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6 unusual facts about Barnard College


Barnard College

Every Barnard student is part of the Student Government Association (SGA), which elects a representative student government.

Barnard students can also join extracurricular activities or organizations at Columbia University, while Columbia University students are allowed in most, but not all, Barnard organizations.

National Defense Education Act

Initially, a small number of institutions (Barnard College, Yale University, Princeton University) refused to accept funding under the student loan program established by the act because of the affidavit requirement.

Peer Health Exchange

Undergraduate volunteers at Barnard College and Columbia University teach the PHE health curriculum to teenagers in six New York City, New York high schools: Facing History School; Heritage School; Martin Luther King Jr.

They brought their program to New York City first, training over 150 volunteers from Barnard College, Columbia University, and New York University and reaching 1300 low-income high school students that would otherwise have not received any health education in school.

Reacting games

Reacting games developed as a genre of experiential education games in the United States in the late 1990s from work done by Mark Carnes at Barnard College.


Ann Cottrell Free

A graduate of Collegiate School and Barnard College, she became the first woman Washington correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, Newsweek and the Chicago Sun, where she covered First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and wartime-Washington.

Barnard Women Poets Prize

It debuted sixteen debut collections, supported by the Axe-Houghton Foundation, the generous alumnae of Barnard College, and published by Beacon Press.

Claudia Rankine

She has taught at Case Western Reserve University, Barnard College, University of Georgia, and in the writing program at the University of Houston.

Committee for Justice and Peace in the Holy Land

Barnard College Dean Emeritus Virginia Gildersleeve was Chairman, the Former President of the Union Theological Seminary Henry Sloane Coffin was Vice Chairman, and Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, was the Committee's Executive Director.

Elizabeth Beardsley Butler

A 1905 graduate of Barnard College, she also took courses at the New York School of Philanthropy before securing employment as a researcher of wage earners, both female and child, in Jersey City, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore.

Grace Lee Boggs

She studied at Barnard College on a scholarship and graduated in 1935 where she was influenced by Kant and especially Hegel.

Hebrew High School of New England

Virtually all students go on to four-year colleges after graduation, and HHNE students have been accepted to top schools such as Cooper Union, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Barnard College, Brandeis University, Boston University, New York University (NYU), Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Yeshiva University.

Judith Herzfeld

She received her university education at Barnard College of Columbia University (bachelor’s in chemistry 1967, advisor Bernice Segal), MIT (doctorate in chemical physics 1972, departmental advisor Robert Silbey, thesis advisor H. Eugene Stanley) and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (master’s in public policy 1973).

Mary Antin

She married Amadeus William Grabau, a geologist, in 1901, and moved to New York City where she attended Teachers College of Columbia University and Barnard College.

Mary Ellis Peltz

Born Mary Ellis Opdycke, Peltz was educated at the Spence School and Barnard College (Phi Beta Kappa).

Nancy Duff Campbell

Ms. Campbell received her undergraduate degree from Barnard College in 1965 and her law degree from New York University School of Law in 1968.

Sabrina Tavernise

Raised in Granville, Massachusetts, Tavernise graduated in 1993 with a B.A. in Russian Studies from Barnard College.

Sasha Anawalt

After transferring to Barnard College in 1977 and marrying William B. Anawalt, she moved to Southern California in 1982 and started working as a theater reporter for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.


see also

1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality

Days before the Conference itself, the then President of Barnard College, Ellen V. Futter, began receiving phone calls and letters from WAP and other groups against the premise of the Conference.The day before the conference was scheduled to begin, Barnard College officials—in response to phone calls from angry members of anti-pornography groups—confiscated 1500 copies of Diary of a Conference on Sexuality.