As Barnard heads into the new year, here’s a look at some of the events coming up this spring.
Lifetime Achievement Recognition
Dusa McDuff, Joan Lyttle Birman ’48 Professor of Mathematics, will be honored with the 2025 AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement (American Mathematical Science) on January 8 at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle. According to to the citation, the prize is for McDuff’s “foundational and far-reaching contributions in C*-algebras and symplectic geometry and topology and for long-continued leadership and mentoring in mathematics.”
The distinguished mathematician, who is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is an even more distinguished mentor for the advancement of women in math. “When I was growing up it was generally considered very strange for a woman to set her sights on being a mathematician,” said McDuff, in her response to being named an honoree. Yet she persisted and spent a decade of her career inspiring other women as director of the Women+ and Mathematics program at the Institute for Advanced Study.
“In mathematics, you have to work incredibly hard, and most of the time you feel as though you don’t understand,” said McDuff in a 2013 Barnard Magazine profile. “You just keep working, though, and gradually things become clearer.”
Starting 2025 Strong
Giving students the tools to help them maintain healthy habits is a priority for the College, whose FITbear program offered free, in-person fitness classes to Barnard students — yoga, total sculpt, kickbox, and barre mix — in the new Francine A. LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being’s fitness center throughout the fall 2024 semester.
During winter break (January 13 – January 17), the College’s faculty of fitness will help staff start the new year off strong with special programming in the LeFrak Fitness Center. “Build Your Strength” is a strength-based class, taught in a small group and designed to meet all levels of strength trainers.
“Everyone on campus deserves to be well, and we are investing in programming and resources that support well-being for our entire community,” said April Autry, executive director of the Francine LeFrak Center.
The Zora Neale Hurston Centennial
With this year marking the alumna’s centennial anniversary as a student at Barnard (1925 –1928) — from matriculation to graduation — the College will begin the year showcasing art and hosting a summit in Hurston’s honor. The multimedia installation “Black, Brilliant and Free” will be open in the Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning from January 21 to May 5. The display will feature a range of objects that pay tribute to Hurston’s Barnard centennial.
From January 31 to February 1, the College will host the inaugural Zora Neale Hurston Summit. Organized and led by the Zora Neale Hurston Trust, the event will bring together Hurston’s family, fans, and scholars to engage with her work. In perfect timing, a never-before-published Hurston novel, The Life of Herod the Great, will be released by HarperCollins just ahead of the summit.
The centenary of the author, anthropologist, folklorist, and playwright includes the celebration of 100 Years of Black Students at Barnard.
From Art to Data
Inspired by Barnard College’s Trigger Planting 2.0 exhibition in the Milstein Center, which explores the impact of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision on abortion access, the Brown Institute for Media Innovation will host an event called “Abortion in Data and in Reporting” on January 30. Investigative journalists and researchers will share their experiences and the obstacles of reporting on abortion in the country and how they access, analyze, and represent data in a shifting legal landscape. The conversation will also consider stories left out of the frame of mainstream coverage, including challenges faced by underrepresented communities and the informal nature of community care.
This event is supported by the Brown Institute for Media Innovation and Barnard’s Vagelos Computational Science Center (CSC), Milstein Exhibitions, and Architecture Department.
A Distinguished Lecture
In between the release of two new books — last year’s We’re Alone: Essays and this summer’s forthcoming Watch Out for Falling Iguanas — Edwidge Danticat ’90 will present the keynote lecture at this year’s annual Lewis-Ezekoye Distinguished Lecture in Africana Studies on campus. The February 20 open-to-the-public event, “All Geography Is Within Me: Following in Zora Neale Hurston’s Travel-Dusted Tracks,” held in the Diana Center, will offer a rare opportunity to hear the MacArthur Fellow discuss the legacy of her famed fellow alumna.
Barnard Magazine will also feature a profile of Danticat in the Winter 2025 issue.
15 Years Centering Women’s Stories
Every year, during the first weekend of Women’s History Month in March, hundreds of cinephiles descend onto campus for the Athena Film Festival (AFF) to engage with storytelling that creates narrative change by centering and amplifying women-centered stories. This year’s festival (March 6 – 9) — its 15th! — continues that call-to-action with features, shorts, creative development programs, panels, and support for women-identifying writers, producers, and directors.
A joint project of Barnard College’s Athena Center for Leadership and Women and Hollywood, the AFF is the premier festival dedicated to celebrating and elevating women’s leadership and advancing inclusion on screen. Last month, AFF announced its shorts lineup, which Melissa Silverstein, artistic director and co-founder of AFF, said “speaks directly to the vital conversations happening in our culture about women’s leadership — what it looks like, how it manifests, and where it is evolving.”
The lineup is divided into two sections: “Shorts Block 1: Artists on Artistry” brings together real and fictional creators who present questions about the role of artists in society and the impact artists can make in the culture, and “Shorts Block 2: Women’s Work” challenges clichés about women’s career trajectories while making visible new ideas about what it means to labor — in settings from fishing boats and farmlands to kitchen tables and Senate chambers. “We can’t wait for audiences to experience this year’s exceptional program and join us in making our 15th edition unforgettable,” said Umbreen Bhatti ’00, the Constance Hess Williams ’66 Director of the Athena Center.
