Meet Barnard’s New Provost and Dean of the Faculty

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On June 1, Rebecca L. Walkowitz joined Barnard as the College’s new provost and dean of the faculty. Previously, she served as the dean of humanities and distinguished professor in the Department of English at Rutgers University’s School of Arts and Sciences. An accomplished scholar and author who held several leadership positions at Rutgers, Walkowitz brings more than two decades of experience to her new role at Barnard. We sat down with Provost Walkowitz to learn more about her work as a professor and writer, what brought her to Barnard, and her thoughts and plans for the year ahead.

Can you tell me about your path to academia? 

I’ve always loved teaching. I love the dynamic of the classroom and reaching so many different students. I began as a teacher, a writer, and a researcher. I continue to teach and write, but now a lot more of my time is spent mentoring other teachers and writers.

What are your first impressions of Barnard?

One thing that has really amazed me is the passion people feel for the community and the intellectual life. At some point in the conversation, they tell me that they love Barnard. There is a real sense of pride, a sense of care and responsibility, and a sense of wanting to make it better and better. Every single student I meet is so engaged, so enthusiastic, and has such a wide range of interests. I can understand why the faculty are excited to be here because they get to teach our students. 

What drew you to Barnard? 

Barnard is unique because it is a liberal arts college in the middle of a massive research university in the middle of the most vibrant, global city in the world. It’s hard to think of any other liberal arts college that is quite like it. I love the curricular and the cocurricular vibrancy that is really specific to the residential college. Barnard has a very intentional curriculum that encourages students to take courses across the disciplines, including the arts. When the opportunity came, I just thought how fantastic to be part of a space and a tradition that is devoted to supporting women’s leadership and women’s development.

Any specific priorities or academic areas you want to focus on or expand on?

One of the areas that I’d like to expand is our teaching of global languages and cultures, especially the languages of East and South Asia and the Middle East, because student interest has really ballooned. In this area and others, I want to make sure that the courses that students really care about are available at Barnard. 

Sustainability is another area I am keen to emphasize, partly because we do that so well. We have great courses in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and across STEM. The cross-disciplinary reach of our sustainability and climate curriculum is really unparalleled. When people are applying to college and they’re interested in sustainability and climate, I’d like them to think, “Oh, Barnard, it’s one of the places you go to do that.” I’m going to be looking for ways to create a more visible platform for the things that make us stand out academically.

It has been a challenging time for higher ed and for Barnard. What steps would you like to take to foster more dialogue around academic freedom and freedom of expression?

I am supporting our faculty’s work to build what we might call “the Barnard Principles.” At the moment, we are operating under “the Chicago Principles” [principles of academic freedom and institutional neutrality developed at the University of Chicago], an interim policy that the faculty voted to implement. This year, we will develop statements about academic freedom and freedom of expression that we’ve grown ourselves. I’m going to be asking all departments to develop bylaws. This is another way for us to affirm how we want to operate and make decisions together. If we write those agreements down, everyone has access to the same information, and that’s important for inclusion, equity, and trust.

Can you help explain your dual roles of provost and dean of the faculty? 

The dean of the faculty is focused on helping the faculty sustain an excellent curriculum and making sure that it’s constantly changing and keeping up with students’ needs and advances in knowledge. As a dean, you’re thinking about hiring, promotion, and planning ahead for the curriculum we’ll need in the future. I often think of myself as a kind of intellectual matchmaker or coalition builder — one of my roles is to make sure that people are in conversation with each other because you can learn and create so much more when you approach a research question or teaching goal from different angles.

The provost makes sure that all the systems are there to have a functioning college — the back-of-the-house things you absolutely need, like AV to show films in class, libraries that provide access to research, and support for innovative pedagogy. The provost oversees all those essential services that make the academic division work. When you have the dean of the faculty and the provost in the same office, you can really make sure that our operations serve our academic goals. 

And so with all that, will you still be teaching and writing?

I don’t have time at the moment to teach a regular class, but I’m really excited to have the opportunity to teach a workshop. This fall, we’re organizing a reading event where I’m going to teach my colleague Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story “The Boundary,” which was published in The New Yorker in 2018. We’ll circulate the story, and all Barnard undergrads will be invited to join me for a discussion. I love that story, and I can’t wait to see what our students make of it.

I am currently writing a book called The New Multilingualism [under contract with Columbia University Press]. It’s about the new ways that writers, artists, and filmmakers are thinking about languages and about neighborhoods, cities, and nations, like ours, where people speak multiple languages right next to each other. These artworks can help us think about the global dimensions of local communities, including the community of the College.