Barnard Magazine Winter 2015

GATHER. BARNARD REUNION May 28–31, 2015

Please mark your calendars for Reunion 2015!

For more information, please contact Alumnae Affairs at reunion@barnard.edu or 212.854.2005.

FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS

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Digital Initiatives at Barnard

by Thomas MacMillan, with Jenna Freedman & Yasmine Espert The new Athena Digital Design Agency teaches Barnard students to code, then puts them to work—plus, a look at Barnard’s Digital Archives and the Caribbean Digital Conference

Letters

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Remembrance of Barnard Things Past Edited by Abigail Beshkin Illustrations by Sarah Burwash Reminiscences of Barnard from throughout the decades

Syllabus COOL Projects Unfold at Barnard

Sisters In a House Divided

by Louise Bernikow Barnard founder Annie Nathan Meyer and her sister square off on the question of women’s right to vote

February 25, 2015

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From Conquistadores to Computers

by Annette Kahn Professor Paul Scolieri moves gracefully through a range of interests related to dance

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Join us for the inaugural West Coast Gala with host Bob Saget P ’12

President’s Page

Through the Gates EVENT Wired Like A Woman?

CELEBRATION Founders Day FACULTY Lauded In a Limerick CONTEST Speaking Like Cicero FACULTY Completing the Circle ARCHIVES Celebrating the Years

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BARNARD LOS ANGELES GALA

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The Salon WRITER Suki Kim AUTHOR Sigrid MacRae ACTOR Victoria Mack 34

Alumnae Association PRESIDENT’S LETTER ELECTIONS

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ON THE COVER

ALUMNAE PROFILES Lucinda Laird, Mary Egan, Chanel Ward

This specially commissioned cover was created by London-based illustrator Laura Barrett, who specializes in creating decorative silhouette illustrations.

Class Notes

IN MEMORIAM

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Sources Honoring Esther Rowland

by Mervyn Kaufman 75

Last Image

by Dahlia Elsayed 76

Last Word

by Dorothy Adelson

barnard.edu/LA-gala BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 1

LETTERS

BARNARD MAGAZINE FALL 2014 C1

Promoting Free Speech Please continue the discussion on the inviolable responsibility of the academic community to foster free speech and endorse divergent views (President’s Page, Summer 2014). I remember myself as an undergraduate and the very firm views I held. But I am distressed that faculty joined or even led the student protests. I expect more from those who teach. I have disagreements with some of the correspondents as well (Letters, Fall 2014). Nothing new in women taking leadership roles in humanitarian causes; what is new is that more women are now in positions of power. It is Christine Legarde and Condoleezza Rice who need to be touted as role models; they are breaking new ground. Difficult times call for difficult decisions; reflection on past decisions is legitimate, but doing what seemed right at the time does not call for an apology. —Edith T. Shapiro ’56

SHARE YOUR MEMORY! Tell us your favorite memory of your years at Barnard.

125.barnard.edu #barnard125

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Founders Day Fun The cover art is magnificent! Is it on view anywhere?

I came to Founders Day with my two grandsons and we all enjoyed it very much. I sat through their face painting and tattoos and bubble blowing, and they sat through the lecture on the statistics of card playing. Then we went over to play in front of Alma Mater on the Columbia campus. A great day to connect. —Seana E. Anderson ’69

A Correction I was really excited to read the “A Summer of Science” article in the latest Barnard Magazine. I think it was really well done. Thank you for including me.

Just one small correction: brown dwarfs are not stars. —Camilla Buzard ’16 Editor’s note: We apologize for the misunderstanding. According to the California Institute of Technology, brown dwarfs “are objects which are too large to be called planets and too small to be stars.”

Also of interest: “Brown dwarfs were only a theoretical concept until they were first discovered in 1995. It is now thought that there might be as many brown dwarfs as there are stars.”

EDITORIAL STAFF Annette Stramesi Kahn ’67 EDITORIAL MANAGER Abigail Beshkin ART DIRECTOR & DESIGNER Anna Nozaki RESEARCH EDITOR Rebecca Geiger STAFF WRITER Alyssa Vine EDITOR

ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION OF BARNARD COLLEGE Terry Newman ’79

PRESIDENT & ALUMNAE TRUSTEE

ALUMNAE AFFAIRS INTERIM DIRECTOR OF ALUMNAE AFFAIRS

Jamie Coffey

COMMUNICATIONS Joanne Kwong ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT Patricia Keim CREATIVE DIRECTOR David Hopson EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Annette Stramesi Kahn VICE PRESIDENT

DEVELOPMENT VICE PRESIDENT FOR DEVELOPMENT

Bret Silver

Winter 2015, Vol. CIV, No. 1 Barnard Magazine (USPS 875-280, ISSN 1071-6513) is published quarterly by the Alumnae Association of Barnard College.

Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices.

Postmaster: Send change of address form to: Alumnae Records, Barnard College, Box AS, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027-6598

EDITORIAL OFFICE Vagelos Alumnae Center, Barnard College, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027-6598 Phone: 212.854.0085 E-mail: magazine@barnard.edu Opinions expressed are those of contributors or the editor and do not represent official positions of Barnard College or the Alumnae Association of Barnard College.

Letters to the editor (150 words maximum), submissions for Last Word (600 words maximum), and unsolicited articles and/or photographs will be published at the discretion of the editor and will be edited for length and clarity.

The contact information listed in Class Notes is for the exclusive purpose of providing information for the magazine and may not be used for any other purpose.

For alumnae related inquiries, call Alumnae Affairs at 212.854.2005 or e-mail alumnaeaffairs@barnard.edu.

To change your address, write to Alumnae Records, Barnard College, Box AS, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027-6598.

Phone: 212.854.7792 E-mail: alumrecords@barnard.edu

PRESIDENT’S PAGE

Photograph by Steve DeCanio

DEBORA SPAR

Policy and Gender • Over the past few years, there has been a growing visibility of transgender individuals

across our society, and an increasing recognition that, for many people, gender identity is more complicated and ambiguous than was once commonly believed to be the case.

As a result, many organizations—from the U.S. military to the International Olympic Committee—are grappling with the implications of unraveling gender distinctions that in an earlier time were considered absolute. For women’s colleges like Barnard, these questions are particularly profound. Because we are women’s colleges, after all, dedicated both philosophically and legally to educating only women. Federal law permits us to discriminate in admissions on the basis of sex, and we do. We do not accept men for admission. At Barnard, we have no formal policy addressing transgender applicants because, until recently, we hadn’t seen the need for one. Instead, our longtime practice has been to review each application individually, and to admit only students who identify, in the traditional sense, as women.

With changes afoot all around, however, and a mission that requires us to “address issues of gender in all of their complexity and urgency,” the time has come for us to examine how we, as a women’s college, define “women,” and how, consequently, we both admit and graduate students. To this end, the Board of Trustees has engaged in a series of conversations over the past few months, seeking to learn as much as possible about this complex set of issues. At the same time, members of our senior staff have been exploring the implications of any potential policy change, ranging from legal issues to those affecting campus life.

In December, the Board of Trustees met on campus, and the Committee on Campus Life, cochaired by trustees Diana Vagelos ’55 and Frances Sadler ’72, convened to discuss transgender policy, and to hear from various experts on the topic. The committee reported its conversations to the full board, and intends to meet for further discussions in March. Barring unforeseen circumstances, our goal is to formalize any changes to our admissions policy by June of this year.

In the meantime, and to further inform the board’s deliberations, we are reaching out as widely as we can to all members of our community, asking for their thoughts and feedback. We have made available an online survey form that, as of early January, had generated over 400 very thoughtful responses. We will be holding a series of townhall meetings early in the spring semester, open to parents, students, staff, faculty, and alumnae, and convening an online gathering for alumnae around the world. As this page goes to press, we are still in the early days of these conversations, but I have been moved and impressed by how many of our students and alumnae have already communicated their thoughts, and by the depth of intellect and consideration they reveal.

There is no consensus in our community around this complex issue, or even a particularly well-delineated line of division. Indeed, reading through the responses to our survey, I was struck by the exceedingly broad range of opinions, from those who insist that Barnard should admit and graduate only those who are born and identify as women, to those who feel equally strongly that the College should admit and graduate any individual who identifies either as a woman or as a member of a gender-oppressed minority. This is a tough line to straddle, and I suspect that we will not succeed in satisfying all the members of our diverse community. At the same time, though, reading these responses also reminded me of how deeply the members of our community care about this College, and how committed they are to engaging in tough and important Continued on Page 71 BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 3

INSIDE EDITOR’S LETTER

Our Take on Technology •

From left: Rebecca Lieberman, Lily Kaplan, Jordana Norry, Sarah Fels, and Rachel Sarraf, all Class of 2016, were in Prague over fall break. They stopped by the John Lennon Wall to wish Barnard a happy 125th anniversary!

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Updates on Barnard’s ongoing expansion into the world of digital technology—both in the classroom and in the curriculums of subjects as varied as chemistry and dance—are to be found throughout this issue. Learn how the acronymically spot-on Committee on Online and On-Campus Learning (COOL) investigates how faculty can best use technology to enhance learning—in the classroom and beyond. The opening article of the feature section follows up with a discussion of other digital initiatives, such as the new Athena Digital Design Agency, which aims to crack the gender barrier in computer science by teaching students to write code, and then build websites for small businesses. The Barnard Archives, whose new digital collections are also highlighted in this issue, contributed photographs for a look back at the 50th, 75th, and 100th anniversaries.

Annie Nathan Meyer, a pioneer in women’s higher education, and her sister, Maud Nathan, were two strong-minded women who did not agree on the question of a woman’s right to vote.

Louise Bernikow ’61 turns her attention to both sisters, exploring their lives and differences of opinion. On the Barnard campus, the women’s suffrage movement inspired many early-20th-century students to take up their placards and march. Writer Bernikow is currently at work on Milliners & Millionaires, a book about New York City women and the fight for the vote.

The cover of this winter issue, the second of four devoted to our 125th year, reflects our wish to spotlight this milestone anniversary of the College by introducing differing artists’ interpretations of a distinctive feature of the campus. The art is specially commissioned. Sculptured paper was the medium for the first; the cover of this issue takes its inspiration from silhouette art, popular here and in Europe since the mid-18th century.

Writes artist Laura Garrett, “My approach was, naturally, to start with the beautifully ornate gates that frame the College itself.

There was so much detail to work with, and I wanted to capture the delicate balance between the wrought iron and brickwork, surrounding and cementing the friendships formed by Barnard students.”

Please enjoy the issue, write us with comments, share your memories, and join us as we anticipate spring. —Annette Kahn

THROUGH THE GATES

by Elicia Brown ’90

Illustration by Marina Muun

professor of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University Medical Center.

Their presentations were followed by talks by two younger academics, who approached the topic with informed skepticism, touching on the flaws in scientific studies supporting innate sex differences: Rebecca Jordan-Young, Tow Associate Professor and chair of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Barnard; and Daphna Joel, professor, School of Psychological Sciences and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University.

Arnold has been researching the origins of sex differences in animals since the mid-1970s. One of his early experiments explored how hormones—both in adults and in prenatal development—influence gender. When he excised the testes of a zebra finch, the bird still sang the male mating song, but less often. “The brain structure did not change much,” says Arnold. When he treated female babies with male hormones, however, he noticed

permanent changes. The female sang the “male song.”

But Arnold said his thinking evolved in the mid-1990s, when he encountered a very unusual zebra finch.

A gynandromorph, the finch had traits of both sexes. Its right side featured a testis and the the tell-tale male patch of orange plumage. Its left side included an ovary and the plainer plumage of a female. Yet it sang only the male song. “It doesn’t take a whole lot of thinking to realize that the sex is not determined only by hormones, or by a message sent from the gonads to the brain, but by the brain itself,” said Arnold.

“It has an inherent code.”

Like Arnold, Silver’s interest in the topic of gendered traits was first piqued almost 40 years ago. Then a new parent, she marveled at the way doves, often monogamous, attend to their eggs. The father typically begins caring for the eggs only after seeing the mother in the nest.

Continued on Page 71

EVENT

Wired Like a Woman?

• Scientists discuss male and female brains and the origin of differences—do they exist?

• Recently, the neuroscience journal

Cerebrum examined a “sexy” topic that’s currently a hot one among researchers— distinctions between male and female brains. The article was accompanied by an illustration depicting the concerns of a female mind (perfume, flowers, music) and that of a male (computers, science, math).

“This should have been from 40 years ago,” Natalie Angier ’78 declared, as she showed the illustration—which was actually from the journal’s spring 2014 issue—to a packed auditorium at The Diana Center on September 29. In the artwork, she said, “sex differences devolve into something cartoonish.” A New York Times science writer and Pulitzer Prize winner, Angier served as moderator for a panel, “Sexes, Genders, and Brains: Four Scientists, Four Perspectives,” which explored the growing scientific field that focuses on gender differences in brains.

Panelists urged caution in reaching conclusions too quickly, and the danger of simplifying complex findings.

