Centennial Scholars Program Highlights Talent, Achievement and Passionate Interest
Barnard's celebrated Centennial Scholars Program, marking its 20th anniversary this year, remains at the forefront of enterprise and achievement for promising students.
The Centennial Scholars Program invites a select group of incoming first-years to pursue a unique course of independent study. The idea was established in 1984 when an anonymous donor chose to subsidize the program. In every year since, 12 new students are picked by the College's Admissions Office and Centennial Scholars Committees as candidates.
Students are chosen based on special achievements and attributes in their academic record or extra-curricular portfolio, whether it be accomplishment in science or math; creative achievement in the arts or humanities; or an interesting or unusual hobby or pursuit. In addition to selection during the admissions process, Centennial Scholars may be nominated as first-year students by faculty.
"What is so striking is the amazing range and variety of the creative projects of our Centennial Scholars," said Dorothy Denburg, Dean of the College. "These extraordinary intellectual pursuits demonstrate a level of talent, passion and accomplishment that clearly proves the wisdom of establishing this program. We look forward to providing the opportunity for future students to pursue the highest level of academic work in this program."
Prospective scholars demonstrate advanced academic achievement and possess the intellectual focus and motivation necessary for creative, independent scholarship. The applicant's high school record, counselors' and teachers' recommendations, standardized test scores, personal statement, and interview are all used in the final selection process.
The concept of the program was to further attract new students to the College.
"The program is designed for those students with high potential," said Professor Les Lessinger, who co-directed the program since its start. "We have the difficult task of trying to select for potential and promise. We are for desire, the students' desire to accomplish something. Our job is provide support and make it possible."
This year, Professor Tim Halpin-Healy, a physicist, and Elizabeth Castelli, associate professor of religion, have succeeded Lessinger and Helene Foley in the Classics Department, the two longtime co-directors.
"It's crucial to thank Professors Lessinger and Foley for all they have done for the program," said Halpen-Healy.
The program confers a maximum of 18 points of credit toward the degree. In the spring of the student's first year as a Centennial Scholar, she enrolls in a year-long course, Working With Ideas, an interdisciplinary course designed to lay the foundation for the core of the program, an extended apprenticeship with her mentor(s).
"We give the student a lot of freedom," said Lessinger. "They design their assignments, we just guide them. It allows them to try new things they may not be good at--we give them intense, detailed criticism. We always tell them, do whatever is important to you, something you want to do. And they cherish that freedom."
A students' project may extend over two or three semesters and may include a summer to accommodate travel or other particular needs. Dinner lectures and outings to museums, artists' studios, and research laboratories and similar activities are additional features of the Program.
"Part of my job is to run the Working with Ideas seminar in the spring and also to arrange lecture series and take students to events of cultural value in the city," said Halpin-Healy, who took the program's participants this semester to an Ani D'Franco concert at the Beacon Theater, as well as an Adrienne Rich poetry reading at the 92nd St. Y.
The program culminates in the Centennial Scholars Symposium, which is devoted to the public presentation of the project.
"You never know when you plant a seed what kind of plant is going to come out of it," said Lessinger.
Some of the notable projects researched by Centennial Scholars include: Elizabeth Devereux's A Cathartic Composition: The Biographical Circumstances Surrounding the Writing of Shostakovich's Eighth String Quartet ; Deena Fox's Bounded Altruism: Deciding When to Give: A Brief History of [Medical] Transplantation ; and Daphna Berman's Sitting in the Kitchen with my Grandmother: Readings from an Oral History.
For an in-depth look at the Centennial Scholars program and some of the past and current projects, please visit the program website: http://www.barnard.edu/centschl/
—Glenn Slavin
For more information about the Centennial Scholars program, please contact the Barnard Office of Public Affairs: (212) 854-2037 or strimel@barnard.edu
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