Departments and Programs

Sociology explores social life in all its fascinating variety, and the relationships among and between social groups. We illuminate the intricate processes through which human beings express their social being: cooperation, conflict, power, exchange, morality, symbolism, solidarity, domination, dependency, affection, identity, deviance, social control and violence. We also study the forms these and other processes take: face-to-face interaction, social networks, small groups, subcultures, families, gender divisions, intraracial and interracial dynamics, religion, popular and high culture, social class, structures of race and ethnicity and sexuality, bureaucracy, social movements, professions, the state, even the larger world of relations among states. Our students learn to identify these social processes and forms in any topic they study.

The Department of Spanish and Latin American Cultures at Barnard College boasts a long tradition of excellence in undergraduate education for women. Throughout its history, it has afforded students a solid preparation in both Spanish language and the literatures and cultures of Spain, Spanish America, and the Spanish-speaking United States.

As recommended by the Modern Language Association, our department aims to provide students with both translingual and transcultural competence. Its keystone is an integrated curriculum that seeks linguistic and intellectual continuity from the initial levels through the most advanced courses. Although there is a gradual shift in weight given to language and cultural content as students advance in the program, throughout the three stages of our course curriculum—the Language, Bridge, and Upper levels—emphasis is placed as much on early development of analytical skills in cultural and literary studies as on continued language acquisition through the time of graduation.

The Statistics major is an appropriate background for graduate work, including doctoral studies in statistics, social science, public health, genetics, health policy, epidemiology, marketing, opinion polling, economics, finance and banking, government, drug development, and insurance. Statistics is the art and science of study design and data analysis. Probability theory is the mathematical foundation for the study of statistical methods and for the modeling of random phenomena.

The purpose of the university is inquiry: situated at the intersection of the arts and humanities, in a world theatrical capital, the Barnard and Columbia undergraduate theatre program engages the disciplines of drama, theatre, and performance studies as a distinctive mode of intellectual and artistic inquiry. Majors take foundational coursework in the literary, cultural, and embodied traditions of western and nonwestern performance as well as in the practices of acting, directing, design, and playwriting. All majors then specialize in a specific area and undertake advanced thesis work, leading either to a formal essay of original research, or to an artistic project (in acting, design, directing, dramaturgy, playwriting, or solo performance) that combines the practices of research and artistic creation. While Barnard and Columbia students fulfill the overall graduation requirements of their respective institutions, major requirements for the Barnard Major in Theatre/Columbia Major in Drama and Theatre Arts are identical, and the majority of required coursework is offered through the Barnard College Department of Theatre. Barnard and Columbia students receive their degrees from their respective colleges of Columbia University.

The Barnard–Columbia Urban Studies program enables students to explore and understand the urban experience in all of its richness and complexity. It recognizes the city as an amalgam of diverse peoples and their social, political, economic, and cultural interactions within a distinctive built environment. Students study the evolution and variety of urban forms and governance structures, which create opportunities for, as well as constrain, the exercise of human agency, individual and collective. They explore the place of the city in different historical and comparative contexts, as well as in the human imagination.

Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies is an interdisciplinary department for students who wish to explore gender and its relation to other axes of power: race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality. We use these concepts to analyze human experience in its bodily, political, economic and cultural dimensions. Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies covers a complex variety of theoretical and empirical scholarship both within traditional disciplines and in interdisciplinary frames in the humanities, in the social sciences and in the natural sciences as well as combinations of the three. The Department is committed to critical perspectives and bodies of knowledge that contribute to possibilities for transformation and change.

The Writing Fellows are specially trained peer tutors who work with writers in all disciplines. Writing Fellows staff the Writing Center (located on the second floor of Barnard Hall); they are also attached to various Barnard College courses.

Writers of all skill levels and in all disciplines are welcome to use the Writing Center. Excellent writers who understand the value of feedback use the Writing Center. First-year students writing First-Year Writing/First-Year Seminar papers use the Writing Center, as do seniors writing senior theses and students for whom English is a second language. Writing Fellows themselves often use the Writing Center.