Why is Barnard a women's college? Does it really matter?

Barnard Commencement 2012

When I meet with prospective students and their families I often get asked, “What was your least favorite thing about Barnard?” It is a difficult question but also a good one. I have two answers that I usually give.

1. Barnard is incredibly hard. I mean really, really hard. At Barnard you will read more than you thought humanly possible, write so many papers your fingers will literally ache, and stay up into the wee hours trying to figure out what exactly it is your professor wants from you. However, this will eventually lead to a feeling of accomplishment that will make it all worth it. And it will lead to your incredible growth as a scholar and as a woman.

2. Sometimes I get sick of defending the fact that I went to a women’s college.

My extended family didn’t get it, my father was thrilled because he thought this meant less college men interacting with his little girl, and my friends just thought it was weird. I myself wasn’t entirely sure if I’d love the all-female aspect of Barnard, but I loved so many other parts of the college that I figured I’d give it a try. Throughout my four years my appreciation for single sex education grew, and looking back I cannot imagine attending a school that was not a women’s college.

A discussion group at the Barnard Center for Research on

Women’s 2013 S&F Conference

We focus a lot on all the ways that Barnard is not your traditional women’s college. Due to our close relationship, both physically and institutionally, with Columbia, it can often feel like a co-ed school. We focus on the “normal” social life you will have, the number of men in our classes and on our campus, and how you can make Barnard as much of a women’s college experience as you’d like. All these things are true, and they all do make Barnard incredibly unique, but let’s not let this take away from the fact that we are a women’s college, and there are some completely amazing things that go along with that.

First, you will never have to defend your choices at Barnard. We assume that you will figure out how to balance your career and being a mother if that is the path you decide to take. We assume that you will become a politician, a CEO, a chemist, a computer programmer if that is what you so choose. We know that you will be able to sit at a boardroom table as the only woman and speak your mind.

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of a women’s college is that a huge percentage of our faculty are women. The chair of our economics department is a woman. The chairs of our biology and chemistry departments are women. This is hugely helpful for the women who attend Barnard and hope to move forward into a field where women are grossly underrepresented. You will have women to model your careers after. It also happens to be pretty inspiring.

Barnard College students traveled to Johannesburg facilitate the 2011 Young Women’s Leadership Workshop and participate in the Global Symposium “Women Changing Africa.” © Zute Lightfoot

You don’t need to be breaking metaphorical glass ceilings in order to reap the benefits of a women’s college. I was an English major at Barnard. Women have been studying English for decades. Regardless of if you want to be a chemical engineer or a stay at home mom, there is something unique about studying at an institution that has the singular goal of educating and empowering women. Speakers who come to speak at Barnard come to speak to an auditorium full of women. Our career development office focuses on placing women in the workforce. The Athena Center works to foster women’s leadership. At Barnard women are the default setting, and it’s pretty refreshing.



I was at a college fair recently when a father of a junior prospective student came up to me and said, “I don’t get it. If there are men in your classes, men in your library, men all around your campus, then why are you a women’s college? Does it really matter?”

My resounding answer is yes. Yes it does matter. It matters an incredible amount. I hope you will come to Barnard and experience that for yourself. I can promise in four years you will be answering that question in the exact same way.

Alexandra

What exactly *is* the relationship between Barnard and Columbia?

As a student at Barnard, this is probably one of the most common questions you’ll get asked by family, friends, and strangers who don’t go to Barnard or Columbia. Answering that question can be complicated and frustrating, so let’s try to break it down into all the different forms that question will come in.

First, the technical questions.

Q1: “So wait, Barnard is part of Columbia?”

Barnard students graduating in Columbia blues

Yes, Columbia University is an umbrella under which 4 undergraduate schools exist. Those four schools are: Columbia College (CC), School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), School of General Studies (GS), and Barnard College (BC). Like the other undergraduate institutions under the “umbrella,” Barnard College has its own admissions process and administration. We also have our own endowment, board of trustees, president, and faculty. Our degrees (and our front gates!) say “Barnard College of Columbia University.” The two schools are literally across the street from each other (I usually take this as a moment to point to myself and then a location across the room and say “like from me to that guy rolling burritos over there,” to demonstrate), and you’ll find Barnard and Columbia students on both sides of Broadway at all hours of the day.

Q2: “Why is it still all-girls? Why didn’t it just combine with Columbia?”

First of all, it’s all-women, but let’s overlook that. Back in the day, when Ivy League universities were all male, “sister schools” were affiliated with them, as a way for the young men and women to interact. Radcliffe was with Harvard, Smith was with Yale, and Barnard with Columbia, to name a few. Then, in 1983, Columbia College opened its enrollment to women, and there was talk about merging Barnard with Columbia, just as Radcliffe had recently done with Harvard. However, Barnard remained independent, and instead of merging, a relationship was established that is beneficial to both schools, and that is the relationship that remains today (see above and below). We remain fiercely independent and proud of our identity as an all-women’s college, but also appreciate and value our relationship and role with Columbia.

Q3: “Where do you take classes?”

On both campuses! With the exception of certain first-year seminars, almost all Barnard classes are open to Columbia students, and vice versa. Yes, Barnard classes have boys in them

Q4: “What about clubs? Sports?”

Same as classes! Almost all Barnard and Columbia clubs have cross-membership. For example, there isn’t an Amnesty International, Barnard and an Amnesty International, Columbia. It’s just one club, Amnesty International, and the members are from both schools. A capella groups, political groups, the newspaper, spirit groups, and more all have cross-membership. Barnard women play on and cheer for Columbia teams (Go Lions!), and, fun fact, Barnard College is the only liberal arts college that offers Division I athletics. You’ll find Barnard students everywhere from the soccer field, to the pool, to the top of a cheerleading pyramid. Pretty cool, right?

A boy!

Q5: “So there ARE boys on campus?”

Yes, and sometimes it seems like they are everywhere. I often thought of Barnard as a co-ed women’s school. What does that mean? We have a very strong identity as an all-women’s college, and Barnard is focused on promoting and fostering the education and leadership of women, but we have boys in our classes, in our library, and in our dining hall. So yes, if you have been worried about meeting boys, but don’t want your parents to know that’s one of your concerns about an all-women’s college, have no fear: there are men everywhere, and at the end of the day, it’s REALLY nice to go back to your clean, all-female dorm.

Q6: “I think I get it now! So you went to Columbia”

*inhale, exhale slowly* No! Yes. Well, kind of. See above.

So that takes care of the technical, but what is the relationship like between the two schools on a day-to-day basis? You’ve probably heard Barnard described as “the best of both worlds” in the sense that it’s liberal arts and part of a huge university, small campus in a large city, all-women but with a male presence, etc. and that really is the basic truth about Barnard. It’s unique and unlike any other college. It’s pretty great, to put it simply, and can be as intertwined or separate as you, a student at Barnard, cares to make it. My favorite classes at school took place on Barnard’s campus, and my relationships with my professors were definitely closer and more accessible at Barnard. But, two of my favorite places to study were on Columbia’s campus: Room 209 in Butler Library, and the business school library (because you are allowed to talk and bring snacks in). Some of my very best friends at school were made through clubs that had both Barnard and Columbia students in them, and I bet if you look at the picture below, you can’t tell who is from Barnard and who is from Columbia:

College is what you make of it, and when you go to a college like Barnard, that has so many resources and groups and opportunities, you can make your college experience absolutely anything you want it to be. A lot of first-years make the mistake when they first come to Barnard/Columbia of thinking there is some enormous rivalry between the two, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. So join clubs, take a class that sounds interesting, and make some of the best friends you’ll ever have, no matter which school they attend.

Lizzie