Four scholars addressed the subject during the evening presentation, one of several events held to celebrate the College’s 125th anniversary. The first two speakers were involved in the early studies on sex differences: Art Arnold, a professor in UCLA’s department of integrative biology and physiology; and Rae Silver, a psychology professor at Barnard and Columbia, and also a

BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 5

THROUGH THE GATES

by Stephanie Browne ’10

Photographs by Samuel Stuart

CELEBRATION

Founders Day

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• Honoring Barnard’s history

• On October 26, the Barnard community

and its friends celebrated the College’s 125th anniversary. The day kicked off with the unveiling of Barnard Way, an honorary street designation at 116th Street and Broadway. City officials, including Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg ’86, spoke to the ways Barnard has enriched both Morningside Heights and New York City. The day was packed. Control Top, a student comedy troupe, and CoLAB, a multigenre arts collective, performed on Lehman Lawn. Faculty-led minicourses included a voice workshop, African dance class, and lectures. There were kid-friendly activities, such as science demonstrations, an obstacle course, and games and crafts hosted by the Toddler Center. Also featured: an exhibition of alumnae art and the launch of 125 Barnard Dances, which lets visitors use a smartphone app to bring to life student-choreographed dances inspired by historical photos. A Barnard Hall cake was a sweet way to cap off a day of Barnard pride.

Photos: 1 From left: Student Government Association officers mingle with city officials: Emily Klein ’15, Shivani Vikuntam ’16, U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Barnard President Debora Spar, City Councilman Mark Levine, Polly Trottenberg, Dean of the College Avis Hinkson ’84, Julia Qian ’15, Sara Shuster ’15, and Pascale Dugue ’15.

2 & 3 Crowds at the Geer Gates 4 Professor Timothy Halpin-Healy talks physics. 5 Joining Barnard’s first graduating class 6 Shopping at the Barnard Bookstore 7 Meeting Millie the Bear 8 Alina’s Pâtisserie in Fairfield, Conn., created the cake. 9 Lillian Appel, director, major events & programs, and Michell Tollinchi, associate dean of studies, help serve it. 10 A dance performance on Lehman Lawn 11 Faculty panelists included Gergely Baics, history; Kimberley Johnson, political science; Monica Miller, English; and Robert McCaughey, history. 12 Attendees fuel up at NYC food trucks. 13 Sports and an obstacle course in the LeFrak Gym for the younger set

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THROUGH THE GATES

by Jessica Gross

Photograph by Dorothy Hong

the Alena Wels Hirschorn ’58 Professor of Economics at Barnard. “Now, what I didn’t know—and apparently many do— was that leading the discussion is typically a sign that you’re going to get the award.”

The award, which the professor did indeed receive, is the Jonathan Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching Economic History, a prestigious honor conferred annually by the Economic History Association. His prize was announced in the form of a limerick, as on the publicradio show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, with the audience filling in the rhymes.

The clues started trickling in: the limerick referenced Palo Alto, where Weiman had earned his PhD at Stanford, and the name of his advisor. And, lo and behold, the award was his.

Weiman has been on Barnard’s faculty since 2001, which includes spending three years as chair of the economics

department and two as the dean of faculty diversity and development. (He has been the Alena Wels Hirschorn ’58 Professor since 2003.) But his decades-long career has included a number of schools, as well as positions outside university walls. “I’m a peripatetic,” Weiman says.

In the 1980s and early ’90s, he was an assistant professor of economics at Swarthmore College, then an associate professor of economics at Yale University.

In 1994, Weiman joined Queens College as professor of economics. “That was a frustrating job,” he says. The mission— teaching students who often didn’t have the kinds of educational opportunities that, say, Yale or Barnard students do— was vital, but “politically, it was a very contentious time in New York,” with constant attacks against CUNY. When Weiman got the chance to move outside the academy, to serve as the program director of the Social Science Research Council, he took it. A couple of years later, he moved to the Russell Sage Foundation as senior program officer and helped develop an initiative that examined the unintended impacts of mass incarceration. “I think we helped put the very good research being done on this problem right now on the front burner,” he says. “Our job is really to be catalysts, to say, ‘This is an important issue and attention should be paid to it.’” He adds, “In terms of the social value of anything I have done—aside from the teaching—this is probably one of the most important things in my career. It’s a tragedy what has happened to a lot of low-income, inner-city, minority communities because of policing policy, and the get-tough, long-incarceration policies in response to nonviolent crimes.”

While at Russell Sage, Weiman was asked to apply for a tenured position at Barnard. He saw the high racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity as a boon, not to mention the appeal of training women in a field where they are underrepresented.

He also was drawn to the tradition of Barnard as a liberal arts college affiliated Continued on Page 71

FACULTY

Lauded in a Limerick • Economics professor David Weiman wins the prestigious Jonathan Hughes Prize

• Over the summer, a colleague of David

Weiman’s called him up and explained that he was needed to lead the discussion at a 6:30 a.m. teaching breakfast on a Saturday morning. On receiving the invite, “I became suspicious,” says Weiman,

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THROUGH THE GATES

by Merri Rosenberg ’78

Illustration by Raquel Aparicio

history,” with only 30 minutes to reflect on their talk before facing the audience.

The persuasive advocacy speeches were judged by associate provost Patricia Denison; sophomore-class dean and transfer-advising dean Christina Kuan Tsu; and alumna trustee Jyoti Menon ’01. Reviewing the impromptu category were professor of classics Kristina Milnor and Timothy Halpin-Healy, chair of the physics department, as well as graduate student Zahava Moerdler ’13.

Providing challenges such as the Cicero Speech Contest to fledgling speakers is especially important, says Kempf, because all too often, “whenever a public venue is open to all, women self-sabotage and elect not to do it.” By contrast, participation in events such as the Cicero Speech Contest is “empowering, when they get a little bit of opportunity and a lot of practice. They can do a great job, and be very powerful and persuasive. It’s a way to step up to the podium.”

Students who participated say they didn’t let their nerves or anxieties get in the way. “This is really useful, but

most people are scared,” says Paymaneh Parhami ’16, a political science major and chemistry minor, who won first place in persuasive advocacy for her presentation on men’s roles in the feminist movement.

“If you stop using these skills, they might go away. I wasn’t expecting to win.”

Parhami had done a substantial amount of public speaking as a high school student in West Chester, a Philadelphia suburb, even winning a speaking competition as a freshman.

Becky Santora ’15, an anthropology major who’s also earning a degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary, took second place in the persuasive advocacy category for her remarks about human rights in Tibet. The Highland Park, N.J., native, who had taken a public speaking class with Kempf, entered the contest because, she says, “I wanted to practice on a larger scale. I gained so much confidence in being able to speak confidently and to speak my opinion.”

And Rathna Ramanathan ’18, from Clarkstown, N.Y., captured first prize Continued on Page 72

CONTEST

Speaking Like Cicero • Annual speech contest showcases student voices

• The tendency to speak out and speak

up in any venue—from classrooms to corporate boardrooms—is often attributed to the “Barnard DNA,” and helping students sharpen their communication skills has long been the purview of the Speaking Fellows Program. For the second year in a row, the program staged the Cicero Speech Contest, a fun but competitive event that offers students an opportunity to develop the confidence and skills for successful public speaking.

“We realized that the speaking program really lends itself to having events and contests,” says Daniela Kempf, its manager. “The competition is a way to provide students with a venue to engage each other with ideas in the public sphere.” Adds Kempf, “It also offers another opportunity to promote a culture in which speaking becomes a form of intellectual expression and a powerful tool for advocacy; where speaking well is valued, evaluated, and rewarded; where students use such opportunities as platforms to voice issues that matter to them and affect real change.”

In the most recent Cicero Speech Contest, held in November in the James Room, 13 contestants each participated in one of the two categories, persuasive advocacy and impromptu speaking. Those who competed in persuasive advocacy had prepared to discourse on a variety of topics, ranging from eating disorders and mental health to the Tibetan conflict and the African diaspora. Those who braved the impromptu competition were given the topic “well-behaved women seldom make

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THROUGH THE GATES

by Abigail Beshkin

Photographs by Joel Barhamand

FACULTY

Completing the Circle • Alumnae return to teach the next generation of Barnard students

• In returning to their alma mater to teach,

the alumnae photographed here are, as Provost Linda Bell explains, continuing Barnard’s mission “to inspire young women to be leaders in their fields.” The College is where these educators, who make up about six percent of Barnard’s full-time faculty and 10 percent of Barnard’s women faculty, first developed a passion for a particular subject, be it astrophysics, comparative literature,

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biology, or dance—to name just a few of the diverse subjects in which Barnard’s faculty are experts. Having returned to the institution of higher learning where they laid the groundwork for their scholarship, they bring with them “a passion for the institution and for its ability to transform,” says Bell. “It’s really a tribute to the College that so many alumnae have a great affinity for their experience, for Barnard and its mission, and for what it means to be a liberal arts college in New York City.”

All photos read from the left 1 Lisa Northrop ’95, physical education; Margaret Morrison ’83, dance; Chisa Hidaka ’86, dance; Maria Rivera Maulucci ’88, education; Josephine MongiardoCooper ’67, music; Janna Levin ’88, physics 2 Timea Szell ’75, English; Lynn Garafola ’68, dance; Madeline Schwartzman ’83, architecture; Nancy Worman ’87, classics 3 Diana Heller ’78, biology; Anne Prescott ’59, English; Marisa Buzzeo ’01, chemistry; Mary Gordon ’71, English; Masha Mimran ’04, French Not pictured: Rachel Abramowitz ’04, English; Siobhan Burke ’08, dance; Paula Franzese ’80, political science; Charlotte Friedman ’84, English; Stacey McMath ’01, theatre; Sarah Muir ’98, anthropology; Danielle Sussan ’04, psychology

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THROUGH THE GATES

by Annette Kahn

Photographs courtesy of Barnard Archives

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Celebrating the Years

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• Barnard’s past anniversaries

• Anniversaries have three purposes:

acknowledging the past, savoring the present, and aspiring toward an even brighter future. As we celebrate the College’s 125th anniversary, or quasquicentennial, we thought to look back at previous celebrations with the help of our photographic records. On these pages: our selection of pictures recall the different milestones in Barnard’s always proud, vibrant, and meaningful history.

All photos read from the left 1 The 50th anniversary committee meets in the Deanery, now the Vagelos Alumnae Center. Seated are Mrs. Ogden Reid ’03, Dean Virginia Gildersleeve ’99, and Mrs. Arthur Sulzberger ’14. Standing are Mrs. George Endicott ’00, Dr. Elizabeth Wright Hubbard ’17, Mrs. Frederick Rice ’25, and Mrs. Edward M. Earle ’17. 2 The1939 gala fashion show included an exotic Eastern princess, a flapper, and a Victorian lady. 3 Other fashion-show highlights: Helene Bach Jamieson ’42 wears a post–World War I gym costume; Anne Graver, a war-worker uniform; Isabelle Lee Gleasing ’40, a chiffon evening dress; and Elizabeth Hanf Norfleet ’42, an afternoon dress. 4 An array of period clothing reveals specific attire for golf, tennis, and horseback riding, as well as for a country walk. 5 Rosemary Park, Barnard president in l964, reads a mayoral proclamation at the 75th anniversary; dean of the faculty Henry A. Boorse and Sue Silverman flank her.

6 At the 75th-anniversary gala, honorary guest Queen Fredericka of the Hellenes sits with President Park. 7 Honorary degrees were presented at Convocation. Park and President Grayson Kirk of Columbia University with recipients: Nigerian lawyer and businesswoman Jaiyeolo Aduke Moore, cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead ’23, and philosopher Susanne Knauth Langer. 8 Department stores and other retailers on Fifth Avenue saluted Barnard’s 75th: this is the window of the classic women’s clothier, Peck & Peck. 9 A banner announces Barnard’s 100th anniversary. 10 Laurie Anderson ’69, Joan Rivers ’54, and Suzanne Vega ’81 surround the anniversary cake. 11 Dawn Lille ’55, Sandra Genter, then-professor of dance at the College, Barnard president Ellen Futter ’71, and professor emerita of Spanish Mirella d’Ambrosio Servodidio ’55, head of the 100th anniversary committee 12 Martha Kostyra Stewart ’63 chats with a student at a 100th-anniversary reception.

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WINTER 2015 CALENDAR OF EVENTS

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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27–SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28

The Scholar & Feminist XL Conference: Action on Education BARNARD CAMPUS

In honor of the 40th anniversary of BCRW’s Scholar & Feminist Conference, scholars, activists, educators, and artists explore the K-12 landscape and investigate who can attain post-secondary education, under what circumstances, and at what cost. Information and registration: bcrw.barnard.edu

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SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 12–6 PM

NYC Feminist Zine Fest JAMES ROOM, 4TH FLOOR BARNARD HALL

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The Feminist Zine Fest showcases the work of zine makers of all genders who identify on the feminist spectrum, and whose politics are reflected in their work. For the second year, Barnard, home of the renowned Barnard Zine Library, proudly hosts the Zine Fest, welcoming approximately 40 zine-makers eager to share their work. Information: jfreedma@ barnard.edu

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TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 7 PM

Poets and Writers: Readings by Jennifer Finney Boylan, Alexandra Horowitz, and Kathleen Tolan SULZBERGER PARLOR, 3RD FLOOR BARNARD HALL

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Jennifer Finney Boylan is Barnard’s Anna Quindlen Writer-in-Residence. She is the author of the memoir She’s Not There: a Life in Two Genders. Alexandra Horowitz teaches for the writing and first-year seminar programs, and in the biology and psychology departments. She is the author of Inside of a Dog:What Dogs See, Smell, and Know and On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes. Kathleen Tolan’s new play is I Was Reading a Novel by Javier Marías. Information: english@barnard.edu

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TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 6:30 PM

Beauty and Aging: A Panel EVENT OVAL, THE DIANA CENTER

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A distinguished panel, including Joanna Coles, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan; Dayle Haddon, founder and CEO of WomenOne; Rhoda Narins ’62, cosmetic dermatologist; and Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, will discuss how our ideals change over time and how feminism and gender are linked to feelings about how we look and age. Moderated by Debora Spar.

