Barnard Magazine Fall 2021

FALL 2021

NEW BEGINNINGS

With the full return of students to campus, the fall term is set into motion U.S. DOT DEPUTY POLLY TROTTENBERG ’86

ARTIST SHEILA LEVRANT DE BRETTEVILLE ’62

BLACK FARMER FUND CO-FOUNDER OLIVIA WATKINS ’16

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Transforming the Food System

by Michele Lynn ’82

How Olivia Watkins ’16 is planting the seed for a more equitable future for Black farmers and food entrepreneurs PHOTO BY JONATHAN KING

Features

Departments 2 Views & Voices

3 From President Beilock 4 From the Editor 5D ispatches Headlines | Weecha; BYOS; Caroline Kim ’96;

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Moving Forward

by Veronica Suchodolski ’19

As the deputy secretary of transportation, Polly Trottenberg ’86 has her eyes on equity ILLUSTRATION BY MONTSE BERNAL

Alexis Sablone ’08; Edith Jayne ’57 Guest Essay | What’s Your Story?

By the Numbers | Welcome, Class of 2025 Wit & Whimsy | I Am “Why Do I Need Venmo?”

Years Old 15 D iscourses Bookshelf | Books by Barnard authors Faculty Focus | Bathroom Conversations Strides in STEM | New York City: A Living Lab Roundtable | Heart to Heart

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Sketchbook A Q&A with trailblazing graphic designer and feminist Sheila Levrant de Bretteville ’62 PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

45 N oteworthy Q&Author | Jen Spyra ’03 Passion Project | Piecing It Together AABC Pages | The Blue & Bold Society; From the AABC President Class Notes Sources | Class of 1960 Adjunct Faculty Research Fund Virtual Roundup: Barnard Alumnae Circles Alumna Profiles | Cynthia Groomes Katz ’86, Daniella Kahane ’05 In Memoriam Parenting | Supporting Your Children’s Gender Development Last Word by Angela Rose Myers ’18 Crossword On the Cover At the Start … At Long Last, an installation by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville ’62, at the 207th Street subway station in New York City. PHOTO BY JONATHAN KING

Views & Voices

What Alumnae Are Saying on Social Media...

summer 2021

SUMMER 2021

INTO THE FUTURE

The extraordinary Class of 2021 sets off on their next adventure A 75-YEAR BARNARD FRIENDSHIP

Coming Full Circle “Marcia is a rock star!! So proud of her!!”

—Flora Sellers Davidson ’69

MARCIA SELLS ’81 AT THE MET OPERA

EDITORIAL

Nicole Anderson ’12JRN David Hopson COPY EDITOR Molly Frances PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Lisa Buonaiuto CONTRIBUTING EDITORS N. Jamiyla Chisholm, Kira Goldenberg ’07 WRITERS Mary Cunningham, Lauren Mahncke, Veronica Suchodolski ’19 STUDENT INTERNS Solby Lim ’22, Isabella Pechaty ’23 EDITOR

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION OF BARNARD COLLEGE PRESIDENT & ALUMNAE TRUSTEE Amy

Veltman ’89

ALUMNAE RELATIONS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Karen A. Sendler

ENROLLMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS VICE PRESIDENT FOR ENROLLMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS

Jennifer G. Fondiller ’88, P’19

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS

Quenta P. Vettel, APR

DEVELOPMENT

VICE PRESIDENT, DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNAE RELATIONS

Lisa Yeh P’19

PRESIDENT, BARNARD COLLEGE summer 2021

A Dream Fulfilled “I love seeing highlights of international Barnard alumnae+.

Please keep sharing their stories @barnardalumnae” —Anjali Barnabas ’24

Sian Leah Beilock

Fall 2021, Vol. CX, No. 4 Barnard Magazine (ISSN 1071-6513) is published quarterly by the Communications Department 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

THE TOP STORIES READ ONLINE spring 2021

1. Her Leading Role 2. Sketchbook 3. Data Driven

summer 2021

1. Into the World 2. Geliebte Freundin 3. A Summer of Learning

CORRECTION In “A Dream Fulfilled” (Summer 2021), a paragraph was updated to clarify the facts: “Throughout her time at Barnard, Vuong shared updates with Christine Mar ’65, who founded the Barnard Club of Hong Kong. Mar spearheaded a fundraising effort and, in partnership with Angela Bow ’85, P’19, helped establish an endowed scholarship fund to provide assistance to students from Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam to attend Barnard. Nearly $300,000 has been raised for the fund from a core group of committed Barnard alumnae and friends in Hong Kong. Recipients are chosen by the College during the admissions process.”

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU. We would love to get your feedback on the Magazine. Please share your thoughts, ideas, or questions with us at magazine@barnard.edu.

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EDITORIAL OFFICE

Vagelos Alumnae Center, Barnard College, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027-6598 Phone: 212-854-0085 Email: 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 (200 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 Relations at 212854-2005 or email alumnaerelations@barnard.edu.

To change your address, write to: Alumnae Records, Barnard College, Box AS, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027-6598 Phone: 646-745-8344 Email: alumrecords@barnard.edu

From President Sian Leah Beilock

PHOTO BY DOROTHY HONG

A Focus on Wellness This fall, we welcomed students back for a full return to campus.

Awaiting them are boundless opportunities for learning and exploration: in the lab and studio, in the classroom and in the field, in Morningside Heights and in the many neighborhoods that make up New York City. And with each new experience, they’ll build on the extraordinary work they’ve done leading up to this point.

Over this past year and a half, as we’ve navigated the unpredictable nature of the pandemic, we’ve not only persevered but thrived. Our students, faculty, and staff have demonstrated ingenuity when solving complex problems, nimbly adapted to different modes of learning, embraced a diversity of thought and ideas, and shown kindness to each other during a historically difficult time. While this has certainly made us stronger in many ways, it has also made me reflect on what it means to be equipped for a new semester of teaching and scholarship. It starts with shining a spotlight on personal well-being. For us to nourish our intellectual growth, we must also nurture our mental and emotional health.

These are the pillars that create an enduring foundation for our students to live healthy, fulfilled lives in and out of the classroom.

As an institution we’ve launched a multilayered program to ensure that all of our students have access to the resources, knowledge, and support for well-being they need to flourish during their four years on campus and long after they graduate. Our new Francine A. LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being serves as a centralized hub and an umbrella organization for our Feel Well, Do Well @ Barnard wellness initiatives, which address all facets of health and wellness, from emotional and mental to physical and financial.

For this reason, I am excited to welcome Marina Catallozzi, M.D., MSCE, as Barnard’s first Vice President of Health and Wellness and Chief Health Officer. In this critical leadership role, Dr. Catallozzi oversees the Francine A. LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being as well as Primary Care Health Services and the Rosemary Furman Counseling Center. She’ll also lead the charge in coordinating the College’s response to infectious disease threats and work to enhance undergraduate medical research opportunities for Barnard students.

With her extensive experience as a professor, researcher, and adolescent medicine specialist, she will help further our health and wellness mission, in addition to the important programming we launched over two years ago with Feel Well, Do Well.

As I close out this letter, I’ve been thinking about Olympic champion Simone Biles. This summer, she made the difficult decision to withdraw from the women’s gymnastics finals at the Tokyo Olympics as a result of mental health concerns. She’s not alone. Tennis player Naomi Osaka and swimmer Michael Phelps are among the elite athletes who have recently opened up about the stresses and intense pressures they struggle with. Though it has taken far too long for wellness and mental health to come to the forefront of the cultural discourse, I am encouraged that it finally has. As Biles said in an interview: “It’s not how I wanted it to go, but I think we’ve opened bigger doors and bigger conversations.”

I am hopeful that the members of our community will continue to feel empowered and encouraged to have these conversations, to focus on their well-being, and to reach out and support one another. That is how our community, and our society, will flourish. B

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 3

From the Editor

Throughlines On a hot morning in June, I returned to Barnard for the first time in over a year. As I walked across Futter Field, the campus felt at once new and familiar.

Though my colleagues and I have covered the vast community of alumnae, faculty, and students in the pages of the Magazine for nearly two years, I haven’t quite had the opportunity to get to know the physical place where these stories take root. As I later situated myself in our new office on Claremont Avenue, I experienced yet another first: planning an issue not from my desk at home but right there across the street from campus. From this perch, the Fall 2021 edition took form.

At the start of an issue, I typically get asked, and often ask myself, the question “Is there a theme?”

And more often than not, there are clear throughlines that show the relationship between people, ideas, professions, and experiences. But in this issue, I have to admit that the thread between each story was less obvious at first and didn’t reveal itself until we neared the end of the editorial process.

Our feature stories are dedicated to three alumnae who, on the surface, have seemingly different career paths. We profile Polly Trottenberg ’86, the former commissioner of the NYC Department of Transportation who now serves as President Biden’s U.S. deputy secretary of transportation. In “Transforming the Food System,” we learn how Olivia Watkins ’16, the co-founder of the Black Farmer Fund, is working to build a resilient and more equitable food economy. And we spoke with Sheila Levrant de Bretteville ’62, the director of graduate studies in graphic design at the Yale School of Art, about her life’s work as an artist, feminist, and educator.

So, what do these three alumnae — a civil servant, a social entrepreneur, and an artist — have in common? Each woman has a steadfast commitment to creating a more equitable and inclusive world. The “how” might be different, but the mission is much the same — and can be traced back to Barnard.

And this brings me to our cover, which pictures Levrant de Bretteville’s installation at the 207th Street subway stop, with the words “At the start … ” in sparkling mosaic tiles. For the students who have returned to campus, Barnard marks the beginning of a new journey. But perhaps the ellipsis is the most important part of this phrase, as it signals what alums know so well, that the experiences during those four years at Barnard will inform and catapult you to whatever the next stop may be.

Nicole Anderson ’12JRN, Editor

Dispatches News. Musings. Insights.

6 Headlines 8 Guest Essay 10 By the Numbers 12 Wit & Whimsy

Students moving into residence halls in late August 2021 PHOTO BY JONATHAN KING

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 5

When Art Meets Science

Artist Henry Richardson’s glass sculpture Weecha comes to campus On August 18, 2021, a new 8-foot-tall, 800-pound sculpture arrived at its temporary home between the Diana Center and Altschul Hall. Weecha, brought to campus via a collaboration with Professor Joan Snitzer, director of the visual arts program in the Department of Art History, is on loan to the College from August 2021 to July 2022 to coincide with the celebration of the Barnard Year of Science.

