Barnard President Judith R. Shapiro Elected to
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences
May 8, 2007 – Judith R. Shapiro, president of Barnard College and noted cultural anthropologist, has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academy announced April 30.
Shapiro is certainly in good company. This year’s 203 new Fellows include former Vice President Albert Gore, Jr.; former Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor; New York City Mayor and businessman Michael Bloomberg; Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt; and filmmaker Spike Lee, as well as several winners of Academy Awards and Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes. Twenty-four Foreign Honorary Members from Europe, Asia, Canada, and the Middle East were also announced, including luminaries such as Italian glassblower Lino Tagliapietra; Israeli biochemist and Nobel laureate Avram Hershko; French literary scholar Tzvetan Todorov; and Pritzker Prize-winning Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.
"It gives me great pleasure to welcome these outstanding leaders in their fields to the Academy," said Academy President Emilio Bizzi. "Fellows are selected through a highly competitive process that recognizes individuals who have made preeminent contributions to their disciplines and to society at large."
Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members are nominated and elected to the Academy by current members. A broad-based membership, composed of scholars and practitioners from mathematics, physics, biological sciences, social sciences, humanities and the arts, public affairs and business, gives the Academy, founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, a unique capacity to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary studies and public policy research. The current membership includes more than 170 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners.
This prestigious honor is sure to be yet one of many for Barnard’s president as she caps off what Anna Quindlen, chair of the Board of Trustees and herself a member of the Academy, described as “ a golden age for Barnard College.” Shapiro, a leading figure in the national discussion on women’s advancement, announced on April 9 that she will step down next year after fourteen years as leader of Barnard, the most sought-after women’s college in the nation.
The Academy will welcome Shapiro and the rest of this year’s class at its annual induction ceremony to be held on October 6, at AAAS headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
For more information, please call Joanne Kwong at 212.854.7580 or e-mail 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 liberal arts colleges in the country, and the most sought-after women’s college.
|