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COMPLETE LISTINGS AT BARNARD.EDU/EVENTS

BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 13

SYLLABUS

by Lois Elfman ’80

Illustration by Shout

Busy students find valuable study time

context.”

“The current environment makes the liberal arts all the more important because we focus on modes of inquiry, ways of learning,” says COOL chair Janet Jakobsen, director of the Barnard Center for Research on Women and Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. “What we hope that gives our students in a rapidly changing environment is the ability to understand the various methods by which they can learn and adapt as they go through their lives.”

Among the examples of innovation already happening at Barnard is Gene Tutor, an app designed by Professor Brian Morton, chair of the biological sciences department, as a study aid for students taking a genetics course. Although designed for his course, Molecular and Mendelian Genetics, Morton points out Continued on Page 72

DIGITAL LEARNING

COOL Projects Unfold at Barnard • Barnard’s Committee on Online and On-Campus Learning examines how faculty can use digital technology to enhance learning

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on the go without lugging around huge textbooks. Enthralled alumnae watch dance performances celebrating the College’s history. The world learns about an ancient society in a new way. All of these are projects of Barnard’s Committee on Online and On-Campus Learning (COOL).

The COOL taskforce was formed in the fall of 2012: President Debora Spar asked faculty and key administrators to explore ways that the College could best use digital technology in the classroom.

After a year of research, COOL’s members gathered together a website of innovative projects already happening on campus and requested faculty proposals encouraging professors to focus on “projects that promoted Barnard’s academic distinctiveness, place-based education, feminism, social justice, and student-faculty interaction in a liberal arts

THE SALON

by Kristi Berner

Photograph by Ed Kashi VII

In the book, Kim details the daily lives of the young men—“the crème de la crème, the future leaders of North Korea.”

Kim chronicles how students were heavily guarded, “never had a single minute alone,” and were not allowed to leave the campus, where speakers constantly blasted music praising the Great Leader— Kim Jong-il at the time. “The system is all about paranoia and distrust,” she says. “They weren’t allowed to call their parents, but they would lie [to me] and say they did, to protect the system.” Kim tells how these students “at the MIT of North Korea” didn’t even know the Internet existed, and teachers were forbidden from speaking of it. She says the students were sheltered for their age. “These lovely 19-year-olds, they felt like my children,” she says. “But it was heartbreaking, unbearable to see these children in this Stalin-like system.” She blurred their identities in the book, “so no one could be singled out. But mostly they come across as incredibly loyal to their Great Leader.”

Kim says she has been obsessed with North Korea since she was a child growing up in 1970s South Korea, where her grandmother and aunt longed for the children from whom they had been cruelly separated when the country was

divided by the Allies after World War II. Kim herself was traumatically separated from her motherland at age 13, when the South Korean economy stumbled and her wealthy family “lost everything overnight.” Her parents, along with Kim and her two siblings, moved to Queens.

The teen, who had grown up with maids and governesses, was suddenly poor and labeled Asian. “Race was abstract to me, being a person of color was something I’d never thought about. My identity of who I was disappeared overnight,” she says. “I spent my teenage years mute, because I didn’t speak English.”

“The theme of separation is something I am haunted by,” she says. “I don’t know where home is. In a way, I’m trying to find that in my books.” Kim’s first book, The Interpreter, is a novel centered on New York City’s Korean community.

Just as Kim’s current book hit the bestseller list, the news broke that Sony Pictures Entertainment was limiting its scheduled Christmas Day theatre release of the Seth Rogan film The Interview, due to terror threats. In the political satire, the CIA recruits two journalists to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Based on her unique access to North Continued on Page 73

WRITER

Educating the Elite • Suki Kim ’92

• It’s an understatement to say December

was a big month for writer Suki Kim. Just after appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—a coup for any author—her new book, Without You There is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite (Crown, 2014), hit The New York Times bestseller list for e-book nonfiction, and print copies were scarce. “Sorry readers,” Kim posted on Twitter minutes before our interview. “Hardback temporarily sold out @Amazon, being restocked; Available @ B&N.” The book is a memoir of Kim’s six months undercover in North Korea, while teaching English at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, a private university funded and operated by Western missionaries to educate 270 sons from the country’s elite families.

After taking several highly supervised visits to North Korea over the past decade as a journalist Kim says, “I knew I had to live there to tell this story. All Americans were hearing about North Korea were crass Kim Jong-il jokes or about the famine there,” she says. “But there are 25 million people being held hostage in the nation, not allowed to move to the next town, not allowed to think freely.”

With a recommendation from a friend of the university’s president, Kim’s application was approved quickly, although she did not hide the fact she was a writer. Kim says through embedding in the school in 2011, she could tell the stories of individual North Koreans, to make them more real to Westerners, “similar to the way people read the stories of the 9/11 terror victims and felt they could have been your friend or my friend.”

BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 15

THE SALON

by Jennifer Altmann

Photograph by Sigrid Estrada

whose Baltic German family had been exiled from Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. The two were married on Aimée’s 25th birthday and settled in Breslau, Germany, where Heinrich was finishing his PhD in history. By 1940, they had five children and a rundown farm north of Berlin when Heinrich was notified that he was to report for duty in the German military. An infantry lieutenant who spoke four languages, Heinrich worked in intelligence and later volunteered for the Russian front. When Aimée received word in July 1941 that he had been killed by a sniper in Russia, she was pregnant with MacRae, “a furlough baby.”

MacRae tells the stunning tale of her mother’s escape from the advancing Russian army and her journey back to the United States in A World Elsewhere: An American Woman in Wartime Germany (Viking, 2014). Using letters, memoirs, home movies, and the recollections of her older siblings, MacRae re-creates day-today life in Germany during the war, where shopkeepers telegraphed their allegiances with their greetings: “Heil Hitler” meant they were true Nazis or they felt the war was going well. “Good afternoon” could signify that they were stand-up people, MacRae writes.

Aimée’s struggle to raise six children in a decimated country not her own is gripping. In a freezing house, where the children were bundled in layers of clothes, their fingers turning blue, she oversaw the farm, conducted dinnertime conversations in English to teach the children her language, and organized house concerts and performances of Cinderella. MacRae’s chronicle of those war years is shaped in part by a stash of her mother’s old letters, which she discovered several years ago in the apartment of Aimée’s good friend, and which offer a new view of her mother.

“The picture I had had was of a woman worn thin by hardship, hard work, and war,” MacRae explains. “Later, in this country, there was still lots of hardship.”

(Having survived the entire war in Germany, Aimée was told by the American

consulate to sail for the United States in 1947, eventually buying a farmhouse in rural Maine.) But when MacRae read her mother’s letters recounting her romance with her father—“Yes, Paris, four mad and glorious days with Heinrich”—she discovered “this carefree, exuberant young person I did not recognize. She had found her Prince Charming and thought life was going to be gorgeous,” MacRae says.

The father she had never known also came alive, especially in his letters to Aimée: “You are the one who has won the war, our war—within and without. My part was easy, you are the one who bears the burden.”

Of the war, he wrote:

An old world is sinking, but even in ruin she is beautiful. Yet the real, the pure, the eternal will survive. The sun will continue to shine on the gardens of Oxford and Cambridge, on the white chateaux of the Touraine, through the bright windows of the great cathedrals.

The spirit, the word, and art will remain.

AUTHOR

Love and Fortitude in Wartime Germany • Sigrid von HoyningenHuene MacRae ’63

•

In 1988, Sigrid MacRae received a

decorated Moroccan box from her 85-year-old mother. Inside were letters from the father MacRae had never known; he was killed in World War II. Ten years later, when her mother died, MacRae finally sat down to read the letters, and they brought to life an extraordinary story of love and fortitude in wartime Germany.

MacRae’s mother, Aimée, who grew up in a wealthy Connecticut family, traveled to Paris in 1927 and fell in love with an impoverished young baron, Heinrich, 16

“He had always been a phantasm, a family icon,” MacRae says, “but this made him real.” Of course, there are still many things MacRae doesn’t know about him, such as how he felt about the Nazis, but she suspects he did not endorse their views. When MacRae moved to the United States at age 6, however, a little boy at her school in rural Maine called her a Nazi.

She has been asked about her German background throughout her life. After earning a graduate degree in art history at Columbia, MacRae worked as an editor at Time Inc. and Reader’s Digest. She is the coauthor of Alliance of Enemies, about the undercover collaboration between American intelligence agencies and the German resistance to end World War II. Writing A World Elsewhere offered her the chance to examine questions about her identity that have long plagued her and to understand the complicated journey of the woman who raised her.

Faced with widowhood, war, and six children, her mother “did not quail—at Continued on Page 73

THE SALON

by June Bell

Photograph by Susan Shachter

ACTOR

The Play’s The Thing …

But TV Is Pretty Good Too

NEW & UPCOMING RELEASES FICTION

•Paris Red

by Maureen Gibbon ’84 W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, $24.95 Disgruntled

by Asali Solomon ’95 Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015, $26 NONFICTION

•A Feminist Perspective on Opera Interpretation: The Case of Richard Wagner’s Der fliegende Hollander (Musikwissenschaft,Vol. 19)

by Courtney Howland ’75 LIT Verlag, 2014, $48.98

• Victoria Mack ’01

• It’s a great time to be a TV actor in New

York City. Never have so many prime-time episodes been filmed in the Big Apple, according to the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. It’s a great time to be Victoria Mack, too. Trained as a theatre actor, she’s finding steady work on the stage and in television shows made in New York, including Boardwalk Empire and The Good Wife.

Mack recently played “an evil rich person” in a pilot for a show called Members Only that she hopes will be picked up this spring by ABC. She wrapped up a part in the off-Broadway comedy The Fatal Weakness at the Mint Theater. “I played one of the roles I tend to play a lot: a bitchy, petulant, spoiled person, which unfortunately is something I do quite well, probably because I’m an only child,” Mack says with a laugh.

She’s hardly playing to character.

Effervescent and gracious in an interview, Mack credits her mother, Phyllis Mack ’61, with igniting her passion for drama as well as for Barnard. A professor in the women’s and gender studies department at Rutgers University, Phyllis Mack took her young daughter to London during summers when she researched British history. Victoria saw her first Shakespeare plays there. She was entranced by A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Covent

Garden. She absorbed a performance of King Lear from the front row. “I remember the scene where they stabbed out Gloucester’s eyes,” she says, “and the fake eyeball rolled off the stage right in front of me. I thought that was the coolest thing ever.”

After graduating from Barnard, Mack earned a master’s degree in acting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. “After three years of being critiqued by people you’re terrified of, and respect and think are wonderful, you get out into the real world, and it’s not quite as terrifying because you know you can survive it,” she says of auditions. “But it never stops being scary.”

A Washington Heights resident, Mack was working regularly in regional theatre until about two years ago, when she made up her mind to find television and theatre work closer to home. “I just made a decision that I was going to have faith in myself and things were going to work out,” she says. It was a smart move. Mack shot five TV episodes in a 12-month period, and she’s performed in five off-Broadway shows in the last 19 months.

She also spent four months in 2011 as the understudy for Tony Awardwinner Nina Arianda in the Broadway production of Venus in Fur. Being an Continued on Page 74

Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins Of Anti-Jewish Iconography

by Sara Lipton ’84 Metropolitan Books, 2014, $32 The Travel Journals of Henrietta Marchant Liston: North America and Lower Canada, 1796-1800

by Louise North ’62 Lexington Books, 2014, $80 POETRY

•But Today is Different

by Sarah Stern ’86 Resource Publications, 2014, $12 Sun Stigmata (Sculpture Poems)

by Eileen Tabios ’82 Marsh Hawk Press, 2014, $24 FACULTY

•Rightlessness in an Age of Rights: Hannah Arendt and the Contemporary Struggles of Migrants

by Ayten Gundogdu Oxford University Press, 2015, $29.95 Corridor: Poems

by Saskia Hamilton Graywolf Press, 2014, $16 Sur’s Ocean: Poems From the Early Tradition

by Surdas, translation by John Stratton Hawley, edited by Kenneth Bryant Harvard University Press, 2015, $35 Bioinsecurity and Vulnerability edited by Nancy Chen and Lesley Sharp School for Advanced Research, 2014, $39.95

•

BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 17

Illustration by Chris Silas Neal

Digital Initiatives at Barnard • A host of projects confirms the College’s commitment to new technology

• 18

Rebooting Computer Science Culture

by Thomas MacMillan

In her senior year of high school in New

Orleans, Jada Hawkins ’16 signed up for a computer science class. “I had no idea

what it was,” she says. “I just thought the subject was interesting—the idea that you could make something just by typing.”

However, Hawkins’s curiosity quickly turned to frustration. She was one of only three girls in the class, and the male teacher did not welcome them.

“Why are you guys here? This is

computer science, a man’s sport,” Hawkins recalls him saying. One girl dropped out, but Hawkins remained, enduring two semesters of inappropriate jokes and feeling excluded because of her gender. “It was just a rough, rough year,” she says. Though the sexism she faced nearly made her write off computer BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 19

science altogether, her interest in the subject persisted.

Now the junior is aiming to build an entirely new computer science culture— one in which women do belong—as one of the founders of a new web-design agency at Barnard. The Athena Digital Design Agency (ADDA) is a student-run start-up being developed by the Athena Center for Leadership Studies. Students learn how to create websites with HTML and CSS, as well as with JavaScript and Ruby programming languages, then have the opportunity to earn money designing websites for local small businesses. As a founder of ADDA, Hawkins wants to change the culture of computing and create a new generation of women who code. What’s more, she’s building a socially responsible business and becoming a leader and entrepreneur in the process.