Weecha was inspired by the world-renowned metamorphic petrologist Maria Luisa “Weecha” Crawford, Henry Richardson’s thesis advisor and geology professor at Bryn Mawr, where he took courses as an undergraduate at Haverford.

Now age 82, Crawford has left an amazing legacy in the fields of geology and petrology. After graduating from Bryn Mawr in 1960, she studied at the University of Oslo in Norway on a Fulbright scholarship (1960-61) and received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1965. That same year, she joined the faculty at Bryn Mawr as an assistant professor. Throughout her tenure at the college — she retired in 2006 after 41 years on the faculty — Crawford served as 6

department chair and helped spearhead the creation of the environmental studies program at Bryn Mawr. In 1993, she was honored with a MacArthur Fellowship.

As Barnard kicks off the Year of Science, the focus is on equipping women in STEM with the skills and resources they need to succeed in their respective fields. Women’s colleges, like Barnard and Bryn Mawr, have a critical role to play when it comes to increasing female participation in the sciences, Richardson believes, and Crawford is a shining example of that. “The purpose of this sculpture is to draw the students closer in, to generate curiosity, so they learn not only about Weecha Crawford but about the STEM program at Barnard,” says Richardson. The sculpture also symbolizes the intricate relationship between the sciences and the arts — an important staple of the Barnard liberal arts education and focus for the Barnard Year of Science.

To read more about the Weecha sculpture and to see a recap of the installation, visit Barnard.edu.

PHOTO OF ALEXIS SABLONE COURTESY OF ALEXIS SABLONE. ALL OTHER PHOTOS BY JONATHAN KING.

Headlines

Kicking Off the Barnard Year of Science This academic year, from September 2021 to July 2022, Barnard will celebrate all things related to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) with the launch of the Barnard Year of Science (BYOS). President Sian Leah Beilock, who officially announced the new initiative during Convocation, noted that the College’s expert faculty, its symbiotic relationship with Columbia University, and its location in New York City makes it singularly positioned to offer unparalleled opportunities to women who will become tomorrow’s STEM leaders. Stay tuned for the Magazine’s Winter issue, dedicated to BYOS and our community’s achievements in STEM. yearofscience.barnard.edu.

Caroline Kim ’96 Wins Pulitzer Prize Filmmaker and journalist Caroline Kim ’96 received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the New York Times video she cocreated in March 2020, “‘People Are Dying’: 72 Hours Inside a N.Y.C. Hospital Battling Coronavirus.” The video, narrated

by Dr. Colleen Smith, an emergency room doctor at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, brings attention to the struggles inside a New York City hospital at the start of the pandemic, from dwindling supplies to heartbreaking losses.

Alexis Sablone ’08 at the Olympics This summer, the Barnard community watched with excitement as 34-year-old Alexis Sablone ’08, a member of the first-ever USA Skateboarding National Team, placed fourth in women’s street skateboarding at the Tokyo Summer Olympics with a final score of 13.57. With seven X Games medals in her pocket, she also boasts a master’s in architecture from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Barnard groundskeeper Margherita Casperson, who has been with the College for 13 years, gives the Torch Bearer — officially known as Spirit of the Greek Games — its weekly rinse.

Edith Jayne ’57 Receives British Honor Edith Jayne ’57 was recently awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for services to education about the Holocaust. In 1938, when Nazis invaded Austria, Jayne and her family fled to Portugal, eventually settling in the United States. For the past decade, she’s shared her story with primary and secondary school students in York, England, to help educate them about the major historical event.

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 7

PHOTO BY JONATHAN KING

Guest Essay

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What’s Your Story?

The Dean of Beyond Barnard on why crafting a career narrative matters

by A-J Aronstein Everyone’s career tells a story. Of ambition and confusion; of success and failure; of geographic preferences and life-changing relationships; of red herrings and account managers named Gary that clip their nails at their desk; of scary decisions related to money and power. Of happiness and its opposite.

As a career advisor and Dean of Beyond Barnard — the College’s center for integrated career support — my job relies on an ability to help people tell different versions of their story to potential employers, to their families and friends, and very often to themselves. Ironically, it’s the part of the work that people least expect to do when they first sign up for an hour’s worth of advising. But getting to know those stories, and having a role to play at consequential plot points, constitutes the privilege and fun that makes the job worth doing. Individuals often don’t see their career as a cohesive narrative. Instead, they describe a series of jobs, suggesting that they have stumbled through a tangle of decisions made on the basis of sundry inputs (economic, intellectual, idealistic, familial, romantic, and lots of others).

To which I typically respond, “How does this differ from anyone else?”

From the outside, even people who seem to have a perfectly cohesive career narrative will tell me their work life has been an inchoate mess. Understanding one’s career always involves acts of reverse narrative engineering. No one writes these stories in real time. It takes distance and perspective to connect disparate dots and to reflect on the way that changing priorities have influenced one’s decisions. I say reflect, but what I really mean is: invent. At any given moment, one’s account of a career is a kind of useful fiction that varies depending on the audience. It’s a red thread whose ability to connect those dots relies on a capacity for invention.

Don’t let me get carried away with Ariadne metaphors. In this work, what I fear most is sounding like some kind of conference guru, with a headset mic, rehearsed gestures, and corny slides with sunsets on them that read (as I wave my hand slowly over the crowd) something like, “What’s your career story?” Make no mistake, there’s plenty of nitty-gritty work in this profession. Feedback on résumés and cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, interview best practices, and negotiation strategies remain the four-course lunch special on any career center’s diner menu.

For countless advisees that I have met in a decade, action-oriented, no-nonsense, tactical guidance has been the difference maker in their ability to find a job. I have revised résumés for consultants and artists, prepped career transitioners from financial services into advocacy, and from advocacy into financial services.

I once advised a literal magician who was also — this is true — a CIA agent. He was applying for (and got!) a job as a professor.

In that same decade, I developed an arsenal of one-liner advice nuggets on font preference (Garamond for life!), résumé page-length (even CEOs have a one-page version!), bullet points (squares are better than circles!), and the “tell me about yourself” question that leads off most behavioral interviews (if you’re still talking after 45 seconds, stop!). I’d wager that the majority of advisees believe that mastery of these skills comprises the challenge of finding a meaningful career.

But to engage in the harder and more abstract work of narrativizing one’s career trajectory so far — and to imagine where that narrative might lead — does way more to clarify one’s preferred direction than any job document printed on résumé

paper (which, by the way, you should never use).

I have found that anyone arguing that their list of 10 foolproof résumé tips will unlock happiness will gladly try to sell you something in their next breath (usually, it’s a book). People seem happiest when their work feels meaningful but is not the sole source of meaning in their life. An effective advisor can help reveal where, precisely, an individual’s career story fits into the rest of their pursuits — and then works to figure out which parts to share with an employer and which parts to keep for oneself.

Here’s my story as an example (he says, as the lights dim and the slides go up). I was not nearly as motivated or organized as an average Barnard student.

For the first and only time, in the spring of my senior year, I visited my undergraduate institution’s career center — housed in the football stadium, a 20-minute walk from the center of campus. Six weeks later, I started a job selling advertising for a publication I had just learned existed, which mostly meant “cleaning out a supply closet filled with old magazines on the ninth floor of the Watergate building.” I was sleeping on an Aerobed in a Washington, D.C., neighborhood populated exclusively by what seemed to be J. Crew models who somehow didn’t sweat, and eating mostly peanut butter and jelly to save money. That October, to make rent, I cashed savings bonds that had been purchased to mark my birth.

One year and 11 months into my advertising career, I fled Washington for the University of Chicago to pursue a master’s degree in the humanities that cost more than a Lexus. On paper, it was a disastrous decision. I went for reasons that I now vehemently tell advisees are bad reasons. I hated my job. I was in a relationship that I couldn’t figure out any other way to leave. So I washed up on the shores of Lake Michigan like a reverse Gatsby seeking my academic fortune in the Midwest.

When I finished the M.A., I became a career advisor to humanists in the program. It made me mad to learn that so many of these brilliant people thought they were unemployable. So I got to work helping them translate their skills. Then I met a girl from the suburbs, and when she left for New York, I followed.

Had I not made all those decisions, I wouldn’t be working at a College on a hilltop.

My story has gnarls, pockmarks, and twists too.

How about yours? B A-J Aronstein is the Dean of Beyond Barnard and Senior Advisor to the Provost. His writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times, Paris Review, and elsewhere.

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 9

By the Numbers

Welcome, Class of

This year, Barnard remained the most selective women’s college in the United States. The College received a recordbreaking 10,400 applications and selected 10% of those who applied — the most competitive admission rate in College history. 65% chose to enroll, up from 57% last year.

Barnard’s newest students will represent 28 different countries from around the world — including Bolivia, Ethiopia, Romania, Thailand, and UAE — as well as from 41 U.S. states.

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Outside the Box

Incoming first-years are a diverse group. Some led student organizations, some became app developers or educational accessibility advocates.

Others worked as a film crew member on an Emmynominated documentary, became a JROTC Head Commander, Drum Corps in high school, or took a gap year to train with Ballet Idaho.

World Changers

New students didn’t wait to walk through Barnard’s gates before they tried to make a difference. Many wrote in their applications that they worked to help combat COVID-19 in their communities and through research. They were also a representative at the U.N. Global Climate Conference, the state president of the South Carolina Association of Student Councils, a founder of the Sunrise Movement climate action hub in Shawnee, Kansas, or the board president for Teens for Abused Children.

Sky’s the Limit

The Class of 2025 leads across the board, coming to campus as first-generation college students, presidents of science clubs and theatre clubs, Model U.N. students, and more. They also led as a New Jersey private pilot, one of the top-rated food bloggers in Dubai, the silver medalist at the 2019 Cadet World Championships (fencing), or the COO of a nationwide literacy nonprofit.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY LAURÈNE BOGLIO

STEMinists

Barnard is a magnet for STEM aficionados, of whom 37% listed science, technology, engineering, or math as their future major. Before coming to campus, they made their marks as a National USA Earth Science Olympiad finalist, the co-captain of a robotics team, the founder of the Women in Science movement at school, or a producer of 3D printer-made PPE for Tokyo hospitals.

