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