As a home to a robust sustainability curriculum, student-led environmental advocacy, and campus-wide green initiatives, Barnard College continues to empower the next generation of leaders in the climate movement. For Climate Week NYC (September 22-29), Barnard will host an array of events on campus — including a panel discussion with Jacob’s Ladder Africa (JLA) — a Nairobi-based, women-led nonprofit formed in 2021 to support green workforce development in Africa.
The College’s climate actions, which range from building a fully circular campus to hosting global dignitaries in conversation about water mining, distinguish it as a pioneer in creating a more equitable, resilient world.
Learn more about how the College has remained at the forefront of efforts to combat climate change during the past year.
September 22, 2023: Writing the Book on Sustainability
Thirty-four of the College’s faculty, staff, and students collaborated to publish an open-access textbook — Transforming Education for Sustainability: Discourses on Justice, Inclusion, and Authenticity — connecting higher education to a sustainable future for the planet, in time for Climate Week NYC 2023. Over the course of five years, from 2017 to 2022, the textbook’s contributors collaborated to share paper reviews, personal essays, and panel discussions as a guide for how to authentically teach and learn about sustainability while centering inclusivity and justice. They also received funding for a Willen Seminar, which supports the collaboration of faculty scholarship across Barnard.
February 2, 2024: Barnard Pledges to Attain Net-Zero Emissions by 2040
The College has an established history in boldly charting the path to environmental sustainability. When President Laura Rosenbury shared her vision for Barnard in her inaugural address in February, she highlighted the College’s commitment to tackle climate change by setting an important goal: achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. The same month, Barnard also received a STARS gold rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). The College’s persistent progress toward the STARS gold rating, after earning a silver rating in 2020, was made possible by our resident sustainability leaders: Sandra Goldmark, associate professor of professional practice in theatre, director of campus sustainability and climate action, and senior assistant dean for interdisciplinary engagement at Columbia Climate School; and Leslie Raucher, associate director of campus sustainability and climate action.
April 15, 2024: The Hidden Language of Ocean Coral
This past spring, assistant professor of environmental science Logan Brenner was part of an international collaboration to gather and examine samples from 12 fossil coral reefs drowned by rising sea levels. She worked on the International Ocean Drilling Project’s (IODP) Expedition 389: Hawaiian Drowned Reefs with a group of scientists spanning nations, including Austria, China, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and the U.K., and disciplines — physicists, geochemists, sedimentologists, paleomagnetists — to further her own research into the ocean’s past.
August 12, 2024: Centering Food Sustainability Through STEM and Soil
Every summer, Barnard invites hundreds of high school students to Morningside Heights to experience the campus’s academically rigorous, enriching, and exploratory Pre-College Programs (PCP). By utilizing New York City as a classroom, STEM-minded students studied the complexities of sustainable food systems through awareness and education, empowerment, and community building through the Summer Food Institute. The program, which hosted 20 climate-focused high schoolers, used NYC as a learning lab for agriculture; health, policy, and justice; food systems and climate change; and soil health.
August 19, 2024: Student Fieldwork Informs Major Street Tree Study
For the past decade, Terryanne Maenza-Gmelch, senior lecturer in environmental science, has been enlisting the help of her Introduction to Environmental Science students to verify street tree growth rates by measuring the same set of campus trees each fall for a decade and counting. In July, a group of scientists, including several Barnard faculty and staff members, published one of the largest urban street tree growth studies ever conducted and found good news: Trees thrive in New York City, especially in the neighborhoods that need them most. The paper, Large-Scale Determinants of Street Tree Growth Rates Across an Urban Environment, looks at how the urban heat island effect can drive up temperatures in city neighborhoods by more than 7 degrees Fahrenheit. Ten years of Barnard student fieldwork measuring campus and neighborhood trees provided verification of the tree growth rates seen in the NYC street tree data.
September 16, 2024: Unearthing Answers in the Alaskan Tundra
Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Biological Sciences Hilary Callahan’s latest professional excursion took her over 4,000 miles from Barnard’s campus to the Alaskan tundra. There — alongside chemistry major Frances Cohen ’25 and environmental science major Amelia Harris ’25 — Callahan went digging for answers to further her research on plant reproductive ecology. The project took place at the Toolik Field Station, which has been a destination for Barnard students since 2007. This was Callahan’s first time joining the ranks. The 10-day trip (July 30-August 8) was partially funded by Barnard, with additional support from the National Science Foundation’s Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research program. She brought her own soil samples back to campus and put them in a freezer in Barnard’s Arthur Ross Greenhouse. After two months, Callahan will extract the seeds and conduct several initial experiments with them.