TACKLING THE CULTURE OF “BROGRAMMING”

Hawkins’s high school experience is not uncommon, and more opportunity for women to learn programming is sorely needed, explains Kathryn Kolbert, the Constance Hess Williams ’66 Director of the Athena Center. “Coding has been very gendered,” she says.

Even at the college level, women rarely find an easy path into computer science.

“An alarming number of women at Barnard or Columbia who take an intro to computing class drop it within the first two weeks,” says Nathalie Molina Niño, who heads entrepreneurial programs at the Athena Center. That’s largely due to the male-dominated “brogrammer” coding culture, says Niño, who has a technology background. Computer science classes tend to be dominated by young men who have been hacking for years, learning jargon and inside jokes from other young men.

Since Niño’s role at the center is supporting female entrepreneurs, she hit upon a way to address two major shortages—of women entrepreneurs and women computer scientists. The answer: 20

launch a web-design business.

“What if we do something like Barnard Bartending?” she asked. A long-standing, student-run campus business, Barnard Bartending teaches students how to mix drinks, then sets them up with bartending gigs. Niño wanted to follow that model: teach women to code and then put them to work. But the plan would only succeed if student founders took charge, Niño realized. “It had to be grassroots and it had to be supported by the students and ultimately run by the students.”

That’s where Hawkins comes in.

A STUDENT START-UP

Shortly after arriving at Barnard as a freshman, Hawkins decided to give computer science a second try. In her sophomore year, when Niño presented the opportunity for a leadership role at what would become the Athena Digital Design Agency, Hawkins jumped at it. The shape of the new business soon emerged: students could sign up to take three courses, each building on the previous one. They would learn HTML and CSS, JavaScript and jQuery, and Ruby on Rails.

Students who met certain proficiency benchmarks would be able to join ADDA as staff coders and be hired to create websites for clients.

Over 200 students signed up for ADDA’s first class last spring (40 got in), and the second course debuted in the fall.

A second group (of 30) also got started in fall, with yet another (of 40) beginning in spring. This spring, the agency is offering all three courses for the first time, filling out its roster of qualified coders.

The agency began accepting clients at the end of January. However, Hawkins and Niño have even more ambitious plans for its future. If ADDA can sustain itself at Barnard, the next step is to become a national franchise, with sister web-design agencies at campuses across the country.

DESIGNING A BRIGHT FUTURE

By many measures, the Athena Digital Design Agency has already been a success. Dozens of women have learned to

make basic websites. And not only is the program bringing more women to coding, it’s also “incredibly diverse,” Niño says; over 70 percent of participants are women of color. The group’s first paying client was the global girls’ education advocacy group the Malala Fund.

When the design agency is fully operational, it will serve the community around Barnard, building websites for small nonprofits and mom-and-pop shops that might not be able to afford a more established web-design agency. That sort of social responsibility is integral to the mission. Hawkins says she’s has no patience for tech entrepreneurs who make millions with dazzling products that do little to make the world a better place.

She’s already working on a phone app to help prevent sexual abuse on college campuses.

Hawkins says she has come a long way from the frustration of her high school computing class. Not only has she chosen computer science as her major, she’s caught the social-entrepreneur bug as well.

“I definitely want to code in the future, but I know that I really love the business side to things,” she says. “If it’s possible for me to combine the two, that would be awesome. That would be amazing.”

•

Library’s New Digital Collections Showcases Barnard’s History

by Jenna Freedman, associate director of communications, Barnard Library

Barnard’s Library recently launched

the Barnard Digital Collections (digitalcollections.barnard.edu), a webbased resource of digitized archival materials reflecting the College’s legacy of excellence in women’s education.

Featuring content from the Barnard Archives and Special Collections (archives.barnard.edu), the Digital Collections provide a glimpse into the history of women’s education and collegiate culture, 19th- and 20thcentury struggles for women’s rights, and the history and development of Morningside Heights and New York City.

“The Digital Collections make Barnard’s vibrant history more easily accessible to alumnae, the wider Barnard community, and researchers everywhere,” said Barnard’s digital archivist Martha Tenney, noting that the launch coincides with Barnard’s 125th anniversary, which is being celebrated with a variety of events and special projects throughout the 2014–2015 academic year.

COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS

• A photography collection with images of the storied Greek Games, the Morningside Heights campus, and notable alumnae, all accessible using an advanced, open-source image viewer that allows for deep zooming and clear resolution, even on highly detailed images. Concurrent with the launch is the Digital Collections’ first exhibit, curated by Barnard librarian Heidi Winston. The exhibit comprises images of student participation in demonstrations and movements—from suffrage to Black Power to reproductive rights.

• The Barnard Bulletin, Barnard’s weekly student newspaper (and later its student magazine), is digitized and searchable from 1901 through 2002 and reflects a century of student life, the Barnard curriculum and faculty, and events around the city and the country—such as the issue from February 25, 1965 that features an article on Malcolm X’s last speech, delivered at Barnard days before his assassination, alongside articles about a SNCC meeting at Columbia and the new student editor of the Bulletin.

• The Mortarboard, Barnard’s yearbook, has also been digitized, documenting the changing population of students and providing a window into the activities and concerns of women’s college students over the course of the 20th century, often with handdrawn illustrations. Barnard gratefully acknowledges Jessica Schwartz ’13 and the Schwartz family, whose donation made digitizing The Mortarboard possible.

The site—a project of the Barnard Archives and Special Collections, which is part of the Barnard Library and Academic Information Services, in conjunction with Barnard College Information Technology—reflects the hard work of many people across Barnard’s community including digital archivist Martha Tenney, instructional applications developer Dillon Savage, and College archivist Shannon O’Neill, along with BCIT staff, archives fellows, and student staff. Special thanks are also due to former library dean Lisa Norberg for the vision and advocacy that pushed this initiative through.

The Digital Collections employ the Islandora platform, an open-source software framework built on a base of Drupal, Fedora, and Solr. The contents will expand to include more of Barnard’s rich history and archival materials.

•

Digital Expression and the Caribbean

by Yasmine Espert

Members of the interdisciplinary

Digital Black Atlantic Project took an unprecedented look at the dimensions of digital expression and its implications for the Caribbean and its diaspora during a first-of-its-kind Caribbean Digital Conference.

The December conference explored approaches to developing projects and creating community in an increasingly digital academic environment. With a focus on the Caribbean and its diaspora, the gathering offered fertile ground for analyzing the intersection of information technologies with fields such as American studies, gender and sexuality studies, black studies, and communications, among others.

The discussions were preceded by the Kamau Brathwaite “researchathon.”

The event—launching an open-access, online bibliography of work by and on Caribbean intellectual Brathwaite— generated over 500 bibliographic contributions in just six hours.

David Scott, Columbia anthropology professor and founder of the journal Small Axe, closed with a provocative reflection on the future of publishing.

Organizers were Kaiama L. Glover, associate professor of French and Africana studies at Barnard; Kelly Baker Josephs, associate professor of English at York College, CUNY; and Alex Gil, digital scholarship coordinator and affiliate faculty in English and comparative studies at Columbia. The conference was generously supported by the Center for the Study of Social Difference at Columbia, Barnard’s Africana studies department, and the Committee on Online and On-Campus Learning (COOL).

BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 21

22

by Annette Kahn

Photograph by The Morrisons

From Conquistadores to Computers • A range of interests keeps one professor constantly on the move

• In addition to teaching, Paul Scolieri,

associate professor of dance, has spent the last decade doing research, much of which was related to the publication of Dancing the New World: Aztecs, Spaniards, and the Choreography of Conquest (University of Texas Press, 2013). The book is the first in a series of works relating to Latin American and Caribbean arts and culture funded by a grant from the Andrew H. Mellon Foundation. A fascinating read for both dance and colonial-era history scholars, the book has become part of the syllabi for undergraduate courses at Columbia, Princeton, and Smith, as well as for graduate programs, including the PhD program in critical dance studies at the University of California–Riverside.

But amateurs of these subjects will also find much to enjoy, as the professor lucidly analyzes the accounts of Aztec dance practices as detailed in colonialera European documents that include letters, books, and other chronicles written by conquerors, clergy, explorers, and travelers. The book also provides a telling history of the transformation of the Aztec empire into a Spanish colony during the 16th century. Both Aztecs and the conquistadores acknowledge the role played by dance in the development, maintenance, and representation of imperial power. Scolieri’s scholarship shows how central dance was to the religious and political experience of these early cultures, and provides a provocative look at how the Aztecs literally “danced” their own conquest at the hands of their destroyers.

Dancing the New World is key to understanding how, through dance,

the Europeans and indigenous Americans misunderstood each other.

An early example of this occurred when Christopher Columbus, after an arduous Atlantic crossing, first came into sight of the New World and its denizens.

Trying to signal friendship, Columbus had his sailors on deck perform some of their dances, but did not convince the native people that he and his men came in peace. Arrows quickly rained down on the ships and sailors.

Though Scolieri finished the book during a year-long appointment as a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, his interest in indigenous studies began as an undergraduate at Columbia, when he took a Mesoamerican art history course given by noted scholar Esther Pasztory ’65. The author of the first book on Aztec art and the first major study of Teotihuacan art, Pasztory gives insightful views of ancient cultures through art and architecture. Enthusiasm for interpreting visual sources permeates Scolieri’s book as well; he scrutinized original painted codices, extant sculpture, ritual artifacts, and architecture. “The creative part was identifying these unsuspected sources for dance history,” he says.

The groundbreaking study has won several awards. First came the Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize for dance research from the Congress on Research in Dance, followed by a special citation from the de la Torre Bueno Prize committee of the Society of Dance History Scholars.

Dancing the New World also earned honorable mention from the American

Society for Theatre Research. An excerpt from the special citation of the de la Torre Bueno Prize Committee attests to the importance of the work: “Dance historians always need to grapple with the problem of limited archival sources. Scolieri manages to turn a particularly problematic research site—an archive devastated by the processes of colonization itself—to his advantage, making it an occasion for reflecting on the complexities of all attempts to describe, document, and contain dance. For this reason, his book adds significantly not only to ‘New World’ scholarship, but also to theoretical debates in dance history.”

A New York native, Scolieri went to a high school with a strong performance arts program while training at the Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance, where he studied with the modern dance pioneer herself. He received a BA in English and dance at Columbia College; he continued to perform as a graduate student, earning his MA and PhD in performance studies from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Scolieri began teaching at Barnard as an adjunct in 2000, became a full-time member of the faculty in 2003, and a tenured associate professor in 2013. He now devotes himself to research and teaching. At the College, he is also affiliated with Barnard’s Center for Critical Interdisciplinary Studies and the Department of Africana Studies, and serves as an advisor to students across Columbia University in research related to performance, Latin American and Caribbean studies, music, and women’s, gender, and sexuality BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 23

studies.

Scolieri’s current project is a biography of Ted Shawn, the self-proclaimed “father of American Dance,” which is to be published by Oxford University Press. In 1915, Shawn and his wife, legendary dancer Ruth St. Denis, founded Denishawn, the first modern dance company in this country, one that eschewed classical European ballet and popular social dances. The couple trained silent film stars such as Lillian Gish and Louise Brooks, as well as trailblazing modern dancers Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey, among others.

Following his separation from St. Denis in 1931, Shawn purchased a farm in the Berkshires of Massachusetts and founded a dance retreat for men called Jacob’s Pillow. The name derived from the book of Genesis; the prophet, Jacob, lays his head on a rock and dreams of a ladder that will take him to heaven. Today the Pillow is home to a world-renowned school and summer dance festival. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded the National Medal of Arts to the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.

“On the eve of the dance company’s 100th anniversary, I felt compelled to write about the Denishawn legacy and explore its enduring influence on American performance,” says Scolieri.

He explains, “Once I discovered Shawn’s connections to major figures like eugenicist Havelock Ellis, sexologist Alfred Kinsey, and influential gay novelist Lucien Price, I wanted to better understand the significance of his life, dances, and writings.” As such, Shawn stands at the crossroads between gay history and dance history in this country. In addition to writing about the dance pioneer, Scolieri will be speaking across the country about Shawn and his work. In March, he will deliver the keynote at the Society of Dance History Scholars conference at Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Institute in Baltimore, followed by a lecture at the Library of Congress, where he currently holds a Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies.

24

Scolieri admits to being in the early stages of a third book that deals with a more contemporary subject matter— the impact of digital technology on the study of human movement. The project is an extension of a course he teaches on movement analysis, a system for interpreting the qualitative aspects of human motion. Related to this work, he is one of four principal investigators for a grant from the Mellon Foundation that supports a major new program, Barnard Teaches: Real Place + Digital Access, which will allow faculty to collaborate with curators, archivists, and collection specialists at New York City cultural and scientific institutions to codevelop courses offered through the College. Plans are for on-site learning at partner institutions and digital access to partners’ resources, some of which are not typically available to the public.

Together with performance-based artist Adam Weinert, Scolieri conceived of the Barnard Augmented reality project for the 125th anniversary, a special virtual tour/interactive performance installation (student choreographers interpreted archival photos, creating site-specific dances) that was available to Founders Day attendees through their smartphones.

“Dancing is the first and most important form of mobile technology,” says Scolieri, “and dance studies must ask and answer many of the questions surfacing in the interdisciplinary field of movement studies.”