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 11

Wit & Whimsy

I Am “Why Do I Need Venmo?”

Years Old Do you find yourself wearing a lot of clothing from L.L. Bean? Do you need to avoid too many glasses of wine or too much coffee, because if you don’t, you’ll find yourself awake at 3 a.m., unable to fall back asleep? Do you sometimes genuinely enjoy the music they play at the dentist’s office? I hate to break it to you, but this means you’re probably A Person of a Certain Age. Picture this: You’re out to dinner with a group of friends and the check comes. Inevitably, you’ll find that no one has change for a $20, or worse, no one has any cash at all. (I don’t know why no one could find time to stop at an ATM when they knew they would have to pay for dinner.)

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ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALI SOLOMON

by Janine Papp Annett ’96

Or, much to your horror, one of your friends will offer to pay with her credit card and say you can simply Venmo her your share of the bill. The only problem? You don’t have Venmo. You could offer to give her cash, but your friend will look at you like you’ve just offered to pay her during the Colonial era with a promissory note. PayPal? Forget about it. That’s like offering a testimonial about someone on Friendster.

Maybe you’ll start asking yourself why you need to adopt this new platform. What’s wrong with good, old-fashioned cash or credit cards?

Congratulations, you are now officially “Why do I need Venmo?” years old.

Even if you no longer know about the cool up-and-coming bands or you are not an early adopter of the latest technology (but you are an early riser!), there are some benefits to getting older — like the fact that you can easily rent a car or that you don’t have to show ID to prove you’re old enough to purchase a bottle of moderately priced bourbon once a year at the liquor store. You might even have a 401(k). Maybe you feel more comfortable in your own skin and more confident about who you are. Perhaps you finally found the one brand of pants that fit you consistently. (If so, please share what they are, particularly if they’re available at a reasonable price point and you’re on the pear-shaped side.) Numerous studies have shown that many people get happier as they get older and find their stress, fear, anger, sadness, and anxiety lessen. (Maybe their IBS even goes into remission!)

As Ben Franklin said (I think), “With age comes wisdom” (although Oscar Wilde clarified, “With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone”).

In addition to becoming “Why do I need Venmo?” years old, you just might find that you’ve become “hurt yourself putting on your pants” years old, “saw something you had as a kid in an antique store” years old, or maybe even “I can get down low but I can’t get back up again” years old.

In which case: Welcome to the club. The members of this club go to bed early, wearing comfortable pajamas and reading a good book.

It’s really not so bad. B This essay is excerpted from I Am “Why Do I Need Venmo?” Years Old: Adventures in Aging, by Janine Papp Annett ’96 (Running Press, 2021). Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The New York Times, Real Simple, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 13

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All articles (other than Class Notes) will be published at barnard.edu/magazine, and the complete issue (including Class Notes) will be available in a digital flipbook for alumnae behind a passwordprotected login at our.barnard.edu/classnotes.

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Discourses Ideas. Perspectives. A closer look.

16 Bookshelf 18 Faculty Focus 20 Strides in STEM 22 Roundtable

A new initiative, STEAM in the City, trains local K-8 teachers on how to use the City’s parks and public spaces as learning sites.

Here, Natisha Hines, an 8th grade teacher at the Hamilton Grange Middle School, identifies trees on Barnard’s campus.

(Story on page 20.)

PHOTO BY JONATHAN KING

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 15

Bookshelf

Books by Barnard Authors

by Isabella Pechaty ’23 NONFICTION Learning in Public: Lessons for a Racially Divided America From My Daughter’s School

by Courtney E. Martin ’02 Martin, who is white, documents what happens when she decides to enroll her daughter in a majority BIPOC neighborhood elementary school in a gentrifying community. In the process, her education choices for her daughter instigate necessary conversations and scrutiny of how disparities persist in racially integrated areas.

A Buddhist Sensibility: Aesthetic Education at Tibet’s Mindröling Monastery

by Dominique Townsend ’99 Author and poet Townsend demonstrates the impact that 17th-century Buddhist monastery Mindröling had on Tibetan culture and tradition. Detailing the holistic and deliberate lifestyle adopted by those who lived and studied there, the book draws on a variety of sources to paint a picture of a thriving intellectual community.

Firepower: How the NRA Turned Gun Owners Into a Political Force

by Matthew J. Lacombe, Assistant Professor of Political Science Tracking how and why stricter gun regulations have eluded American lawmakers for decades, Lacombe unpacks how the National Rifle Association has managed to galvanize its members into one of the nation’s most powerful lobbying organizations. He shows readers how the coalition between the NRA’s base of engaged supporters and the Republican Party built the organization into a political force that helped to usher in the Trump era.

No. 91/92

by Lauren Elkin ’00 Elkin’s latest book, No. 91/92: A Diary of a Year on the Bus, chronicles living and traveling in Paris amid a series of newsworthy events, like the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and personal crises. Elkin weaves together these experiences with her

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ruminations on Parisian history to present an insightful exploration of the everyday in a bustling city.

Miami Cooks

by Sara Liss ’02 An accomplished food writer, Liss turns her passion and expertise toward the culinary world of Miami and the rich collection of stories behind some of the city’s favorite foods. Miami Cooks offers both recipes and a detailed handbook on the inventive, cultural history of the city’s cuisine.

Pussypedia

by Zoe Mendelson ’12 Pussypedia is Mendelson’s extensively researched and reviewed guidebook to understanding reproductive health and sexuality.

Developed from the author’s popular website, Pussypedia. net, this carefully curated collection features personal stories and informative prose that empowers and encourages readers.

The Big Hurt

by Erika Schickel ’87 Exploring her explosive past to make sense of her present, Schickel catches everyone up on what has happened in her life since being expelled from high school for sleeping with a teacher. The memoir takes an observational and humorous look at how her adult life has unfolded in the wake of a tumultuous creative

practice, dysfunctional family dynamics, and 1970s attitudes toward young women.

The Pucci of Florence: Patronage and Politics in Renaissance Italy

by Carla D’Arista ’78 D’Arista demonstrates how the Renaissanceera Pucci family secured their legacy as formidable political players and wealthy patrons of the arts through key alliances in Florence. The book examines how the family’s extensive art and architecture collections were impacted by larger strategic alliances and geopolitical fallout.

CHILDREN’S AND YOUNG ADULT BOOKS Beep Beep Bubbie

by Bonnie Sherr Klein ’61 In Klein’s new illustrated book for children, Kate and little brother Nate adapt to the idea of their grandmother, Bubbie, using a scooter to get around during a shopping trip to Vancouver’s Granville Island.

Almost Flying

by Jake Maia Arlow ’19 In this story of summer adventure and queer self-discovery, written for a middle grade audience, Dalia struggles to navigate relationships with a new stepsister, Alexa, and her girlfriend, as well as the burgeoning knowledge that she has feelings for Rani, the new girl on her swim team. These dynamics play out amid a summer vacation amusement park road trip.

Foretold

by Violet Lumani ’02 In the first installment of her young adult trilogy, Lumani tells the story of Cassandra, a student whose powerful and ominous visions of the future keep her constantly anxious in her everyday life. But when troubled with visions of her neighbor Colin, she involves herself in the underground practice of mystics and augury in order to thwart fate and save her friend’s life.

We Love Fishing

by Ariel Bernstein ’99 Bernstein’s new children’s book follows a group of lively animal friends as they go fishing out in the wild and run into all kinds of exciting adventures.

Bear, Otter, Porcupine, and Squirrel embark on a fishing trip and deepen their bonds of friendship along the way.

FICTION Mapping Eden

by Carol Japha ’66 As 6-year-old Julia’s mother slowly succumbs to a fatal illness, she must redefine and restructure her young life around a world without her beloved parent in it. Japha explores how deep a parent-child relationship runs and the painful consequences of its loss to the identity and security of a young child.

POETRY Haikus for New York City

by Peter Goldmark Jr., with illustrations by Sandra Goldmark, Associate Professor of Professional Practice in Theatre In this collection of poems and illustrations resulting from a father-daughter collaboration, longtime New Yorkers lyrically and visually reflect on the unexpected moments of oddities, turmoil, and peace in a city reckoning with its identity during the coronavirus pandemic. B

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 17

Faculty Focus

Bathroom Conversations

At the Venice Architecture Biennale, Professor Ignacio G. Galán turns the restroom into an opportunity for dialogue

by Tom Stoelker

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Ignacio G. Galán

of curatorial projects, installations, and scholarly platforms. “By getting rid of gender assignment, people could go to whatever side of the bathroom they wanted, and that became a source of confusion for some and a source of liberation for others. While restrooms are spaces characterized by different forms of segregation, they can also become spaces of freedom.”

At one point, an unwitting restroom attendant tried to clear up confusion at the gender-neutral entryway by providing assistance with boys-over-here, girlsover-there directives. Galán says that those directions sparked an impromptu conversation between the designers and the attendant and the visitors, who were surprised and intrigued by the intentions underpinning the pavilion. “Part of the role of the pavilion was precisely to have these conversations,” Galán notes.

Galán says that far from being merely utilitarian and neutral spaces, restrooms contain complex infrastructure that plays an outsized role in society that goes beyond functionality. For instance, at the pavilion, the architects used imagery on vinyl tiles to represent the sewage infrastructure that lies behind the walls and floor and transports the waste to the Venetian Lagoon. “The images on the walls provide an experience of how restrooms are tied

PORTRAIT OF IGNACIO G. GALÁN BY TOM STOELKER. OTHER PHOTOS BY IMAGEN SUBLIMINAL (MIGUEL DE GUZMAN + ROCIO ROMERO) / NATALIA GUARDIA

Venice, a city known for its stunning architecture, winding canals, and Murano glass, is rarely, if ever, thought of for its bathrooms. But that’s exactly the focus of a two-part project, “The Restroom Pavilion” and “Your Restroom Is a Battleground” — designed by Barnard architecture professor Ignacio G. Galán and colleagues — at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale.

Questions of who gets to use public space are not unusual fodder at the biennale, which showcases international research as well as built and speculative projects by architects from around the world. But architects presenting at the biennale generally rely on models, installations, renderings, text, photos, and sculptural concepts to convey the essence of architecture. So a project centered on a functioning restroom was a novel approach for the biennale. Visitors actually used it, making the pavilion true architecture, not merely a stand-in.

