Alexa Easter ’23 Remarks
Alexa Easter, Post-Baccalaureate Fellow, Center for Engaged Pedagogy
February 2, 2024
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Alexa. I have the honor today — and the ambitious, if not impossible, task — of speaking on behalf of staff at the College.
Last year, I was a student here. I served on the Presidential Search Committee to hire Barnard’s ninth president. Now I am a staff member in Barnard’s Center for Engaged Pedagogy, and I am part of the Inauguration Committee to formally welcome Laura Rosenbury into our community.
Being a student-turned-staff-member gives me a unique understanding of Barnard. I’ve interacted with every corner of this campus — from the toddlers in the Toddler Center who are still learning to speak, to the trustees whose voices determine the leader of the institution, to the students whose voices at once shape the discourse of this campus and are finding shape around the seminar table.
President Laura Rosenbury, welcome!
As you may have noticed, Barnard students are open-minded yet unshakeable in their values. But this is for the better. So, true to form, I welcome you with a provocation.
Barnard exists as a place that challenges the status quo. You can see this from the College’s initial founding to the legacy of its graduates making waves in industry, from science, to law, to film.
That’s because Barnard has always been a place by and for changemakers. The people who make up our community are those who question the world around them.
And to question, at first glance, may look a little like opposition. And this is where I provoke you. To question is really reaching for something much grander — a new version of the world, one that reflects our values. Challenge is actually an invitation into the conversation.
Barnard’s role, its existential imperative in the world, is to provide a place for young people to figure out their ideas, articulate them, and be met with opposing views.
It’s easy to see moments of disagreement as something to fix. But resistance and opposition are not a deficit in our effort to build a better world. These qualities are a prerequisite. And they’re uniquely Barnard.
In the version of Barnard I imagine, students trust administrators to show up in ways that empower students. And it’s a two-way street: Administrators also need to tune in to students’ concerns. Here, tradition means pushing against tradition and imagining something else — together — something bigger, dare I say, bolder.
President Rosenbury, you’re a feminist legal scholar — your work dares to ask, “What would gender look like in a world where care provided by friends is recognized by family law?” In other words, you’ll fit right in here.
Welcome to Barnard, and welcome to the conversation. We look forward to imagining a better world with you.