From pre-Columbian art and conquisatadores to modern choreographers and computers, the professor keeps the questions coming…

•

1

1 The dust jacket of Dancing the New World depicts Spanish conquistadores staging a surprise attack on unsuspecting Aztec dancers and musicians during one of their most sacred ceremonies, a defining moment in the history of the conquest. From Theodor de Bry’s America (1595) 2 Ted Shawn portrayed Aztec emperor Montezuma in O, Libertad! (1937), a dance inspired by the events of the New World conquest. Photo by John Lindquist 3 Xochipilli, the god of dance, was the patron of the House of Song, where Aztec youth learned sacred choreographies. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City 4 Music and dance were essential to the elaborate rituals in the unrelenting Aztec ceremonial calendar. From Diego Durán’s History of the Indies of New Spain (ca. 1581) 5 In the late colonial era, the Dance of the Emperor Montezuma combined indigenous and European steps and sounds. From Joaquín Antonio de Basarás y Garaygorta’s Origen, costumbres, y estado presente de mexicanos y philipinos (1763)

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BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 25

Edited by Abigail Beshkin

Illustrations by Sarah Burwash

Remembrance of Barnard Things Past • We’ve been collecting memories of alumnae about their Barnard days.

Everything—from recollections of life-changing moments to pages from journals— has been posted to our 125th anniversary website. Each opens a window onto Barnard life; what follows are some of your reminiscences.

Share your favorite memory of your Barnard years: 125.barnard. edu

26

Recalling Annie Nathan Meyer Victoria Hughes Reiss ’41

Between my third and fourth years at Barnard, I lived in Woods Hole, Mass., taking care of the children of a doctor’s family, the Reznikoffs, who were spending the summer there. We lived around the corner from Annie Nathan and Alfred Meyer and saw them frequently; Mrs. Meyer enjoyed talking to me, a current student of the College she founded.

She had a reputation for being very outspoken, so I don’t think it would be unseemly for me to relate now, over seven decades later, one incident that I

remember well. Toward the end of the summer of 1940, the Reznikoffs had a big party, inviting many members of that big medical community who summered there.

Mrs. Reznikoff asked me to help serve and she had purchased a maid’s uniform for me to wear. She said that it would make it easier for guests to know that I could help them. I didn’t mind since it made sense and also I was very fond of the Reznikoff family. However, Annie Nathan Meyer was outraged, and she told me that she was embarrassed to see me put in such a

position. A college woman shouldn’t be asked to wear a maid’s uiform.

Well, Mrs. Meyer wisely didn’t voice her opinion to everyone, and the Reznikoffs were used to her outspoken ways. Dr. Meyer, a very gentle man, was somewhat deaf but heard enough of the conversation to say, “Now Annie, now Annie,” as he did whenever she embarked on a tirade. The Reznikoffs became lifelong friends of mine.

A Mysterious Cloud of Green Gas Nora Robell ’48

We entered in September 1944, and looking at the newspaper headlines, we saw they had dropped the atom bomb on Japan. I was a chemistry major, and the lab windows faced across Broadway to Columbia. We noticed every time we came

in in the afternoon that there would be some kind of vapor from a slot in [one of ] the buildings, and it looked like a pennant, flying, wafting in the breeze. It was as though it was made up of pea-soup green particles. And I heard afterwards that

Robert Oppenheimer was supposed to be working on the atomic bomb there. Maybe this might have been some of the stuff that was coming out of [that] laboratory.

BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 27

How a Visit to the Barnard Placement Office Gave Me My Life’s Direction (For Better or Worse) Joan Sweet Jankell ’58

It’s the start of senior year, and we’re encouraged to visit the placement office to discuss where we think we’re going. Like many English majors, I thought I’d like publishing, but to give myself a gimmick, I said I’d like to publish children’s books.

The placement officer said “How about being a children’s librarian?” I said “Who, me?” But she had a plan: the American

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Library Association was hosting a panel of librarians to explain the field to college placement officers. Barnard was the only school to bring along students. I think five of us went. I know one classmate who definitely became a librarian (in academia). I went to Columbia’s libraryscience program for my master’s and worked for the New York Public Library

as a children’s librarian for 40 years and an adult specialist and supervisor for seven more. I never forgot the children’s librarian on the panel holding up The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward and explaining where the author got his inspiration for the picture of the bear that almost capsizes the rowboat. That’s how Barnard gave me my career.

Pages From the Past Madeline Walsh Hamblin ’64

During my four years at Barnard, I kept a daily journal. Thus far, I have reread the first year of the journal and hope, by my comments below, to capture some of our first year. I was from a small town in Wisconsin and was quite unprepared for both the intellectual intensity of my Barnard classmates and the immensity of the city. I wasn’t sure Barnard was right for me, but by the end of the first year, I wrote, “I think I like Barnard after all.”

Barnard Related

• Arrival at Barnard on 9/18/60. Assigned to 8th floor of Hewitt Hall in a tiny garret room meant as a single but with bunk beds and a roommate • Posture exam which included wearing a dickey

• Speech tests which involved reading an Aesop’s fable • Placement tests • Will Herzberg lecture to freshmen on “Conformity and Authenticity on Campus” • Mrs. McIntosh talk and reception • Parietal hours 11 on week nights and midnight on weekends unless special permission granted • Two weekend passes a month • Salter’s Book Store • Tak-Home for late-night forays for food • Four-hour Wednesday zoology lab • Walks in Riverside Park • Snowball fight with Columbia “boys” • Dr. Nelson and the obligatory physical exam (urine specimen, hemoglobin and TB testing) with pronouncement, “You

are a very healthy girl.”

• Greek Games (250 participants) with at 50/50 tie between freshmen and sophomores • Much studying • Much babysitting for spending money Costs

• 30 cents for subway ride • $1.95 for NY Ballet ticket • $3.80 for ticket for the play Becket • 80 cents an hour for babysitting • $1.69 for blouse at Klein’s • 99 cents for jerkin • $3.19 for a Greek bag • five cents for Staten Island ferry

BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 29

Barnard Bacchantae:The Beginning Margarita “Ari” Brose ’84

I came to Barnard wanting to sing, and found a chorus to sing with my first week of school, the Columbia University Glee Club. It was all men, because Columbia was still an all-male college. But the group had a good tradition of women singing the first- and second-tenor parts, so I was happy to audition as a first tenor.

We had a great conductor, and I liked all my fellow women tenors, including classmates Beth Knobel and Mary Reiner, and upperclasswomen, Cathy Schwartz, Clare Delmar, Bev Weintraub, and Betsy Thorne, among others. In my sophomore year, the conductor suggested we Glee Club women get together and sing a song for one of our alumni concerts during our spring tour. He gave us some music, we practiced, and then performed it at one of those concerts.

A few of us liked the idea of singing together as women (although we also enjoyed singing with our men friends), and as an organizer type of person, I made

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sure we got together to practice and sing the following year. We decided to form our own a capella group on campus and I suggested the name Barnard Bacchantae.

I had gone to a summer dance camp as a child and the different age groups were named after Greek gods and goddesses; one year I had been a “Bacchantae.” My Barnard classmates quickly saw the value of a name reminiscent of the Barnard Greek Games and one our members, Peggy Hong, came up with the tag line “Vinum,Viri, et Cantus” or “wine, men, and song.” (Or does Beth Knobel get credit for that? I don’t remember.)

We were the only women’s a capella group on campus at the time, although it would not take too many years for that to change (especially after Columbia went coed in 1983). We performed at reunions, the John Jay Yule Log Ceremony, Brooks Lounge, and for exchange concerts with other women’s schools. I often tell the story of our performing at the Furnald

Folk Fest on the same night that our fellow alumna and emerging pop/folk star, Suzanne Vega ’82, performed. (I’m sure she sang Tom’s Diner that night.)

We struggled to find a Barnard alma mater, or any song that would work as a Barnard College song. In my senior year, a song was commissioned to be the official Barnard song, but never stuck. Bacchantae still sings College on a Hilltop, which we revived as the school’s alma mater.

I love that Bacchantae is still singing on campus 32 years later. I loved being part of a small group of women (almost all of whom I now keep in touch with on Facebook across the U.S. and three continents), and it makes me feel good to know that women still want to perform together, and want to be part of a special group representing Barnard. And guess what? My Bacchantae/Glee Club women still love singing the Columbia University/ College songs with our Columbia College classmates! Roar, Lion, Roar!

Beyond the Magnolia Tree Shinequa Watkins ’11

Barnard was not just a place [where] I received a great education and learned life lessons along the way; I am blessed for all the phenomenal woman I met.

Each professor, classmate, and college staff member invested in my mental, collegiate, and physical well-being. Along the way, each has comforted me in a time of distress, shared a smile, and inspired me in their respective ways. I was not only prepared to tackle the world headon academically, I had the poise, the confidence, and well-rounded sense that helped me adapt to every opportunity and obstacle I faced after graduation day.

I look back and cherish those memories with classmates underneath the magnolia tree, those times I hung onto the every word of my professors and guest speakers that shared experiences, knowledge, and encouraged me to excel. Although the campus is beautiful, my favorite place was the Barnard bookstore, where I worked for all four years. It was the place to share with prospects and families just how amazing Barnard was and all it had to offer, a place to reach out to younger classes and “show them the ropes” and reassure them it would all be okay. Celina Kelly ’09 and Breanna Bartley ’10 were

those women for me as a frosh. I am ever grateful to be loved by, and to learn from, these ladies. I emulated them in the following years, dragging people into the store for the latest Barnard-chic apparel and to see how life within the iron gates was treating them. Perhaps a biased statement, but true nonetheless, Barnard is the best place in New York City. Tucked away in Morningside Heights, Barnard is a safe place that fosters individuality, respect for difference, educates according to a high standard, and builds your confidence to be the woman you’re meant to be!

Thankful for a Holiday on Campus Jo Chiang ’15

One of my favorite memories of Barnard actually happened last year, during Thanksgiving. A bunch of my friends lived in Cathedral Gardens, and we decided to collaborate and work together to make a

huge Thanksgiving feast for all of us.

So, I was living in Plimpton with my suitemates, and we made three pies. We had chicken—a whole chicken; we had mashed potatoes, we had asparagus,

we just had a humongous spread. And we all took it to Cathedral Gardens, and sat together and had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal, and it was just so lovely.

BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 31

by Louise Bernikow ’61

Photographs courtesy of Barnard Archives (Annie Nathan Meyer) and American Jewish Archives (Maud Nathan)

Sisters in a House Divided • Barnard founder Annie Nathan Meyer and her sister, Maud Nathan, debate the question of women’s suffrage

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Annie Nathan Meyer

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Maud Nathan

In New York City, the fight to give women

the right to vote at times resembled a civil war. So large and so diverse was the city that the brave women who ventured into public spaces with soapboxes to stand on, and who gathered in increasing numbers to march on Fifth Avenue and the grand streets of the boroughs, incited intense opposition from former friends and neighbors. Within families, it was the same.

The Nathans, Sephardic Jews (Jews whose ancestry hailed from what is now Spain and Portugal), had American roots reaching back to the founding of the Virginia colony. By the late 19th century, they were an elite New York institution, with a family-founded synagogue, seats on the Stock Exchange, and prominent members like poet Emma Lazarus, future Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo, and Annie Nathan Meyer, founder of the city’s first liberal arts college for women— Barnard College.

“I think Maudie will be pleased that I did so well,” wrote Meyer soon after Barnard’s official opening. Maudie is Maud Nathan, five years older, who presumably was pleased in September 1889, but who would soon appear, publicly, as Annie’s major antagonist.

Maud was in favor of votes for women; Annie was against it.

In England, Emmeline Pankhurst and a movement that included many workingclass women were staging massive, sometimes violent, street demonstrations.

Americans were horrified, but Maud defended them: “While the suffragettes were quiet and well behaved, members of the House of Commons paid no attention to them. …It was only when the women copied men’s noisy methods that any serious thought was given to the question of equal suffrage.”

Annie, like others in her family, was against the very idea of women’s suffrage.

Although her belief that women should have access to the same education available to men was unshakable, it did not lead her to embrace political equality. She ignored Maud’s activities

as a member of the National Council of Jewish Women and her insistence that the desire for “justice” was a tenet of their religion. Annie sneered at the idea that, as some suffragists argued, women’s “moral superiority” would clean up the corrupt public sphere. She detested mobs and the “noisy methods” of the suffragists that were catching on in America.

“Your methods,” she wrote, “are utterly abhorrent to me.”

Back and forth they went, in print and from podiums, over the years. Maud spoke before the state legislature and at international suffrage meetings and overcame a reluctance to march on Fifth Avenue. She turned down pleas to take national office in suffrage groups, but as president of the Consumers’ League of the City of New York, penned the article “Women Who Work and Women Who Spend,” to use the power of the purse to reform unsanitary and oppressive conditions of working women in the garment industry and in department stores.

In May 1911, Maud marched in a suffrage parade and Annie spoke against suffrage at Barnard. On hearing Annie, Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger ’14 immediately “ran out and signed up for the suffrage.”

Virginia Gildersleeve ’99, Barnard’s new dean, urged student participation in politics, and the Barnard Bulletin printed directions for signing up for suffrage parades.

Barnard was then developing an honor roll of suffrage activists. Alice Duer Miller ’99 wrote wittily on the subject and made public speeches with her husband. Harriet Burton Laidlaw ’02 ran the Manhattan campaign; Helen Rogers Reid ’03 was state treasurer; Adele Lewisohn ’03 rode horseback with her sister at the head of a Fifth Avenue parade; Mabel Pollitzer ’06 organized in South Carolina; Freda Kirchwey ’15 sold suffrage newspapers on the streets. It swayed her not; Annie attributed reports of student interest in the movement to “overzealous propagandists or a shrewd press agent.” She became chairman of the euphemistically titled

College Committee, National League for the Civic Education of Women, while Maud was established as the country’s most prominent Jewish suffragist.