For Galán, the effort flipped the script on his usual way of working. He’s not an architect solely focused on building buildings, he’s a historian and theorist exploring how architecture is steeped in politics and social issues. It’s work that surfaces in his practice [igg – office for architecture], in his scholarship, and in his course offerings. This fall, he’ll be teaching Architecture and Migration in New York, which has received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to be part of a university series of seminars that home in on issues of “spatial inequality.”

“I find restrooms a kind of space that mediates several of my interests on the politics of architecture,” he says. “One of the areas of scholarship I’ve been working on has been migration; another area is questions of disabilities and accessibility.

This project allowed me to look at how these different critical issues overlap in a seemingly banal space, along with questions of gender, race, and environmental concerns.”

Galán refers to the pavilion as a “polemic intervention,” intended to provoke conversations on issues of social justice spurred on by architecture. During his five years at Barnard, Galán says, his scholarship has encompassed architectural history through diverse media platforms and is intended to incorporate collaboration as well as to foster conversation.

The pavilion was half of a two-part presentation: one, a usable bathroom building, and the other, an installation that teased out the pavilion’s meanings. The architects titled the building “The Restroom Pavilion” and called the installation of dioramas “Your Restroom Is a Battleground.” The installation was well received, but the bathroom left some visitors perplexed — which was intended.

Upon entering the restroom pavilion — designed by Galán, Matilde Cassani, a professor at London’s Architectural Association, and critic and curator Iván L. Munuera, a visiting lecturer at Bard College — patrons were confronted with an unmarked entryway that obliged them to go left or right toward a common restroom. That split-second decision opened up a host of issues surrounding restrooms, from gender identity to who gets access to public space.

“These tensions were performed in space, since bathrooms were not just for visitors to use but also to think about,” says Galán, whose work takes the form

Left: Dioramas featured in the exhibition “Your Restroom Is a Battleground”; right: Visitors inside “The Restroom Pavilion.”

with different ecosystems and the political stakes that are at play as a result of this relationship,” says Galán.

The second part of the project, a “research station” called “Your Restroom Is a Battleground,” was set in an exhibition gallery and featured a series of dioramas that delved into the issue of gender-neutral bathrooms alongside matters concerning disabilities, race, religion, and sustainability — to name a few of the issues. The architects mapped out seven case studies in the dioramas that stylistically appeared as though a 3D graphic novel met an uber-hip dollhouse. In creating the dioramas, Galán, Cassani, and Munuera were joined by Joel Sanders, director of post-professional studies at the Yale School of Architecture.

The theory behind the pavilion’s purpose was examined via several high-profile controversies that informed the dioramas’ subject matter. The real-life examples portrayed included the case of the North Carolina high school where the local school board prevented a transgender student from using the boys’ restroom.

(After lower courts ruled in the student’s favor, the Supreme Court refused to take up the case, paving the way for future transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity.)

Another diorama was inspired by the case of two Black men in Philadelphia who were arrested for allegedly trespassing after being refused access to a Starbucks bathroom before buying coffee — displaying the racist biases regulating who gets access to specific spaces.

“These battlegrounds are unfolding in different parts of the world and represent instances of how architecture participates in defining the ways we coexist, ” Galán says. “We didn’t necessarily want to solve or foreclose the conversation on what the best bathrooms could be; we wanted to unveil certain concerns and trigger conversations around them, and that’s what happened.” The Venice Architecture Biennale runs through November 21, 2021. B

“By getting rid of gender

assignment, people could go to whatever side of the

bathroom they wanted, and that became a source of

confusion for some and a

source of liberation for others.

While restrooms are spaces characterized by different

forms of segregation, they

can also become spaces of freedom.”

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 19

Strides in STEM

New York City: A Living Lab

Barnard launches a yearlong partnership with local teachers focused on STEAM curricula

by Veronica Suchodolski ’19 On this hot July day, Migdalia Sanabria, an 8th grade science teacher at Isaac Newton Middle School for Math & Science in Harlem, stands on a leafy path in Morningside Park with a clipboard in hand, taking stock of the native tree species around her with a group of fellow educators. “We are identifying the trees and measuring the carbon dioxide levels,” she explains. “It relates to the curriculum that I am teaching, and it actually allows students to have real-life applications of the knowledge that they learn in the classroom, [and] to apply it to studies around their neighborhood and their park.”

Sanabria is one of 16 educators participating in STEAM in the City Powered

by Barnard — a new, yearlong initiative from Barnard College and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) — which is designed to guide K-8 teachers in the Harlem and Morningside Heights neighborhoods in building a science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics (STEAM) curriculum that leverages the city’s parks and public spaces as environmental and design learning sites.

The partnership between the College and the local schools is facilitated through Barnard’s new Office of Community Engagement and Inclusion, led by Cammie 20

Jones. For Jones, STEAM in the City Powered by Barnard and SNF is the next step in strengthening the relationship between Barnard and its broader community, and one that is perfectly timed.

“This kind of partnership tells a story about community as a living learning lab, leading us away from a place where we individually understand and do impact work and toward a place where we recognize the value of collective impact work when it comes to long-term, mutually reciprocal community engagement,” says Jones. “I can’t think of a better moment to do this than now, as we work together to reclaim our spirits, community, and space in the aftermath of the pandemic. Such work will strengthen our communities.”

Brad Taylor, president of the Friends of Morningside Park and one of the community partners involved in STEAM in the City, agrees.

“Barnard’s STEAM in the City program is just the kind of institutional civic engagement initiative that our park community has been eagerly seeking,” says Taylor. “Our organization celebrates Morningside Park as ‘Our Common Ground.’ By engaging young local learners through hands-on learning, STEAM in the City builds lifelong appreciation for our shared

PHOTOS BY CARRIE GLASSER

STEAM in the City participants suited up to visit the Jon Snow Bee Lab on the roof of Barnard Hall.

“This inspires me to get students to think outside the box,” said Tiese Pope of the School of Earth Exploration and Discovery Harlem.

natural oasis and its diverse and interconnected human communities.”

The initiative officially launched on July 19 with a weeklong workshop series.

Barnard professors guided local teachers on best practices to engage and educate students in STEAM classes about ecology and environmental science, architecture and urban design, and urban beekeeping.

Yuderka Valdez, a 7th grade bilingual special education teacher at the Hamilton Grange Middle School, said the focus on STEAM is essential. “Everything’s at stake right now,” says Valdez. “If our students don’t get into STEAM, who’s going to create, who’s going to invent? We need to get them motivated now. A lot of our students feel that this is not for them. They don’t see themselves as scientists or engineers or architects. Us immersing them in this and exposing them to this is going to benefit them greatly, and it’s going to open other horizons for our students.”

The program is a learning opportunity for the teachers as much as it is for the students they’ll instruct when they return to their own schools. Jonathan Snow, an associate professor of biological sciences at Barnard, led the teachers in a lesson on urban beekeeping designed to work in their own classrooms. “I want to be able to pass on my own enthusiasm and excitement for honey bees so that they can bring that into their own classrooms and hopefully be able to inspire their students with the in-person experiments that they had here,” says Snow.

His enthusiasm is paying off. “Coming to Barnard has allowed me to really see that students don’t need to have all the right answers,” says Sanabria, who cites Snow’s presentation as one of the week’s highlights. “They can explore by going to the park or looking at nature, and they can come up with their own correct answers by exploratory learning.”

The weeklong workshop series is just the beginning of the STEAM in the City initiative.

Teachers will convene throughout the academic year for four half-day workshops to share, monitor, and evaluate their progress in applying the new skills learned during the summer institute. Along the way, they’ll have access to the resources on Barnard’s campus that they might not be able to find at their own schools.

“The connection between Barnard and the STEAM teachers is so important because we have all these great resources here, and some of these schools might not, so we want to be able to provide that for them and impart our knowledge to them,” says Kelly Grey, associate director of Barnard’s Design Center, who led a STEAM workshop for teachers during the week.

Sanabria is already planning out her academic calendar to include visits to campus with her students. “I look forward to bringing my students to Barnard to use the Design Center so that they can also have some of their projects come to life,” she says. “This is the beginning of something great, and I’m so glad to be a part of this program and to have this yearlong partnership.” B FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 21

Roundtable

Heart to Heart

Cardiology is still a male-dominated field, but it didn’t deter these alums. How Barnard helped shape the careers of four cardiologists Training to become a cardiologist is a long and grueling process — four years of medical school, three years of internal medicine residency, and up to five years of a fellowship that cuts across young adulthood. Work hours extend beyond a typical 9-5 schedule, and it can be profoundly challenging to balance personal, family, and professional life. As a cardiologist with several decades of experience, I know firsthand the ups and downs that come with the job. But I am so thankful for my decision: I get to teach students and medical trainees, conduct research, and most of all, help and take care of my patients.

When I was at Barnard in the late 1970s, I remember hearing that of all the women’s colleges, Barnard produced the most doctorates of any. At the time, I did not anticipate that I would be one of them, but I went on to earn two doctorates: one in education and the other in medicine. But during my training, I soon learned there were areas of medicine that still had very few women doctors — and it wasn’t until then that I fully realized how this gender gap might present obstacles as I moved along on my own professional trajectory. Cardiology remains a maledominated field; only 15% of cardiologists are women. I’ve personally faced gender issues in the workplace, often through implicit bias.

Looking back at my undergraduate experience, I am appreciative of the role that Barnard played in fostering my desire and resilience to go after whatever it is I wanted to do. It is not surprising that a number of cardiologists who’ve graduated from Barnard share this very sentiment. I spoke with three cardiologists spanning five decades — Nora Goldshlager ’61, Annabelle Santos Volgman ’80, and Lauren Cooper ’03 — about their paths into medicine and how Barnard influenced their lives and careers.

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ILLUSTRATION BY DAYAN MARQUINA

by Merle Myerson ’78

NORA GOLDSCHLAGER ’61 Professor emeritus, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine; former president of the Heart Rhythm Society What made you decide to go into medicine?

My father was a cardiologist who had escaped from Russia and came to the United States. I knew I wanted to be a doctor at age 6 — not exactly sure where it came from at the time. When I was in the 7th or 8th grade, I used to help my father put together manuscripts and cut up his EKG tracings. And I got to be good at this. So, early on, I was fascinated by EKGs and heart rhythm and then knew I wanted to be a cardiologist.

