Presidential Search

The Board has retained Russell Reynolds Associates, a leading global executive search and assessment firm, to assist the committee with the search for Barnard’s ninth president and to lead our recruitment efforts. The firm’s experience in leading searches for university presidents, combined with their deep understanding of the higher education landscape, and the superb team (Anne Coyle, Jamie Hechinger, Jack “Rusty” O’Kelley, and Steve Newton) that will work with us, are among the reasons we are confident they will precisely support our efforts in developing an exceptional list of candidates.

History

Founded in 1889, Barnard was the only college in New York City, and one of the few in the nation, where women could receive the same rigorous and challenging education available to men. The College was named after educator, mathematician, and 10th president of Columbia College Frederick A.P. Barnard, who argued unsuccessfully for the admission of women to Columbia University. The school’s founding, however, was largely due to the rallying efforts of Annie Nathan Meyer, a student and writer who was equally dissatisfied with Columbia’s stance and staunchly committed to the education of women. She joined forces with a small group of her peers to petition the University Trustees for an affiliated, self-sustaining liberal arts women’s college. In two years, she accomplished what she had set out to do.

In 1900, Barnard was included in the educational system of Columbia University, with provisions unique among women’s colleges: It was governed by its own trustees, faculty, and dean and was responsible for its own endowment and facilities, while sharing the instruction, the libraries, and the degree of the university. In 1983, when Columbia College went co-ed, as Frederick A.P. Barnard had wanted more than a century before, one might have thought Barnard would easily be subsumed. Instead, then-President Ellen Futter fought for the College to remain independent and worked toward a new and lasting agreement with Columbia in light of their decision to admit women.

Today, under President Sian Leah Beilock, Barnard’s place in higher education is undeniably strong. Over the course of over 130 years and 12 great women leaders — from winning the right to hire faculty in 1900 and the pivotal protests of 1968 to the historic admission of transgender women in 2016 and the introduction of the Francine A. LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being in 2020 — Barnard has continued to flourish and excel.

To learn more about the College, its history, and its vision, visit Boldly Barnard.