Founded in 1889, Barnard was the only college in New York City, and one of the few in the nation, where women could receive the same rigorous and challenging education available to men. Today, Barnard is among the strongest colleges in the country, and the most sought-after women’s college.
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Media inquiries: Joanne Kwong
Phone 212.854.7580
E-mail jkwong@barnard.edu
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