How do you feel a women’s college helped you navigate your professional life?

“Mentor” was not a word at the time, and I did not seek out or need mentorship.

But I have to say, looking back: the excellence of the faculty, the student discussion, the stimulation. If you wanted a group to talk with in your classroom, I was never intimidated. There was no shyness or no embarrassment, no fear. I think that Barnard gave this to me; it was part of the journey. The freedom to be — that was part of what Barnard did for me. We could do [or] say anything and not pay a negative price. The freedom to think, talk, argue, and be wrong was there.

With the long years of training and long and unpredictable hours at work, how have you navigated family and job?

I did not feel that there were “sacrifices” in order to be a woman in cardiology in terms of personal life. One of the things that was operative then but not now was the expectation that you had to have a family. My feeling is “you can do it all,” but you can’t do it all at the same time, and you can’t do it all well.

Cardiology remains predominantly male. Did you take this into consideration when deciding to pursue your career?

I did not recognize gender issues — I would not have known this if they hit me in the face in New York. I attribute that to my parents and the appreciation of New York City.

We all remember the 2020 presidential campaign when Hillary Clinton’s “likability” was called into question. Have you even felt that you had to purposely make an effort to be seen as “likable”?

In my case, those [colleagues and trainees] I worked with liked me because they see they can do their best. How are you not going to be liked? I think if you show people what they are capable of doing, they will integrate that into their persona. It is a construct that you have to have. It is also very important to admit when you are not correct, it makes you human. It’s not about you.

ANNABELLE SANTOS VOLGMAN ’80 Professor of medicine and senior attending physician at Rush Medical College and Rush University Medical Center; medical director of the Rush Heart Center for Women; Madeleine and James McMullan-Carl E. Eybel, MD Chair of Excellence in Clinical Cardiology Could you tell me about your Barnard experience?

Barnard was great for me. We got this feeling that we could do anything we wanted. It was a woman’s world. It was shocking when I went to Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, as this was a man’s world. Barnard was so FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 23

empowering; there were no men to tell you it is your position to do this or that.

What made you decide to go into medicine?

I wish that someone had told me I could be a cardiologist earlier on. But there were no role models. When I was doing my medicine rotation, I interviewed one of the cardiology patients. I saw how a patient with chest pain went to the ER and [was treated for] STEMI [a serious type of heart attack]. I wanted to do that! In my residency at UC and Northwestern, the most fun people were the EP [electrophysiology] attendings. We were going to the operating room to perform ablations and other procedures!

For several of us, medicine in general was still predominantly male, and cardiology even more so. Was this taken into consideration?

It is still an old boys’ network, and women feel discouraged. There are a lot of men who don’t want to relinquish control of this field to women. Electrophysiology is still 91% men. I did not consider my gender when I considered going into cardiology. [But] if a woman wants to go into cardiology — do it! I just wrote an editorial about the lack of risk of radiation to women [if] mitigated by wearing lead protection. A lot of electrophysiology procedures can be done without fluoroscopy and radiation. So women don’t really need to worry about that.

We need to know that we are in a powerful position, and if what we are doing is right, step up to the plate to be assertive. You do not have to excuse your leadership as something you don’t deserve. We have to empower more women to be assertive and stand their ground. I have three brothers that helped me in the way I conduct my life. Maybe this is where I get my assertiveness from.

I am 4 feet, 10 inches, and I need a step stool to do procedures. My residents and fellows were always bigger than me. I may have been mistaken for not being the senior physician/cardiologist, but when I opened my mouth — they knew! This is resilience — it is their problem and not ours.

LAUREN COOPER ’03 Director of heart failure, North Shore University Hospital; associate professor in the department of cardiology at Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell What made you decide to go into medicine?

I was originally interested in politics and worked on a campaign while at Barnard. But, at the end of the day, only one person wins an election. It was very disheartening for me, and I could not change the world in politics, whereas in medicine I could make a change — even if it was one person at a time. I picked internal medicine as it was pretty broad, but at the end of my residency I did a rotation in heart transplant and decided to become a cardiologist.

How do you feel a women’s college helped you navigate your professional life?

[At Barnard] there were women in every position — professors, deans; it was female driven. This is huge, but reflecting back on this, there is no reason that women cannot be in every position. This piece has gone with me every phase of my career: female mentorship.

Cardiology remains predominantly male. Did you take this into consideration when deciding to pursue your career?

It had not been a consideration; my residency had a lot of women. When I did my rotation in heart transplant, there were also a lot of women. There were many prominent women in the field as well. I think times are changing.

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With the years of training and long and unpredictable hours at work, how have you navigated family and job?

I think there have been times in my career where I have been passed over due to gender. It is the man with the stay-at-home wife who has been picked. When I had my first child and maternity leave, it took me a full year to get back to where I left off, with both clinical and research work. I wish someone had told me how this would be but that it will be okay when you [are] back at it. I now try to be that person to my colleagues.

For myself, I met my husband in fellowship, so this was the package he was getting, and I was going to move where the job took me. This is a matter of fact. As we had kids, he knew that I worked a lot of nights and weekends — it was part of the deal. This has always been our life together. We can make [the field] more friendly though, in terms of accommodating family and personal life. For my generation, work-life balance is being talked about more.

Have you ever felt that you had to purposely make an effort to be seen as “likable”?

Women in leadership positions have to do this — be leaders and likable. People perceive women differently than men. People think that women are kinder and gentler — from a patient-care perspective, especially when women walk into the room. So it makes people connect to women on a different level.

We should not strive to be who [men] are — women don’t have to be like men to be leaders.

[At Barnard] there were women in every position — professors, deans; it was female driven. This is huge, but reflecting back on this, there is no reason that women cannot be in every position. This piece has gone with me every phase of my career: female mentorship.”

Much has been written about the glass ceiling, fewer academic promotions, and salary discrepancy for women in medicine, but what is the impact of implicit bias and microaggressions in the workplace?

Male doctors are generally referred to as “Dr. X” and women by their first names. We always joke that people thought I was a nurse. I am over it by now. At the end of the day, I am not a nurse. When it comes to hiring practices, there are places that have a lot of men in leadership, and when they interview someone for entry level, it might not be conscious but they see themselves in the male candidate, unless they are actively trying to recruit a diverse group.

What do you feel can be done to change or improve these experiences women have in their work environments?

For future generations, it is having that mentorship to help navigate the field. I have had wonderful mentors, and this helped in making the most critical decisions. We have to seek out women mentors and also be those mentors. B Merle Myerson ’78 works at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center General Cardiology, where she specializes in sports cardiology and heads the Pre-Exercise Heart Screening Program and Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Program and Lipid Clinic.

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Moving Forward As the deputy secretary of transportation, Polly Trottenberg ’86 has her eyes on equity

by Veronica Suchodolski ’19 ILLUSTRATIONS BY MONTSE BERNAL

Polly Trottenberg ’86 is no newcomer to Washington, D.C. With more than 25 years of experience in the public sector under her belt, she’s well prepared for her role as deputy secretary of transportation. But that doesn’t make the new job any less exciting. “It’s always a thrill to be nominated to serve in a prominent role in a field that you love,” says Trottenberg, on the phone from her new home base in D.C. “What can I tell you? It’s the honor of a lifetime.”

Trottenberg arrives this time in Washington after seven years as the commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) — one of the largest municipal transportation departments in the country, spanning 6,000 employees and a multibillion-dollar budget. Before that, she served as the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) undersecretary for policy under President Obama and was a transportation policy advisor for Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Chuck Schumer, and Barbara Boxer.

Beyond her extensive résumé, Trottenberg brings to the table an earnest desire to design cities to best serve the people who live in them — a passion she developed during her time as a student at Barnard.

Trottenberg grew up less than an hour from campus, just outside the city in

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the Westchester County town of Pelham.

“I wanted the chance to be in New York,” Trottenberg says. “New York City has always been a place that young people want to go to, and I was one of them.”

That desire to experience the city inspired Trottenberg, a history major, to explore more than just Morningside Heights.

One of her favorite things to do was walk the whole length of Manhattan with her friends — seeing, she jokes, a Chock full o’Nuts coffee shop every 10 or 20 blocks. “The most amazing thing about New York City is that just walking the streets is so fascinating and incredible. And it’s free,” says Trottenberg. “I mean, it’s nice to have money to go do all the other amazing things you can do in New York City, but the city is just fascinating to walk through.”

The streets of New York ignited an interest in cities, transportation, and politics for Trottenberg that solidified right after college, when she read The Power Broker by Robert Caro, considered a seminal text for many working on transportation policy. “It’s a book that resonates to this day as we grapple with the legacy of racism in our country, and the legacy of segregation in our cities, and the choices we’ve made about where we’ve invested in communities, where we’ve cut off,” says Trottenberg, who recalls rereading the book when she became the NYCDOT commissioner.

In particular, the college-age Trottenberg was struck by a chapter on the contested construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway. Conceived by Robert Moses and built between 1948 and 1972, the expressway destroyed neighborhoods in the South Bronx and is seen as one of the root causes of poverty and decline in the Bronx during that era. “The chapter is so heartbreaking because there were so many ways, even if you were determined to build that highway, that you could have done it with less damaging impact,” says Trottenberg. “I grew up a couple miles away, but I had no idea of the incredible history there.”

What resulted from that first brush with urban policy and planning is a public servant focused on people and the dynamic ways they move through their cities,

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a challenge that Trottenberg faced head-on at NYCDOT. In a city where 8.5 million people live in 300 square miles of neighborhoods, ranging from deeply urban to almost suburban, crafting effective transportation policy necessitates listening to and balancing interests from all corners of the island and its boroughs. When done right, Trottenberg says, it’s an experience like no other, where your work impacts people the moment they step out the door.

“You get to see your work in real time, and you really get to have an impact on people’s lives for the better,” she says. “Having the chance to be a public servant and be part of the life of a great city is an incomparable experience.”

Some of those life-altering projects included Vision Zero, a landmark city initiative to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries; a robust expansion of the city’s bike lanes and bike share program; and the renovation and repair of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE).

Mitchell Moss, a professor at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and the director of the university’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, calls the BQE one of the toughest challenges in New York transit.

