Barnard Alumna and Professor Emerita Barbara Novak '50
Receives Honorary Doctorate from Columbia
Barbara Novak ’50, Barnard’s Helen Goodhart Altschul Emerita Professor of Art History, has received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Columbia University. The degree was formally presented at Columbia’s commencement ceremony on May 16, 2007.
Novak was an inspirational mentor to generations of Barnard students. She returned to her alma mater in 1958 to join the faculty, was a beloved teacher for four decades, and served as chair of the Art History Department for 12 years. A widely esteemed expert on American art history, she has authored several influential texts, including the seminal American Painting of the Nineteenth Century: Realism, Idealism, and the American Experience (a third edition of the book was released this past January).
In 1985 Novak received Barnard’s Woman of Achievement Award, and in 1998 she received the College Art Association’s Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award. She earned her first doctorate from Harvard University. |