• Cain and Abel cast a long shadow. Our history is full of near mythic tales of brother against brother, Rebs versus Yanks in the Civil War, landowners’ sons competing for ranch deeds in the Wild West. When sisters square off, outsiders often assume that the contention is domestic and the center of attention is attributed to a man. The Nathan sisters have come in for a certain diminution at the hands of historians who describe them as caught in a web of “sibling rivalry.” Annie, in this reductive version, is jealous of her sister’s prominence and takes a counterstand as a way of attracting attention.

Think instead of two different roads taken. Maud was born in 1862 and Annie in 1867. Their Sephardic Jewish ancestors made them, according to Annie, “the nearest approach to royalty in the United States.” As the girls grew up, while the so-called woman suffrage movement was idling, their own lives were swept up in a tornado. Financial disaster on Wall Street sent the family—Annie called her stockbroker father “a gambler”—into exile from upper-crust solidity. In Green Bay, Wis., where there was only one other Jewish family, Maud described her mother as “transplanted to an obscure village life, surrounded by strangers who would look at her askance, as though she were from another world.”

Annie was protected from the “askance” looks—and, presumably, from a taste of bigotry—because she stayed home, tutored by her mother, while Maud met the world in public school. Turmoil followed: father left, mother tried and failed to make a life in Chicago, then killed herself. The girls returned to New York, first to their maternal grandfather, then to their wayward father.

Continued on Page 74 BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 33

ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION

Photograph by Brandon Schulman

PRESIDENT’S LETTER

Connect to Spring Events • I was reminded about the magic of Barnard last month when I attended a holiday

BENet event at a wonderful restaurant in Harlem, Vinateria, owned by Yvette LeeperBueno ’90. It was a perfect evening filled with energy, wide-ranging discussions, and great food. Once again I experienced the power of the Barnard connection and the bonds that we share. Although I went by myself, I never felt alone. I struck up a conversation with two alumnae who have been friends since they transferred to Barnard in the early ’70s. Both women were trailblazers in their fields of fashion and neuropsychology. Despite their close friendship, I immediately felt a connection as we shared stories about our personal and professional lives and our interests. For one December night, Vinateria became a gathering place for intelligent Barnard women to celebrate the holiday season, make new friendships, and support each other in our personal and professional endeavors. I hope alumnae in other regions will consider getting together over a meal. It is a fun way to connect, network, and build an extended Barnard community.

If you are looking for a cure for the winter doldrums, I hope you will consider attending the seventh annual Global Symposium, which will be held on campus this year on Friday, March 13, as a highlight of our yearlong celebration of Barnard’s 125th anniversary. It will bring together speakers from the six prior Global Symposiums held in Beijing, Dubai, Johannesburg, Mumbai, São Paulo, and Shanghai to engage in conversation with one another and with some of their distinguished counterparts from the United States. The participants are leaders in their fields—from activism, the arts, and academia to the economy, media, and politics—and will share their views about the distinct opportunities and challenges for women leaders in different regions of the world.

Participants include: Wu Qing, professor, activist, and a leader in the field of Chinese women’s rights and the rule of law in China; Panmela Castro, founder and president of an organization that uses street art to raise awareness of gender-based violence and to promote women’s rights; and distinguished Barnard alumna Helene Gayle ’76, president and CEO of CARE USA. We plan on sharing content from the symposium with all alumnae.

Barnard is a place and it is also a common bond that we share, whether we are on campus or connecting at an event in Israel, London, Los Angeles, or Miami. Barnard is the place to attend the Athena Film Festival or Reunion. It is also a place in our hearts, and one that is there to serve alumnae regionally, virtually, and in New York City.

Barnard is for all alumnae who choose to connect in any way they want.

—Terry S. Newman ’79

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ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION ELECTIONS

Elections • The Nominating Committee of the

Alumnae Association of Barnard College submits for your consideration the following slate of candidates to fill each of the positions that will become vacant on July 1, 2015. The committee nominates one person for each position; six candidates have been nominated for three places on the nine-member Nominating Committee. Thank you to the three outgoing members of the Nominating Committee: Jan Vinokour ’72 (chair of the committee this year), Glenda Smiley ’09, and Ruth Stein ’62. Thank you to our outgoing board members for leadership in the Alumnae Association: Interim Treasurer Daphne Fodor Philipson ’69, Alumna Trustee Mary Ann LoFrumento ’77, Director-at-Large/ Project Continuum Committee Chair Joan Jankell ’58, Professional and Leadership Development Committee Chair Maryam Banikarim ’89, Leadership Assembly Committee Chair Nicole Lowen Vianna ’81, and Regional Networks Committee Chair Carole Tedesco ’89.

VOTE

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A postcard ballot is included in this issue.

Please mail completed ballots OR vote online via alum.barnard.edu no later than May 1, 2015. Results will be shared at the Annual Meeting on May 30, 2015, during Reunion.

GET INVOLVED

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For information on how you can be involved with Barnard through the Alumnae Association, please visit alum.barnard.edu/aabc. Committee memberships begin July 1 and terms run for three years. If you are interested in joining an AABC Committee, or want to learn more about volunteering, please contact alumnaeaffairs@barnard.edu or call 212-854-2005.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS TREASURER

•Katherine Plourde ’73 Katherine serves on the boards of Pall Corporation, a filtration company; OM Group, a specialtychemicals producer; and 120 East End Avenue Corporation. She previously served on the boards of Asphalt Green and the National Child Labor Committee. She was rated the top specialtychemical analyst for 10 years in the annual Institutional Investor poll from 1987 to 1997 during her tenures as principal at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and managing director of Drexel Burnham Lambert. Prior to that time, she was a vice president at Dean Witter Reynolds and at U.S. Trust Company. She holds an MBA in finance from Fordham University.

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE

•Anastasia Andrzejewski ’97 Anastasia is the president of George’s Toy Chest, which connects an international clientele with vintage and antique collectibles; its emphasis is on antique toys. A history major at Barnard, she also holds a master’s in women’s studies and history from Oxford University. Prior to running George’s Toy Chest, she held several communications, marketing, and research positions for both corporations and nonprofit organizations. She has previously served on the Alumnae Reunion Committee and as a class correspondent.

ALUMNA TRUSTEE

•Linda Sweet ’63 Linda has been a partner with Management Consultants for the Arts since 1984. She began her museum career at the Brooklyn Museum and was dean of the department of public education at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She is a member of the American Alliance of Museums and a board member of the Greater Hudson Heritage Network.

She is a board member of the Alumnae Association of Barnard, chair of its Annual Fund Committee, and former chair of Leadership Assembly. She holds a master’s from New York University and a certificate from Columbia Business School’s Institute for Not-for-Profit Management.

LEADERSHIP ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE CHAIR

•Jennifer Feierman ’09 Jennifer majored in religion and is a first-year student at Columbia Business School. Since graduating from Barnard she has worked in the nonprofit sector, focused on

fundraising for educational institutions including the East Harlem School and Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. She is now the Fund Chair for the Class of ’09 and recently finished her first year on the Leadership Assembly Committee. She previously served as class correspondent and as a member of her class committee.

PROJECT CONTINUUM COMMITTEE CHAIR

•Doralynn Pines ’69 Doralynn is an independent art historian and consultant to museums and libraries. Prior to that she was on the staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for more than 35 years, serving as the associate director for administration for more than 10 years. She is currently secretary to the board of the College Art Association and a board member and chair of the collections committee of the Shaker Museum and Library, Mount Lebanon, as well as chair of the finance committee of the International Center of Medieval Art. She is a member of the advisory council of the department of art history and archaeology at Columbia, and of Project Continuum at Barnard.

PROFESSIONAL AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE CHAIR

•Rochelle Cooper-Schneider

’84 As the CEO of SuccessLeaders, Rochelle has spent the last 25 years advising and coaching senior global Fortune 100 leaders and teams to achieve success in their roles. She holds a PhD in organizational psychology from Columbia and has held positions at JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, and Bell Labs. She is on the faculty of Hofstra University’s Frank Zarb School of Business and is a member of the Leadership Council of Barnard’s Athena Leadership Center.

REGIONAL NETWORKS COMMITTEE CHAIR

•Pat Tinto ’76

Pat recently became the director of communications and marketing at the Westchester Jewish Center. Formerly, she was director of communications and marketing for Patricia Lynch Associates, Inc./PLA New York, a government affairs and media relations firm. Following her passion for all things Italian, Pat recently founded the salon—Vini,Vitti, Dici— Wines, Food, and Conversation Italian Style!

She is a member of the board of directors of the Barnard Business and Professional Women group of the AABC. Previously serving two terms on the AABC board, she headed the board’s Collegewide Reunion program and chaired the Regional Networks Committee.

BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 35

ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION ELECTIONS

ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION

NOMINATING COMMITTEE CANDIDATES The three alumnae elected from the six candidates below will join Lisa Wroblewski Gottardo ’87, Susan Sommer Klapkin ’76, Lisa Lin ’98, Nancy Manne ’80, Hannah Roth ’06, and Emmanuel St. Jean ’04 on the Nominating Committee next year.

Please vote for up to three of the following candidates for the AABC Nominating Committee:

Shira Albagli ’13 is passionate about creating public and private partnerships and does advocacy work at the United Nations, Gates Foundation, and the Representation Project. While a student, she was a resident assistant and an Athena Scholar.

As a member of the Barnard Club of Northern California, she founded a San Francisco Athena Masterminds chapter, building a mentorship community between senior female executives and women new to the workforce.

• Mich Nelson ’90 lives in Portland, Ore., where she works in the wine industry. She was the founder of the Tasting Room Managers Network, a wine-industry professional networking organization, and runs her own wine education business, Free Spirit Wines, in addition to working for local wineries. She is active in the local networking group, Women of Willamette, where she founded and chaired their young women’s scholarship committee for several years. Mich has been a Barnard class officer for the past 15 years and has led the regional Barnard alumnae club in Portland for the past three years. She attended the 2014 Leadership Assembly and recently became a Barnard Alumna Admissions Representative for the Portland area.

The Alumnae Association of Barnard College was established in 1895 to further the interests of the College and connect alumnae worldwide.

Learn more online at alum.barnard.edu.

PRESIDENT & ALUMNAE TRUSTEE

Terry Newman ’79 VICE PRESIDENT

Francine Benzaken Glick ’77 TREASURER

Daphne Fodor Philipson ’69 ALUMNAE TRUSTEE

Camille Kiely Kelleher ’70 ALUMNAE TRUSTEE

Mary Ann LoFrumento ’77 ALUMNAE TRUSTEE

Jyoti Menon ’01 ANNUAL GIVING COMMITTEE CHAIR

Linda Sweet ’63 BYLAWS CHAIR

Rosalind Marshack Gordon ’62 DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE

Leila Rafizadeh Bassi ’94 DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE / PROJECT CONTINUUM COMMITTEE CHAIR

Joan Sweet Jankell ’58 DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE / ALMA MATERS COMMITTEE CHAIR

Amy Blumberg Schrader ’92 FELLOWSHIP COMMITTEE CHAIR

Barbara Izenstein Ellis ’64 majored in Latin and Ancient Greek and received a master’s in Latin from Columbia. She spent her professional life teaching Latin and ancient Greek, first at Dalton School in Manhattan, and then, for most of her career, at Fieldston in the Bronx. Barbara has served on the boards of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School and Hillel New York. More recently, she has served as an officer on the boards of Dorot and the Cornwall Library.

Linda Chang Reals ’92 majored in economics at Barnard and worked for many years in finance and human resources. In 2003, Linda returned to Barnard to start the financial fluency program for students, which she taught until 2010. Since then, Linda has remained connected with Barnard by serving as the cochair for her Class Fund, a board member of the Barnard Club of Connecticut, and a Barnard Alumnae Admissions Representative.

Melissa Nathanson ’78 LEADERSHIP ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE CHAIR

Nicole Lowen Vianna ’81 NOMINATING COMMITTEE CHAIR

Jan Vinokour ’72 PROFESSIONAL & LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE CHAIR

Maryam Banikarim ’89 REGIONAL NETWORKS CHAIR

Carole LoConte Tedesco ’89 REUNION COMMITTEE CHAIR

Merri Rosenberg ’78 YOUNG ALUMNAE COMMITTEE CHAIR

Julie Malyn ’09 SGA PRESIDENT

Julia Qian ’15

ALUMNAE AFFAIRS

Eileen McCorry ’70 recently retired after over 30 years as a marketing and communications executive and consultant in the pharmaceutical/ health care industry. She was an English major and prior to returning to Columbia for an MBA in 1980, she taught high school English. She has been a class correspondent and fund cochair and is currently president of the Barnard Class of 1970 and copresident of the Barnard College Club of New York. She also serves on the Project Continuum Committee.

Ellen Shaw ’89 is a nurse practitioner in the pediatrics department of the Columbia University Medical Center. While at Barnard she majored in urban studies and completed the double-degree program with JTS. She moved to Brooklyn after graduation and worked for several years as a community health educator before enrolling in a master’s degree program in nursing at Yale University. She is grateful for the support that an AABC Fellowship provided toward her graduate education. She regularly speaks on panels for Barnard students considering health care careers.