“It was her courage to take on a problem, which other people had kind of tried to bypass,” says Moss.

But Trottenberg is known to get the job done. “She understands more than anyone how to draft legislation, how to carry out policy, and how to work with legislators,” says Moss. “Wherever she’s gone, she’s earned the respect of everyone she’s worked with.”

As challenging as the BQE was for Trottenberg, it wasn’t her biggest at NYCDOT. That would come in her last year, when the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered the city overnight. In addition to rapidly redesigning and refocusing how the agency worked, Trottenberg and her team fielded calls from the city council and the public for the city to allow streets to be blocked off for safe, socially distanced use.

The resulting program, Open Streets, was piloted just four days after the official pandemic pause order from the governor’s office, after what Trottenberg called a

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“tremendous” learning experience. (The program went on hiatus 11 days later to spend a short month recalibrating before becoming a permanent fixture of New York City life.)

Still more transformational was Open Restaurants, which launched in June 2020 with an ambitious plan to allow businesses to self-certify their eligibility for curb lane and sidewalk seating. “It was one of the biggest leaps of faith I made in my whole career,” says Trottenberg of the self-certification decision. “I had more sleepless nights over it than probably anything else I’ve ever done.” In figuring out how to run the program safely, Trottenberg estimates her team put together a plan that would have taken five years to hammer out in nonpandemic times.

Open Restaurants saved many city establishments from shuttering during the pandemic, and it gave New Yorkers hope when it seemed like there wasn’t much to hope for. But for Trottenberg, the real magic came from how the program changed the way New Yorkers think about public spaces. “[Open Restaurants] brought a whole different group of people to the great debate in cities right now, which is how do we continue to turn away from what is an auto-centric approach — which is expensive, dangerous, and carbon intensive — to more environmentally friendly, human uses of our streets.”

Down in Washington, Trottenberg hopes to continue that focus on equity, aiming for transformational legislation that will help USDOT support infrastructure leaders at the local level.

Speaking in July as senators were deep in talks for the Biden administration’s landmark infrastructure bill, Trottenberg’s office was abuzz with possibility. “The most exciting thing that’s happening right now in Washington is a debate over a big new transportation bill,” said Trottenberg. “We’re on the cusp of passing major transportation legislation, which frankly only happens maybe once in a generation. It will make — if the bill as being discussed passes — tremendous investments in transit and rail, in electric vehicles, and [in] making our roadways safer.”

It’s the kind of legislation that made Trottenberg want the deputy job in the first place. Before she was nominated to the position, she was tapped to join the Biden transportation transition team. “I leapt at the chance,” says Trottenberg. “Whether I was going to wind up joining the administration or not, I wanted to be part of a group of people that would help restore the department and restore trust in government.”

Trottenberg is modest about what her national success can tell young women who are looking to be leaders in politics. “I think the debate has changed generationally,” she said. “Maybe we were not as encouraged as we could have been to become leaders.

For myself, I think I stayed a staffer on Capitol Hill for too long — I left money on the table. I think the advice is probably still the same, which is [that] women can lead and transform, and that can be any one of us.”

For Trottenberg, learning how to advocate for herself was one piece of the puzzle, but there’s also important, systemic work to be done to further support and empower women. “Leadership for women now is even more transformational; [it’s about] looking to dramatically change the institutions you seek to lead. [Young women] could probably give me some advice, to tell you the truth.”

But ask Emily Gallo, who served as Trottenberg’s chief of staff at NYCDOT from 2014 to 2019, and you see the impact Trottenberg has had. “Polly showed me the best of what a leader can be — inspiring, direct, transparent, hardworking, and collaborative,” says Gallo. “She gives people autonomy in their jobs and trusts them to make good decisions.

When the decisions are hard, she brings in other minds to help with the work. She leads with compassion. Most importantly, she leads with a sense of humor. Working for a leader of her caliber was truly the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Still, Trottenberg’s humility may be what makes her such a powerful advocate in Washington for the people whose lives she aims to improve. One thing’s for certain: She won’t forget the New York City streets that started it all for her. Her favorite mode of transit? “My own two feet.” B 30

Meet nine other Barnard alumnae appointed to the Biden administration

Summer Lee Haunani Sylva ’97 Senior advisor for Native Hawaiian Affairs for the Department of the Interior

Aditi Somani ’18 Special assistant for Oval Office Operations at the White House

Elizabeth Moore Aubin ’87 Nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria

Ramona E. Romero ’85 Member of President’s Commission on White House Fellowships

Sharon Cromer ’80 Nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Gambia

Nancy Gertner ’67 Member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States

Jennifer Sokoler ’06 Associate White House counsel

Constance Hess Williams ’66 Nominee for member of the National Council on the Arts

Haeyoung Yoon ’90 Member of the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force

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How Olivia Watkins ’16 is planting the seed for a more equitable future for Black farmers and food entrepreneurs

PHOTO OF OLIVIA WATKINS ’16 BY JONATHAN KING

by Michele Lynn ’82 When Olivia Watkins ’16 returned from an undergrad semester in New Zealand and the Cook Islands, she brought back a research idea from that side of the globe. While abroad, she met one of the only Cook Islands farmers using organic agriculture practices. He told her he wanted to better prove the efficacy of his methods to his community. Watkins’ interest was piqued, and she offered to help him.

Back on Barnard’s campus, she proposed a project looking at how soil microbes in the Cook Islands were responding to a transition to more organic farming practices.

Watkins proceeded to find funding and procure permits, and she returned to the South Pacific in the summer before her senior year to collect 300 soil samples from cassava and taro patches there.

Krista McGuire, then a Barnard biology professor who was mentoring Watkins, was thrilled with the environmental biology major’s drive and enthusiasm.

“Olivia did all of the DNA sequencing and soil and nutritional analysis; her work was so impressive that it could have been a master’s thesis,” says McGuire. “It was the first study ever done in the Cook Islands on microbes, and it gives scientific foundational knowledge to the utility of using organic practice to regenerate the soil.” McGuire and Watkins are now submitting the paper for publication to academic journals, with Watkins as first author, a rarity for an undergrad.

She has also continued to innovate in the agricultural space: In 2019, Watkins combined her interest in the science of farming with her passion for food equity to help create Black Farmer Fund, which provides financial and technical assistance FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 33

Left: Black Farmer Fund visits Trinity Farm in Clintondale, New York, to harvest plums and nectarines. Right: Watkins working with livestock and vegetable farmers in Hudson Valley.

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FROM LAB TO FIELD Watkins was raised in Westchester, New York, where her mother served as executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of New Rochelle and her father was an orthopedic surgeon.

“I grew up seeing my mom commit herself to working specifically at the community level to make sure that kids had access to programs to support their educational activities,” she says. “[And] I saw my dad in the science space, helping people heal. I saw the positive impact that both my parents had on individuals and communities, and I have combined that.”

Watkins, who received early admission to Barnard, says that she was excited about being at a college where women comprised more than 70% of the leadership.

She first discovered the interdisciplinary approach she brings to Black Farmer Fund during college. Although her studies focused primarily on environmental issues, she enrolled in an Athena Center for Leadership class that she says helped her “see a problem, figure out a solution, and be able to articulate the solution in a way that could achieve tangible results.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BLACK FARMER FUND

for Black food systems entrepreneurs in New York State. Watkins serves as the organization’s president.

BFF has raised $1 million from foundations, individuals, and impact investors for its pilot funding round, which is currently being disbursed to eight Black-owned businesses and farmers.

“I was not surprised that she started something so impactful since she has such an innate drive and motivation to change the world,” says McGuire. “Olivia is an example of what other aspiring activists and scientists could be.”

McGuire is far from the only person impressed by Watkins — she was named to the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Impact list and The Grist 50, an annual list of emerging U.S. leaders working on solutions to the world’s biggest challenges.

Watkins also gained valuable insight through participating in Barnard’s Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP), designed to foster academic success for historically underrepresented students interested in STEM. “Livvie [Olivia] has always been someone who walked outside the lines but in a good way,” says former CSTEP advisor Elida Martinez-Gaynor. “She is intentional about getting the skills and knowledge she needs to work to effect change.”

To that end, Watkins decided to get her hands dirty after her 2016 graduation so that she could see in real time some of the things she had learned from textbooks.

“Farming seemed like the best place for me to do that as I continued to develop professionally and figure out how I wanted to make an impact,” she says.

Degree in hand, Watkins soon boarded a plane bound for Oahu, where she apprenticed for a year at Kahumana Organic Farms. She helped scale the farm from nine to 16 acres through tripling production output from $66,000 to $200,000 and implemented invoicing automation, creating a 75% increase in efficiency. A year later, she spent the summer as a farmer and irrigation manager at Soul Fire Farm, an upstate New York Afro-indigenous community farm committed to ending racism

“I am a scientist by training, but if I’m a part of a project that helps move money to traditionally marginalized people, that allows me to expand my impact more than working for one farm or one academic institution.” and injustice in the food system.

“In these experiences, I used my environmental biology background to manage and grow socially impactful business operations that were also environmentally regenerative,” she says.

But Watkins realized that she wanted her work to impact more people more directly, and that’s why BFF was born.

“We want to create systemic change that addresses climate, social, and governance solutions, and that takes a long time,” she says. “I am a scientist by training, but if I’m a part of a project that helps move money to traditionally marginalized people, that allows me to expand my impact more than working for one farm or one academic institution.” Earlier this year, Watkins received an MBA, with a concentration in finance and financial management, from North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management.

“Now that Black Farmer Fund has raised money for operations and for our fund, it is crucial for me to transition into a role where I can help manage the money in a way that is sustainable for the organization,” she says.

Watkins, who lives in both New York and North Carolina, chose North Carolina State because it brought her closer to her maternal grandmother’s land outside of Raleigh, which has been in the family for more than 130 years.

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There, Watkins tends a small shiitake mushroom farm, though the majority of her land stewardship role is managing the family’s 40 acres of forest for wildlife conservation, biodiversity conservation for timberland, and waterways protection of the land’s streams.

“While I didn’t have a relationship to this land growing up, I am now committed to conserving the land and putting my science degree to use,” she says. Her involvement with her family farm helps her maintain a connection to her maternal Southern heritage and participate in land stewardship.

COMPLEX PROBLEMS, COMPLEX SOLUTIONS Back in New York, her work with BFF is addressing the systemic and historical discrimination around lending and banking that has led to racial disparities in the current agricultural system.

