Strategic Priorities
Community Safety
Inclusion, the work of belonging and institutional engagement with identities historically underrepresented in their institutions, is interwoven with safety. How Barnard works to uphold an individual's sense of safety with attentiveness to how race, gender, religious identity, ability/disability is experienced is something that DEI@Barnard is actively working on with CARES (Community Accountability, Response, and Emergency Services).
The Barnard Community Safety Group is charged with discussing broad issues related to campus safety, including concerns about racial and other forms of bias and their consequences, accessibility, who feels welcome in different spaces, and advising on improved structures for relationship building, training, and community oversight.
Racial Justice and Equity
"Racial justice is the systematic fair treatment of people of all races, resulting in equitable opportunities and outcomes for all. Racial justice — or racial equity — goes beyond “anti-racism.” It is not just the absence of discrimination and inequities, but also the presence of deliberate systems and supports to achieve and sustain racial equity through proactive and preventative measures."
At Barnard the work of DEI centers racial justice and equity. Each semester we will commit to offering workshops and collaborations that give members of the Barnard community the tools they need to uphold racial equity in their departments and in their academic experience.
Monday Assembly for Racial Justice
This summer students, faculty and staff began a community practice of assembling each Monday morning to learn and commit each week to enacting racial justice. Assemblies resume on September 13th from 12–1 p.m. For more information on the assemblies please email: diversitycouncil@Barnard.edu or check the Barnard portal for a link to the assembly.
Fall Workshops
Identity Development as Pathways to Institutional Equity
Ife Lenard, MSW, EdM, Strategic Coach & Educator
Every other Tuesday from 4–5 p.m.
Staff and students will enrich their learning and perspective with generalist frameworks and skills that contribute to anti-oppressive practices from the classroom and beyond. As an iterative process of developing self-awareness, collective learning and practice skills, Ife Lenard has a unique ability to nurture, challenge, encourage and stretch themselves throughout their experiences with her. She will supportively guide them to:
- understand their identity and the historical undercurrents of its development,
- highlight the experiences and harm of cultural assimilation, acculturation and identity tensions,
- internalize and enrich their identity with an association and appreciation of their worth, beauty and scholarship,
- increase their capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's fragility,
- deepen perspective regarding others lived experiences,
- become aware of a host of common emotions around brave conversations, and
- handle and build authentic, interpersonal relationships with others with different lived experiences -judiciously and empathetically- as part of a continuum of one’s racial identity development and overall Barnard College experiential journey.
The BOLD Conference
Slated for the Spring ’22 term, the BOLD Conference is an all-day, student-led event, focused on facilitating conversations between faculty, staff, and students to continue strengthening teaching and learning at Barnard. Facilitated by the Center for Engaged Pedagogy and the Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, it offers the opportunity to discuss questions, share concerns, and brainstorm suggestions regarding the academic experience.
Community Engagement
Barnard has a long history of engagement with the range of communities in NYC. At the foundation of Community Engagement & Inclusion at Barnard is the belief that at the core of liberal education is a mission to learn across differences and engage locally with a sense of mutuality, public responsibility and cultural humility. Through collaborations with a range of departments at Barnard we are working to facilitate a culture of sustained community engagement.
Current Projects
ThirdSpace@
What could another world look like?
Learn from visionaries on the front lines of imagining it, and then ask yourself, “What can I do right now, with what I have and where I am?”
After all, Barnard students don’t wait around when it comes to taking action — and in ThirdSpace@, a two-part, virtual co-curricular program (SPARK + BUILD), you can do that wherever you’ll be this year, whether that’s on campus or off. ThirdSpace@ brings together the support of your peers, experienced guides, and DEI, the Athena Center for Leadership, and the Center for Engaged Pedagogy.
Student Groups and Opportunities
Well-Being
Well-being is a central concern of the work of equity and inclusion at Barnard. DEI works closely with the Feel Well, Do Well initiative to ensure that as a community we practice wellness through diverse approaches. DEI also collaborates with the Center for Engaged Pedagogy to infuse well-being into academic life through initiatives such as Fail Forward dinners and workshops for faculty on how experiences of marginalization impact the well-being of underrepresented students.
Trans@Barnard
Supporting transgender and nonbinary students
In order to assist transgender and nonbinary members of the campus community with navigating the policies and practices of Barnard, we've provided a guide to Barnard-specific resources and supports.
Multicultural Affairs in the Office of Undergraduate Student Life on Columbia's campus also has resources available to Barnard transgender and nonbinary students.
Inclusion Grant Projects
The BOLD Conference
The second annual BOLD Conference was an all-day, student-led event, funded through the inclusion grant, focused on facilitating conversations between faculty, staff, and students to continue strengthening teaching and learning at Barnard. The conference offered an exciting opportunity for participants to discuss questions, share concerns, and brainstorm suggestions regarding the academic experience. This event was supported by the Center for Engaged Pedagogy and the Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. We extend our thanks to all who participated and worked to make it happen.
The Love Space Demands
Members of the Shange Magic Project received $5,000 for their idea The Love Space Demands: Sharing the Words of Ntozake Shange in the Barnard Library, which will support the installation of excerpts from the work of Ntozake Shange ’70 on walls around the Milstein Center.
Storytelling Workshop
Jo-Ann Pratts of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Mark Nomadiou of the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies received $5,000 to partner with the TMI Project, a nonprofit that leads sessions of the Storytelling Workshop to help storytellers use “radically candid, true personal narratives.
Activist Archive
Gustie Owens ’22 and Radhika “Rads” Mehta CC’22 received $2,000 to launch the Activist Archive, a web-based extension of their Butler Banner Project, to help students research archival information on historical campus activism, as well as plan their own movements.