Dear Members of the Barnard Community,
To be a student at Barnard is to be part of an extraordinary community of women who have earned their place at the College through hard work, determination, and grit. Our community thrives because of the expectation of mutual respect, safety, and inclusion. We fiercely honor and protect the academic experience and the spaces where education, discourse, and discovery take place.
Ensuring our students are able to pursue their education without disruption, in an environment that is both welcoming and conducive to learning, is core to Barnard’s mission of providing a thoughtful and rigorous liberal arts education. Equally central to our mission is cultivating an environment where antisemitism, harassment, and discrimination of any kind are unequivocally denounced as antithetical to our values.
That is why we cannot, and will not, tolerate any disruptions in academic spaces. When uninvited visitors enter classrooms with the intention of interfering with learning—let alone when they target specific courses, communities, or individuals—they betray the very principles of intellectual exchange that underpin our community. As members of Barnard, we must hold ourselves to the highest standards and ensure that the College, and our community at large, remains a place where learning is protected, individuals feel safe, and the pursuit of knowledge is celebrated.
As we reflect on the past few days and the semester ahead, let us reaffirm our commitment to the shared values of respect, inclusion, and academic excellence.
In partnership,
Laura Ann Rosenbury
President, Barnard College