In 1920, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recorded 925,708 Black farm operators — 14% of all U.S. farmers — who owned 15.6 million acres of land. By the end of the 20th century, just 18,000 Black farmers remained, with ownership of 2 million acres. In 1999, Black farmers won a major civil rights settlement against the

“Olivia and Black Farmer Fund are rewriting the underwriting rules and creating something that is radical, because it’s giving sovereignty and ownership to the people doing the work.”

USDA after arguing that the loans and subsidies they received historically were substantially lower than those for comparable white farmers. That settlement and subsequent payouts helped but didn’t come close to eliminating the long-standing inequity. There was still an alarming lack of financial support for Black farmers.

That’s what spurred Watkins and BFF board chair and co-founder Karen Washington, a Black farmer and advocate, to action. The two women, who first met at a farmers conference, began brainstorming. “There was nothing at the time that was focusing on supporting Black farmers with financing options,” Watkins says.

Washington invited Onika Abraham, from Farm School NYC, and Dennis Derryck, from Corbin Hill Food Project, to join the board. Together, the team assessed the landscape and analyzed legal research to determine the gaps in financing for BIPOC farmers, especially Black farmers. They determined how BFF could best serve the community, which traditional banks and lending institutions have shied away from.

Watkins says that she knew early on that she would go further in her work if she collaborated with those with more experience in the field. “The network of my board members — who are elders in the spaces of philanthropy, social enterprise, and impact investment — is critical,” she says.

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Derryck agrees but adds that Watkins herself brings valuable insight to the table.

“Access to capital and land is one of the big structural and institutional barriers faced by Black farmers,” says Derryck. “So Olivia and Black Farmer Fund are rewriting the underwriting rules and creating something that is radical, because it’s giving sovereignty and ownership to the people doing the work.

“Bankers use ratios to make decisions and don’t have relationships with folks, as we do,” he continues. “Ordinary folks who are closest to the problems and the issues are structuring the terms so that folks receiving the investments can succeed.”

Watkins is putting her MBA to good use.

Watkins and BFF program director Melanie Allen taking a break from digging trenches to support water flow at Farm Fresh Caribbean in New York.

“We offer integrative capital, which is the recognition that when you’re trying to solve complex problems, you need complex solutions,” she says. “By offering different kinds of capital, we create more flexibility and resilience.” She says that the loan and grant offered by BFF are the start of a long relationship between the nonprofit and its borrowers, which will include a wide variety of enterprises involved in food systems, from farmers and herbal medicine apothecaries to valueadded businesses.

“All of our borrowers receive business coaching and additional support. Whether they need bookkeepers or help in operationalizing the financing, we help them access the services they need,” Watkins says.

“Our organization has chosen to focus on feeding communities of color, providing jobs for communities of color, and allowing investors to contribute to social change,” Watkins adds. “I want to help create a thriving and resilient food system and use impact investment to redistribute wealth and money into communities and organizations that are working for changes in our nation and our world.” B FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 37

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Sketchbook: Sheila Levrant de Bretteville ’62

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SHEILA LEVRANT DE BRETTEVILLE

A Q&A with the trailblazing graphic designer, feminist, and “Design Legend”

Opposite page, top: At the Start … At Long Last (1999), a public artwork by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville that appears in the 207th Street station, the last stop on the A train, the longest New York City subway line.

Bottom: Levrant de Bretteville in a concrete factory in Yekaterinburg, Russia, working on Step(pe) (2005), a new entrance for the Old Water Tower.

Artist, educator, activist, feminist: For over five decades, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville ’62 has profoundly influenced the world of graphic design through both her practice and teaching. The Brooklyn native’s groundbreaking work has reshaped public spaces by integrating a diverse set of voices that are all too often left out of the cultural conversation.

Levrant de Bretteville graduated from Barnard in 1962 and went on to receive her M.F.A. from Yale University in 1964. In 1971, she created the first Women’s Design program at the California Institute of the Arts. Two years later, she co-founded the Women’s Building — a hub for women designers and artists to gather, work, and learn.

Her design work includes The Motown Album, a 1981 redesign of the Los Angeles Times, and special issues of the Aspen Times, Everywoman, American Cinematographer, and Arts in Society. Her posters and fine press editions are in the special collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Her site-specific public artwork includes Omoide no Shotokyo in Los Angeles; Search: Literature in Flushing, New York; Path of Stars and Hillhouse in New Haven, Connecticut; and Step(pe) in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Levrant de Bretteville found her way back to Yale in 1990 when she took the reins as the director of graduate studies in graphic design at the Yale School of Art, a position she still holds, and became its first tenured female professor. Throughout it all, she has helped mentor other designers, encouraging them to thread innovation and self-exploration throughout their work.

The American Institute of Graphic Arts designated her a “Design Legend” in 2006.

Where do you draw inspiration from?

From almost everyone, everything, and every place.

And I follow the advice I give my students, to “pay attention…. It connects you with others,” a quote from Susan Sontag. I have tried to support and make public the voiced needs and lived experience of people in the

neighborhoods wherever my work has been installed, and even before when I only worked in print with a participatory newspaper for the 1972 International Design Conference in Aspen. I totally enjoy, as Sarah Oppenheimer wrote, “scrambling the hierarchy” of the “powerful and powerless, by creating a radical sense of place and subjectivity.”

Which classes at Barnard most informed your work?

That is a harder question than it appears. I spent three hours a day on the subway to Barnard and back to Brighton Beach for the first three years, which competed with my classes in terms of impressions, as did my father dying during my first semester.

Strangely, I remember most a class by Meyer Schapiro at Columbia vividly, as it was about the view from inside of moving trains, as well as a young teacher of literature — who crossed her feet under the table — and read to everyone in the class my written response comparing Coriolanus to Heathcliff, as evidently I was the only person to write and not favor Heathcliff! And I remember a young male faculty member who said, “You should eat more spaghetti” to me in front of a group of my peers in a hallway while referring to how skinny I was then.

What is your creative process like?

I tend to focus on the people who are left out in each group, as that both disrupts and engages the public sphere — and as a feminist, I am inclusive — as well as displacing hegemony and engaging social experience.

How would you describe your style or aesthetic (in 3-5 adjectives)?

Inclusive, reorienting, questioning.

Do you have a favorite project or piece, and why?

Oh dear, I have two … hmmm. My first public permanent work, Biddy Mason: Time and Place, and the one at 207th Street, the installation At the Start ...

At Long Last in New York City. Both my friend Betye Saar [an artist renowned for her assemblages], who lives across the street from our home in L.A., and I did projects about [19th-century landowner and philanthropist] Biddy Mason at the same time for a new building in downtown L.A. I created a long, Continued on page 42 FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 39

This page, top left: Everywoman Newspaper (1970), a special issue of the feminist newspaper. Top right: Biddy Mason: Time and Place (1989), a long concrete block wall that tells the life story of Biddy Mason, a 19th-century African American philanthropist, nurse, and real estate entrepreneur who was born enslaved. Bottom: A concrete panel from Biddy Mason displaying Biddy’s midwife bag and contents.

Opposite page, clockwise from top left: taste and style just aren’t enough (1970), a 3D poster for the California Institute of the Arts; a Women in Design conference poster (1974); the part of At the Start … At Long Last that commuters see upon arrival at the last stop on the A train line.

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FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 41

cast concrete wall in which I had placed objects that signified important moments in her life. Although born into slavery in Georgia, Mason was a midwife who obtained her freedom. Everyone, including blind people, can touch and read the images and texts on the 10-foot-long wall. And At the Start... At Long Last uses terrazzo in the entrance floor and mirror and silver tessera on the station’s walls [in the mezzanine, near the south entrance] to say “At the start...” and “At long last…” and are followed by 207 quotes from people of all origins living in the Inwood neighborhood.

What do you listen to while at work in your studio?

Mostly jazz music or silence, which is rare for a person who grew up in a household full of recent immigrants.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Pink cotton candy.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Not bothering to worry about anything and anyone.

What is your favorite place to see art?

Inside people’s homes, and also in museums and galleries.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Being 80 and as healthy as I ever have been. B 42

Top three photos: Hillhouse High School Academic Entrance Lobby (2003), a kente-clothlike frieze containing gold ceramic tiles with quotes from graduates of the high school over the decades.

Bottom: Grand Central Market (1983), a construction fence wrap surrounding a supermarket renovation in downtown Los Angeles.

Noteworthy Connecting alumnae. Celebrating community.

Ruth L. Schwartz ’61, Heritage (Cherry) M. White ’59, Susan Rennie ’61, Phyllis J. Hurwitz ’61, and Ellen J. Willis ’62 welcomed back outside Brooks Hall, on March 16, 1959, after defeating Notre Dame in the televised competition College Bowl on CBS. (In September 2021, the Columbia University team became champions of the recently revived quiz show on NBC.) PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BARNARD COLLEGE ARCHIVES

44 Q&Author 46 Passion Project 48 The Blue & Bold Society 50 AABC President’s Letter 51 Class Notes 54 AABC Pages 62 Alumna Profile: Cynthia Groomes Katz ’86 65 Virtual Roundup 69 Alumna Profile: Daniella Kahane ’05 83 In Memoriam 84 Parenting 86 Last Word 88 Crossword FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 43

Q & Author

A Word With Jen Spyra ’03

With an already formidable comedy career under her belt, the humorist turns her attention from the screen to the page with her debut collection of short stories

by Isabella Pechaty ’23

What made you want to write fiction?

I love the freedom you get in fiction. There’s no leash, and that’s exhilarating. I’ve found it to be totally addictive. It scrambled my DNA. When I was writing for The Onion or The Late Show, I was writing for an established editorial voice, and the job was to tweak my sensibility to serve those comedic brands. And I really enjoyed it, because I was already a big fan of Stephen’s and The Onion before I joined those writing staffs. But I always enjoyed writing fiction on the side because it was intoxicating to work outside the editorial parameters of a show or a publication.

I write about areas that I’m obsessed with, like influencer and celebrity culture, Old Hollywood, what it means to be a woman in today’s world. There’s a lot of feminist revisionist fantasizing in these stories. That’s really fun. And then I also write about emotions that feel urgent to me at the time. One of the stories I wrote as I was preparing for my wedding is called “Bridal Body,” and it’s about a woman who puts herself through hell to get ready for her wedding. That came from a personal place.