Ellen is a long-time Annual Fund volunteer and served as Fund Chair for her class from 20092014.

•

The Alumnae Affairs staff works closely with students and alumnae volunteers to carry out program initiatives and further the mission of the Alumnae Association.

INTERIM DIRECTOR

Jamie Coffey ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

Carly Sorscher PROGRAM MANAGERS

Shelli Luchs, Celeste Rivera ’04, Susan A. Seigle ’67 PROGRAM ASSOCIATE

Lauren Glover ’09 ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR

Kathleen Christatos ’07 DEPARTMENT ASSISTANT

Olivia Brown ’08 36

SOURCES

by Mervyn Kaufman

Photograph by Dorothy Hong

development office to discuss ways to honor Rowland, and learned that they needed to raise at least $100,000 to establish an endowed scholarship fund.

With help from development-office staff, they began reaching out to other alumnae

who also had been Rowland’s advisees.

In a little over a year, they had raised more than the required minimum—quite an accomplishment. Only then did they inform Rowland, who called their efforts “an honor I never expected. This happens

SCHOLARSHIP

Honoring Esther Rowland • Two alumnae spearhead a scholarship fund to salute a campus advisor who helped them pursue careers in medical health

• It began with a visit by two members

of the Class of 1980, doctors Annabelle Santos Volgman and Elena CudkowiczKamel. In February 2011, these Chicagoans were in New York to attend the Metropolitan Opera. While in the city, they visited Barnard, where neither had been for decades. Volgman is professor of medicine at Chicago’s Rush University and medical director of the Rush Heart Center for Women, and Cudkowicz-Kamel is associate professor of clinical obstetrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. They are old friends as well as classmates, and that visit to Barnard was what fueled their effort to establish a scholarship honoring Esther Rowland. As associate dean of studies and preprofessional advisor from 1973 until her retirement in 1995, Rowland counseled and nurtured some 300 students (mostly premed, some prelaw) about their studies, graduate-school applications, and careers.

“That day,” recalls Cudkowicz-Kamel, “Annabelle and I looked at each other and said, ‘Esther Rowland really shaped all our careers. Think of the amazing Barnard women who went into health care.’ Esther was really the impetus. We felt how fortunate we’d been.”

The founding duo consulted Barnard’s

BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 69

SOURCES SCHOLARSHIP

to Bud all the time but never to me.” Bud is her husband, Lewis Rowland, now also retired, who chaired Columbia’s neurology department for 25 years. He has always been an outspoken champion of his wife’s talents and skills.

Esther Rowland “was inspirational,” Volgman recalls. “She said it was not always a man’s world out there—we could do whatever we wanted—and encouraged me to pursue my dreams.” In describing her relationship with Rowland, Cudkowicz-Kamel remembers, “She took an interest in you not only as a med student, but also personally. She counseled you how to prepare for interviews and how to present yourself. She was like a think-tank of knowledge about the whole process of applying.”

“Esther was the first person to advocate for me when it was time to reach for what I wanted to do,” says Aliya Hasan ’94, a physician in Denver. “She was really my first mentor. I didn’t even know what a mentor was at that point. She took a genuine interest; I felt like I was her only advisee.”

Athena Kaporis ’90, a dermatologist in Mount Kisco and Scarsdale, N.Y., recalls that she had already begun course work at NYU’s medical school, “when one of the deans said, ‘When you see Dean Rowland at Barnard, make sure you thank her. She put in a nice call for you, and it helped us—made our job easier. We get thousands of applications.’ It was really a big deal that she helped me get into NYU, because that led to bigger and better things.”

Describing her own career, Rowland recalls, “I was born in the ’20s; I was a housewife in the ’50s, with a husband, three kids, and an almost-PhD in political science. In 1967, when my husband got the job as chairman of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, the family moved from New York to Philadelphia. In 1970, I was invited, along with two other wives of department chairs in the medical school, to talk to the ‘Mrs. Club,’ the wives of the medical students, on the subject of what it’s like to be a doctor’s wife. I was flattered to be asked to speak, but only 70

when I sat down to write my talk did I realize that the club and the subject were fast becoming anachronisms.

“The first speaker was Elaine, wife of the chair of OB/GYN and an MD/PhD herself. She told the group to get a stove with a special hotplate upon which you can reheat the doctor’s dinner, because he will undoubtedly arrive home too late to eat with the kids. The second speaker, also an MD, was Jane, wife of the chair of biochemistry, who described her skills as packer, mover, home-seller, home-buyer, school-finder and lots more for the many transitions the husband had made and would continue to make.

“I took my turn at the podium and said, ‘What kind of topic is this? Why does my being married to a doctor matter? I am who I am.’ I then proceeded to tell them who I was, including my experience as a college instructor [first at New York’s City College, then at Mount Holyoke, and finally at Drexel]. I also told them about the economic exigencies of the post– World War II economy that supposedly required middle-class women to stay at home. In the end, the medical students’ wives seemed to be more interested in the stove and in a cookbook they were putting together than in what I was saying.

“But the faculty advisor to the club, a woman doctor, was so impressed that she recommended me for the job as premed advisor to Penn’s undergraduates. When the dean asked me to apply for the job, I started to answer that I knew nothing about premed advising, but quickly corrected my statement by telling him all the things about myself that qualified me for the post. I got the job. All in all, I was lucky to have been in the right place at the right time.”

The Rowlands had spent six years at Penn when Lewis Rowland was offered a similar chairmanship at Columbia. “This was a difficult decision to make,” Esther Rowland recalls. “Penn was a lovely place, but Bud’s roots were really Columbia.”

He became chair of the neurology department, remaining for 27 years until his retirement in 2000. In negotiating his

new position, however, Lewis Rowland insisted that he couldn’t take the job unless an attractive position could be offered to his wife. An opening did occur, at Barnard, where she spent 22 years.

To honor her service, Esther Rowland was the featured guest at a reception in Barnard Hall on November 10, 2014.

Old friends, family members, former colleagues, alumnae, and scholarship donors, along with Dean of Studies Natalie Friedman, poured into the Sulzberger Parlor to honor her. “What a wonderful recognition of Esther’s accomplishments,” said Friedman, noting, “Administrators so often work behind the scenes.” Sharing the spotlight with Rowland that night was a Barnard student, Therese Kitchuk ’16, the first Esther Rowland Scholarship recipient.

Looking back, Mary Ann LoFrumento ’77, medical director of the Newborn Nursery at Morristown (N.J.) Medical Center, recalls, “At one point I became depressed that maybe this was not the course I should follow. I remember telling Rowland I didn’t think I wanted to become a doctor. She insisted that I was a good candidate and got me back to applying to medical school. If it wasn’t for Esther, I wouldn’t have stayed. She wouldn’t let me quit. Helping me, she helped me help other people. She had an incredible influence on the women who graduated from Barnard for a very long time.”

To make a secure gift honoring Esther Rowland, visit barnard.edu/gift. Fill in the top of the page, scroll down to “Designations,” and type “Rowland Fund” in the box beside “Restricted Gifts.” Go to the next page to complete your gift.

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PRESIDENT’S PAGE

WIRED LIKE A WOMAN?

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conversations. Many of the respondents— from the Class of 1950 to the Class of 2018—wrote of working to educate themselves about transgender issues.

Many described, quite movingly, how exposure to transmen or transwomen among their classmates or friends or family members had changed their own perceptions. And nearly everyone wrote of the importance of maintaining Barnard as a special place, a unique place, a place in which women, for over 125 years, have found their voices and given birth to their dreams. Or, as one alumna wrote, “Barnard stands for—and has always stood for—encouraging progress in women’s rights and gender equality.”

I do not yet know precisely how our discussions will evolve over the next few months, or how women’s colleges in general will, or should, consider the presence of transmen and transwomen on what have long been conceived as womenonly campuses. I do not know—nor does anyone, I suspect—how the legal system in this country will ultimately view the status of gender-nonconforming students at single-sex colleges. But I have confidence in two things. As we discuss the issue of trans students on campus, Barnard will have the kind of conversation—serious, informed, inclusive, and respectful—that honors our history and our deep-seated commitment to social justice and women’s empowerment. And we will eventually arrive at a policy that helps us build and maintain the kind of College we all want to see; a College that continues to celebrate women, and educate women, and pushes the boundaries of what it means to be a woman in our world.

The male stays in the nest from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; the female incubates the eggs for the rest of the day and night. Each parent takes a shift.

“How do they know whose turn it is?” asks Silver. “The answer is in their gonadal (ovarian and testicular) secretions. If the male is paired with another male and given ovarian hormones, he will care for the eggs and young at a female-typical time of day; a female given testicular hormones will take a shift during the male’s time.”

Jordan-Young noted that many academics are “not so happy with the explicit focus on documenting differences instead of also focusing on similarities.”

The latter emphasis doesn’t always provide the meaningful results, she said.

As an example, Jordan-Young pointed to a study that showed vast differences in the arterial elasticity between men and women, differences which became almost negligible when controlled for height. “The most important thing for the cardiologist to know is how tall [the] patient is,” added Jordan-Young.

The final panelist, Daphna Joel, discussed how her research indicates “masculinity and femininity cannot describe individuals but can describe traits.” She spoke about what she terms a “mosaic model,” in which individuals she studied typically possessed a range of masculine and feminine traits. She added that these traits themselves vary a lot depending on class, ethnicity, age, as well as on other factors, and that the characteristics also can change; they may be expressed differently depending on environment.

Joel noted that in an unpublished study by the National Longitudinal Study of Adult to Adolescent Health base (ADD), of 5,000 American adolescents, 97 percent of them had both female characteristics (such as depression, self-control) and male characteristics (such as impulsive, violent). “We think that people come in two forms,” said Joel. “We need to start celebrating human variability.”

with a research university. “This struck me as the best of both worlds,” he says.

Weiman is currently researching the economic history of the United States between the 1840s and the 1920s. By 1830, Americans rendered economic transactions in dollars as opposed to pounds, but there was no common currency. Banks issued currency when it received a charter from its particular state enabling it to do so. And, various currencies’ dollar units were of different values: Chicago’s dollar might be worth 98 cents in New York. In 1863, during the Civil War, Congress enacted a common currency through federally chartered national banks, so that they’d all issue bank notes of uniform value. Finally, in 1918, the Federal Reserve mandated that checks, too, be cleared and settled dollar for dollar, across the country. “We move from a system where you have common units of accounting to a common currency to what I’ll call a common bank money,” Weiman explains. Together with John James, a University of Virginia economics professor who passed away recently and unexpectedly, Weiman has been charting the course of this evolution. At the end of it, the country was left with the Federal Reserve, which orchestrates our bank transactions. One of the main questions Weiman aims to answer is: was that a good thing or a bad thing? The project is nearing completion.

This Jonathan Hughes Prize winner is, of course, also a masterful teacher.

(The award depends on former students’ nominations.) Weiman teaches a course on theoretical foundations of political economy, a survey course in United States economic history, and he will teach a course that charts our economic history at the turn of the 20th century, beginning with the second industrial revolution associated with chemical and electrical engineering. Together with his wife, Madeleine Zelin, Dean Lung Professor of Chinese studies at Columbia, he will teach a graduate course, Industrial Revolutions,

This President’s Page borrows from, and updates, a communication sent by President Spar to all members of the Barnard community on December 11, 2014.

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in spring 2016. Both had first taught the course in spring 2013. Weiman is also the co–principal investigator of the Empirical Reasoning Lab, which introduces empirical literacy to first- and second-year students in subjects from chemistry to the classics.

He also takes great joy in supervising independent thesis projects, and in watching students transform from nervous beginners “who can’t conceive a project of this size” to ones who have produced theses of great length and mastery.

“At the very end, when they give their presentations, they’re poised, articulate, informative,” says Weiman. Barnard, he points out, views teaching, advising, and committee participation as a service that professors give to their departments; supervising independent work is a vital component of this role. “For me,” he says, “I think this is one of the hallmarks of a classic liberal arts education.”

In hours not devoted to teaching and research, Weiman is committed to his athletic pursuits of running, biking, and tennis. An avid participant in the Bikea-thon to benefit Columbia Community Service, which aids local community nonprofit groups, he won the one-hour time trial on the stationary bike three years in a row. He’s “the man to beat and a top fund-raiser,” says his team captain Robin Beltzer of Barnard’s human resources department. And then there is his continuing enthusiasm for his piano lessons, begun not long ago and steadfastly pursued—a hallmark of his personal commitment to lifetime learning.

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SPEAKING LIKE CICERO Continued from Page 9

in the impromptu category for her comparison of her own social subversion with that of Jane Austen’s fictional creation, Elizabeth Bennet of Pride and Prejudice, who prioritized happiness over security. “I just wanted to go for it,” says Ramanathan. “It was more about the experience than the competition.” She credited her preparation with some of the speaking fellows for helping her to unexpected victory. “I wasn’t sure how I would do,” she says. “What I definitely gained was confidence and clarity.”

And that’s precisely the point, says Kempf. “I want students to understand how important it is to be skilled in public speaking. The Cicero Speech Contest is another venue for public speaking in the academic environment. It’s ultimately about thinking and ideas. Eloquence and delivery are just the icing on the cake.”

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COOL PROJECTS Continued from Page 14

that the app can be used for a broaderbased study of genetics. “The material is covered in a browser environment— including a number of external science education links—so they can easily study any topic from the course with the advantages of web-based text,” says Morton. “At the same time, there are a lot of videos embedded so that many of the topics can be learned in different ways.”

He adds, “There are a lot of questions for each topic—most with solutions provided—so they can get practice with problem solving and also use this to quiz themselves while studying.”

Several of Morton’s students have used the app while on the subway, a practical way to maximize study opportunities that eases stress and improves learning.

“Science textbooks are often heavy and hard to carry around,” says Hye-Jin Yun ’15. “The portability and interactiveness

of the Gene Tutor app have enhanced my learning experience.

“With videos and interactive practice questions, the app helped me to better understand the material,” she adds. “For difficult science subjects, I would like to see more interactive apps that supplement the class. However, I very much enjoy and learn best when I’m in a classroom setting, so I would not like to see digitization (i.e. online classes or videos of professors teaching the material) replace the class.”

But digitization will not replace the classroom anytime soon. The Massive Online and Open Courses, otherwise known as MOOCs, have been a subject of major discussion in recent years, with experts weighing both the benefits and downsides of making popular courses widely available online. Perry Mehrling, professor of economics, has taught the course Economics of Money and Banking for the past 15 years. In the fall of 2012, the Institute for New Economic Thinking filmed the course, and in 2013 it was offered as both a MOOC on the online platform Coursera and as an on-campus course with a so-called flipped classroom.

A flipped classroom does away with a more traditional model of learning in which the professor lectures on material students have already read and students do homework outside of class. In a flipped classroom, professors have taped their lectures (which is what Mehrling did) and students watch the lecture before class so that classroom time is spent in a more interactive manner.

The MOOC participants, who numbered more than 1,000, viewed the online videos and took multiple-choice quizzes. They had the opportunity to participate in online discussion boards with Mehrling occasionally chiming in, much to their pleasant surprise. The oncampus version of this course, one of the first flipped classes taught at Columbia University, was a reenvisioning of the course and the teaching method.

“Students can speed up the videos or slow them down or watch them twice,” notes Mehrling. “They can also read the

lecture notes in addition or instead. So there is much wider potential to support different learning styles. They can also go back to see a lecture again when they realize (after the midterm) that they misunderstood something important.

“Students are definitely learning more, and I think they are having more fun too,” he adds. “The fact that the lectures are already taped allows me to treat course time as time for interaction, which is stimulating for me as well as the students. The fact that the course works fine without a classroom at all has opened up room for experimentation in the classroom, since I know that the class will work even if the experiment fails. I can try new stuff and learn.”

Several divisions of the Barnard Library and Academic Information Services (BLAIS) have been integrally involved in making some of the COOL projects possible, including 125 Barnard Dances, unveiled as part of Founders Day festivities. Students in the dance department’s site-specific composition course created site-specific dances that people could view using a free augmentedreality app.

“I engaged with students at each stage of the research process, with a particular focus on topic formation,” says Alexis Seeley, associate dean for teaching, research, and technology.

“Our students started by exploring Barnard’s past in collaboration with the Barnard Archives, but then closely coordinated with the Instructional Media and Technology Services (IMATS) department to help realize their creative vision,” recalls Adjunct Professor Adam H. Weinert. “We were thrilled with the audience participation on Founders Day itself, and expect the app to continue to support creative work in dance and, hopefully, the architecture and design department as well.”

For her COOL project, Professor Kristina Milnor, associate professor of classics, created a digital map of the Roman city of Pompeii, buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in the year

79 B.C.E. In part because excavations have lasted more than two centuries, the materials, including 10 thousand written texts on Pompeian walls, have been quite difficult to see and understand systematically.

“The graffiti evidence survives mostly as lists and narrative descriptions in the excavation reports published unevenly and in multiple different places over the past two and a half centuries,” says Milnor.

“What I hope to show my students is actually pretty basic: where these ancient writings come from. In addition to seeing where an individual inscription was found, I also want to show, and can show with digital maps, the relationship between texts—what other writings were found in and around a particular graffito, whether a specific part of the city was rich in graffiti or relatively poor, whether most of the graffiti in that section was found inside houses or in the street, etc. This will lead, I hope, to their better understanding of how graffiti functioned as a really important, but really underappreciated, part of the ancient urban environment.”

The COOL website is public, and alumnae can check out the various projects being developed at barnard.edu/ cool. Mehrling’s MOOC is open to the public and alumnae can sign up through Coursera.

However, committee members stress that digital technologies are not meant to overtake the classroom, but rather to enhance it. A hybrid approach is envisioned that uses the best of digital technology, such as connecting with scholars and classrooms at diverse locations. For example, in July President Spar announced that Barnard received an $800,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that will support a new academic initiative called Barnard Teaches: Real Place + Digital Access, which will allow Barnard faculty to work hands-on with curators, archivists, and collection specialists at New York City cultural and scientific institutions to codevelop courses.

“I would love to see Barnard at the

forefront of online learning options,” says Merav Stein ’15. “As a visual learner myself, sometimes all it takes is one wellmade animation to help clarify a complex concept that I still find confusing after reading the book.

“However, I hope the advancements in digital study resources don’t replace actual study groups,” she continues. “I know that I perform best when I study with friends, when I am truly tested on my understanding of the material because I have to explain concepts.”

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Korea, Kim was bombarded with interview requests from a host of major media outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, and National Public Radio. Kim says the comedy, which was eventually released online and in a small number of theatres, is no joking matter. “It’s cringeworthy,” she says. “If Sony can’t make a comedy about 9/11 or Ferguson, why make a movie about a country where 25 million human beings are hostage.”

As for her own experience, Kim told Jon Stewart, “I wanted so much to tell [my students] about the world, but if I did, it could be dangerous for them.”

“And for you,” said Stewart.

“If I would have got caught I would have been called a spy,” Kim said. “Which I guess I was.”

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SALON: SIGRID MACRAE Continued from Page 16

least not publicly,” MacRae says. “When I asked her how she did it, she looked surprised. What was she supposed to do?

Sit on her battered suitcase and cry, with all six of us standing around her? As to where she actually got what she used to call ‘plain gumption,’ I still have no ready answer.”

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SALON: VICTORIA MACK

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understudy “was kind of like needing to sneeze and not being able to,” Mack says. “You feel this sort of itch to have the role yourself at some point.… It is a frustrating experience. I’m not going to lie. It’s tough.” She was never needed to fill in for Arianda, and after four months of excellent pay and lots of sitting around, Mack was ready to move on.

Last summer, she and her boyfriend, Michael Schantz, produced four 10-minute plays for Tisch’s summer alumni festival. They will bring the show to the Taller Siglo Cultural Center in Santiago, Chile, this spring. Mack also teaches at the New York Film Academy, where she’s also directing her second-year students in Antigone.

Stage and TV work appear to require similar skills, but they couldn’t be more different, Mack says. Theatre demands astonishing stamina, trained breathing, and muscle control. Television requires more subtlety. “You shoot the same moment over and over and over again,” she says. “As an actor, that’s exciting because you’re getting to explore one moment. You get to try it a million different ways, and you get to change the smallest little variation each time you do it.”

Performing live eight times a week can be grueling, but she’s found that nothing matches the long days TV actors put in.

“I did several episodes of The Good Wife and Juliana Margulies is there all the time.

She’s called first, and she leaves last. Those people are soldiers! When I did Boardwalk Empire, my call time was 4 a.m. I had to leave my apartment at 3 a.m., and of course you’re thinking, ‘Here I am on TV. I want to look my best!’ But you think you look terrible because you got two hours of sleep.”

Quite quickly, Maud married Frederick Nathan, an older, financially stable cousin, in an elegant ceremony at Shearith Israel, the family-founded synagogue.

The wedding was prominently covered in The New York Times; the couple departed for a long European trip. Annie, keeping house for her father, devoted herself to intellectual pursuits, including creating a reading circle modeled on the “conversations” that journalist, critic, and women’s rights advocate Margaret Fuller had started among women in Boston. Her father worried that a brainy girl would not find a husband, but she proved him wrong.

Alfred Meyer, Columbia alumnus and pulmonologist at Mt. Sinai hospital (formerly called the Jews Hospital), was an assimilated German Jew and a man entirely devoted to science. At his 1887 wedding to Annie Nathan, he asked the rabbi for “not too much prayer.” Soon afterward, Mrs. Meyer left Shearith Israel and joined the newly formed nondenominational New York Society for Ethical Culture. This was not the act of a meek woman submitting to her husband’s authority, but rather, as what happened next illustrates, the gesture of someone who had found her soul mate. Her husband supported, both emotionally and financially, the campaign that resulted in the founding of Barnard College.

Alfred Meyer’s medical career thrived.

He became a leader in the treatment of tuberculosis, which reached alarming proportions in the early 20th century and from which a disproportionate number of Jews suffered. These were not the Park Avenue Jews like the Meyers’ circle, but Eastern European immigrants packed together in tenements on the Lower East Side. Outbreaks of TB further stigmatized its inhabitants, whose presence—along with their radical politics—so disturbed the Meyers that they became advocates for setting limits on immigration.

Meyer supported his wife’s writing as she delved dangerously into racial themes

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in plays she wrote in the 1920s and in a long-delayed confrontation with antiSemitism as Hitler came to power in the 1930s. Annie also had the support of both her husband and sister when she protested her exclusion from ceremonies under President Nicholas Butler at Columbia University and the minimizing, as she saw it, of her central role as Barnard’s founder.

Maud Nathan followed a different path. She had a conventional upper-class life until 1895, six years after Barnard opened. That year, her only child, 7-yearold Annette, died, and Maud collapsed in grief. Her friend, philanthropist Josephine Shaw Lowell, proposed as a remedy that Maud involve herself in “a cause.” Maud became a reformer, first around women’s working conditions and then for political equality represented by votes for all American women. She would look back on this turn in life as a conversion from useless elite leisure to purposeful work.

Frederick Nathan also became an activist for women. He joined philosopher John Dewey, radical writer Max Eastman, and others to form a Men’s League.

When the men stepped out together into a suffrage parade, thousands of onlookers hooted at them in derision; they were gender traitors.

The woman suffrage question was resolved by a winning referendum in New York State in 1917 and a Constitutional amendment in 1920. The house divided appears to have found a measure of peaceful coexistence after that, especially as World War II approached. As survivors of a traumatic childhood, complex and articulate women with ideas of their own, Annie and Maud Nathan were, in the end, well pleased with each other as sisters.

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LAST IMAGE

Dahlia Elsayed ’92

Start of the Pre-Season, 2006 Acrylic and oilstick on paper, 46” x 33” each

LAST IMAGE: CALL FOR ENTRIES

Do you have an amazing photograph or work of art that you would like to share with fellow alumnae? Please send submissions to David Hopson at dhopson@barnard.edu.

BARNARD MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 75

LAST WORD

by Dorothy Adelson ’30

Illustration by Marina Muun

with joy. “Dorothy, let’s be old ladies together,” said my friend.

I stopped her there. I had lived in Paris.

“You may be an old lady if you wish,” I said, “but don’t ask me to join you.”

I explained that in France, there is no such thing as a little old lady. A young girl is a jeune fille. A young woman, a jeune femme. In her 30s, a woman is encore jeune (still young). In her 40s, jeune toujours (ever young). What are we, at over 80? We are éternellement jeune (eternally young), that’s what. The French are polite.

What are we like in our 80s? My own network may be typical: four widows, two married women with husbands living, two divorced (three counting me). We have known each other for upward of 60 years, no bagatelle.

How do we look? I recall the famous passage in Marcel Proust’s The Past Recaptured (the last volume of Remembrance of Things Past) in which the hero, after many years’ absence, goes to an afternoon reception given by the Princesse de Guermantes. At first, he thinks he has stumbled into a masquerade party, in which the guests have disguised

themselves “with powdered hair, in a way that completely changed their appearance.” The passage of time has altered the people he used to know in such a way that “they were recognizable but not good likenesses.”

Nowadays it is a shock to me to catch sight of myself in a mirror. I say, “This can’t be me. Someone has waved a hand and transformed me into a woman of 80.”

For the truth is, I look my age. When I meet my friends, I am invariably shocked at first glimpse. What wicked fairy has changed Sarah, Julia, and Vivian into aging females, to whom one’s first impulse is to offer a seat on the bus?

Then something magical happens. I call it “the second look.” The mask of age falls away, and there are Sarah, Julia, and Vivian as they have existed for me always, young, smiling, and the dear persons, unique and irreplaceable, that I remember down these many years. I cannot explain why this should occur, but it does, and then everything is all right.

The French Do it Better • Journalist Dorothy Adelson ’30 had a life of “reading, rereading, and scribbling.” Her works include a memoir, Roughing it on the Rue de la Paix, and two novels. Shirley Adelson Siegel ’37, recently collected her late sister’s thoughts on aging in a book; here are excerpts from Living Longer and Liking It.

• Growing older has received bad press. It

takes a brave spirit not to feel dismayed on an 80th birthday. We may feel fine and look fine, but there is an uncertain aspect to the years ahead that makes us uneasy.

Know that demographics are on our side. The number of people in this age bracket has more than doubled since 1980. There are more of us than ever and that gives us clout.

Facts are one thing. Image is another. Those of us who think words are important do not need to wait for legislation to improve our lot. We can begin at once to campaign for a positive attitude toward older people. “When youth goes,” said a French woman, “we must replace it with something better.” Away with the “little old lady in tennis shoes.”

At a college reunion some years ago, a classmate and I rediscovered each other 76

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BARNARD COLLEGE PRESENTS THE SEVENTH ANNUAL GLOBAL SYMPOSIUM

WOMEN CHANGING THE WORLD FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015 BARNARD COLLEGE, NEW YORK CITY Information: barnard.edu/global/symposia