You wrote for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert for several seasons. How did that experience inform your writing process for the book?

It got me into the habit of producing volume. The show is a hungry animal, and it needs to be fed — whether or not that day’s headlines inspire you. So accustoming myself to producing lots of material, and then being okay when most of it gets thrown away, was huge.

Then there was the exciting daily exercise of pitching jokes specifically to 44

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JEN SPYRA

Jen Spyra ’03 has already established herself as a culture-conscious, wisecracking voice in the entertainment world. The comedian held senior writing positions at The Onion and then at The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, where finding the funny in an otherwise tumultuous news cycle was her everyday task. As if this wasn’t challenging enough, Spyra, an English grad with an MFA in playwriting and screenwriting, has now begun her literary career with Big Time, a collection of humorous short stories that inject a dose of the bizarre into familiar tropes and storylines.

Stephen and trying to write stuff that he’d really enjoy. I was a massive fan of his, I love his sensibility, and so stretching yourself to write for it was a joy — and because he’s got great, sharp, distinctive taste, it puts you in the habit of writing to hit that high mark.

How do real-life observations make their way onto the page?

You want your writing to go down easy, you want it to be absorbed effortlessly — and the reader will bump against details that feel untrue. So making sure to weave in prosaic, unremarkable real-life details can help add a sense of believability to a premise that, in other moments, asks the reader to suspend disbelief.

Why is it important to lend comedy and satire to our current lives?

It would probably make more sense to spend time building some kind of habitable raft-village. But comedy does help with survival. Joan Rivers — fellow Barnard alum! — used to say, “When you make someone laugh, you give them a little vacation.” I love that quote. It’s so true. I know it feels that way when someone does it for me.

How did your background in English at Barnard help you with your writing today?

Jennie Kassanoff, a professor in the English Department, was a huge inspiration.

She’s brilliant and passionate about her work, and she brought a discipline to it that I really admired. I just wanted to be as smart and cool as she was. Take any class she’s doing!

What books have inspired your writing?

I’m just going to rattle off some names and titles: Miranda July’s debut novel, The First Bad Man; Jean Kerr’s Please Don’t Eat the Daisies; Jack Handy’s oeuvre — all his collections, but his novel The Stench of Honolulu is particularly awesome; David Sedaris’ early fiction and any of his memoir essays; Adam Resnick’s amazing memoir Will Not Attend; P.G. Wodehouse — I’d highlight Carry on Jeeves and Quick Service; Roald Dahl’s fiction for adults — The Visitor is my favorite of his short stories; the short stories of Leonora Carrington; everything Simon Rich does; Jon Stewart’s collection Naked Pictures of Famous People; and this amazing memoir, I Await the Devil’s Coming, by Mary MacLane — it’s very funny, although it’s not going for straight humor.

Do you have any tips for aspiring comedy writers?

I’d suggest steeping yourself in the work of writers you admire. Reading and watching stuff that inspires me is always so helpful. And when you encounter work you love, study it. And then just force yourself to get pages out. [This American Life host] Ira Glass has this great quote about the gulf between your taste and your ability being so huge when you’re first starting out — and how that’s devastating. But don’t worry, you don’t have to be fully formed right out of the gate — no one is! B FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 45

Passion Project

Piecing It Together Kaylin Marcotte ’12, the founder of Jiggy Puzzles, strikes a “Shark Tank” deal with her frame-worthy jigsaw puzzles designed by women artists

When Shark Tank viewers this past April watched New Yorker Kaylin Marcotte ’12 pitch her missiondriven Jiggy Puzzles business, mega-entrepreneur Mark Cuban not only made an offer of $500,000, he also agreed to match her 2021 fundraising efforts of $50,000.

Securing that kind of national exposure and funding, just 16 months after launching the business, is a testament to Marcotte’s tenacity and vision as an entrepreneur committed to empowering female artists. One of the defining features of Jiggy is its business model: Marcotte specifically commissions only women artists to illustrate the brand’s puzzles and then produces them with an all-women staff.

In addition, most of Jiggy’s interns are Barnard students.

The first few pieces of the Jiggy Puzzles idea came to Marcotte when she was still a student at Barnard, studying political science and psychology. There, she participated in Athena Center for Leadership programming, which provided her with “leadership skills of the real world,” she says. “And that really helped me develop just how to take a project from zero to one, and how to really create something and get it off the ground.”

In 2014, when she was the marketing director at theSkimm, a media company providing a subscription-only newsletter, she began assembling 1,000-piece puzzles weekly. “I was looking for a way to unwind and to get away from screens, and so I rediscovered them and started doing them every night as my form of stress relief,” she recalls.

The more she delved into the world of puzzles, the more she found herself imagining how she might design one: “I just started thinking, ‘What would my dream puzzle look like? What would it be like? What would the art be? What would the packaging and the branding be?’” Five years later, Marcotte has turned this pastime into a professional endeavor, becoming a full-time curator of puzzles that can double as decorative art.

The idea to focus on emerging female artists stemmed from her own personal experience. With a mom who works in arts education and Barnard friends who later struggled to earn a living as visual artists, Marcotte had a front-row seat to the many challenges that women artists face — from selling their work to receiving 46

credit for it. When family friends with whom she was visiting a museum one day couldn’t name five female artists, Marcotte realized she could address some issues by launching a career that both educated the public and shared profits directly with artists.

After frequenting art shows and scouring the internet to find women illustrators, Marcotte soon made her vision a reality.

“My experience at Barnard has definitely shaped how I built my team and structured Jiggy with our artists,” says Marcotte.

Since its launch, Jiggy has produced artful puzzles that speak to self-care, girls who reach for the stars, and more. This June, the company produced a puzzle set to commemorate Pride Month. And there are more designs coming down the pipeline.

“I want to work with so many more artists and really continue surprising and delighting our customers with new puzzles and new designs,” she says. “And then for myself, this is probably my first but not my last company.” B

PHOTOS COURTESY OF KAYLIN MARCOTTE

by N. Jamiyla Chisholm

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 47

Thank You, Fiscal Year 2021 Blue & Bold Society Donors The 2020-21 academic year was extraordinary and challenging for the Barnard community in so many ways.

Through it all, Blue & Bold Society donors — alumnae, parents, faculty, staff, and friends of Barnard who make leadership-level gifts of $2,500** or more to the Barnard Annual Fund — continued to show their dedication to our amazing students and to the education of women leaders. In fiscal year 2021, Blue & Bold Society donors accounted for 73% of all Barnard Annual Fund dollars raised, and they set an inspiring example for the rest of the community.

Thank you for your generosity and steadfast commitment to Barnard.

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Chapnick ’61, P’93* • Deepa Chatterjee ’98* • Yolanda Chavez ’86* • Augustus Cheh • Dr. Li Chen & Dr. Zhihang Chi P’22 • Teresa Chen & Dr. Jone Chen P’17, P’20 • Rosita Cheung ’74 • Wanda Chin ’77* • Camay K. Chiu, MD, ’96* • Elaine Chiu & Clifford How P’20 • Aelisa Kim Cipriani ’94* • Toni C. Coffee ’56* • Harriet Newman Cohen, Esq., ’52, P’76* • Alison Coit & Rennie Coit P’23 • Valerie C. Colas-Ohrstrom ’94 • Wanda T. Cole-Frieman ’94* • Dr. Jane D. Coleman ’64* • Patricia Collins & Michael Cohen P’22 • Kimberly K. Conner ’84* • Georgianna Jean Contiguglia ’64* • Claire M. Corcoran ’92, P’24 • Stephanie L. Corrigan & Erik J. Corrigan P’23 • Dr. Marylu A. Coviello ’70* • Jennifer R. Cowan ’91* • Claire Coward-Wilkes ’89* • Elizabeth Githens Coyle ’97 • Amy M. Crate ’94, P’24* • Nancy B. Crate P’24 • Chris Creatura, MD, ’82 • Elissa F. Cullman ’68* • Purva Cullman ’98* • Dr. Maryly L. Culpepper P’21 • Jennifer Cunnane & Jim Cunnane P’24 • Thalassa A. Curtis ’92* • Elizabeth A. Cuthrell & Steven M. Tuttleman P’20 • Amrita D. Dalal ’90 • Norma Damashek ’60* • Eddie M. Daniel Abdulhaqq ’74* • Dr. Barbara S. Davis ’65* • Daniella Greenbaum Davis ’17* • Elizabeth A. Davis ’89* • Jennifer L. Davis ’91* • Lisa Phillips Davis ’76, P’07* • Kathleen Dawson & Carl Dawson P’21 • Mary Elizabeth C. Dawson ’21 • Hilary C. DaytonBusch ’89, P’25, P’25* • Chaya S. Deitsch ’86* • Connie Dempster & Mark Dempster P’23 • Jessica L. Desjardins ’10 • Susan M. DeTray ’96 • Nicole E. Deutsch ’92 • Dena A. Domenicali ’72* • Melissa B. Dormer ’93* • Ina R. Drew & Dr. Howard J. Drew P’13 • Allegra S. Driscoll ’01* • Renee L. Ducnuigeen & Marc L. Ducnuigeen P’21 • Carol N. Dupkin ’47* • Melinda F. Duryea & Alexander Y. Draper P’21 • Karen M. Edwards ’85 • Mary C. Egan ’89 • Dr. Katarina Eisinger ’85, P’23* • Barbara I. Ellis ’64* • Margaret Holben Ellis ’75* • Sylvia Elman ’61 • Anthony Enders ’61* • Annette Enekes & Daniel Enekes P’25 • Jo Ann Engelhardt, JD, ’75* • Bonita Erbstein & Howard Erbstein P’23 • Suzanne Everard & James A. Everard P’23 • Erika V. Fanelle & Carmine D. Fanelle P’23 • Anne Fass & David V. Fass P’19 • Myrna F. Fawcett ’70* • Arthur A. Feder • Marjorie Feder ’53* • Jan C. Feldman & Dr. Gerald M. Feldman P’14 • Dr. Shirley C. Feldmann ’51* • Dr. Joy Y. Feng & Eric X. Zhang P’23 • Professor Joan M. Ferrante ’58* • Marie F. Field ’58* • Dr. Rose S. Fife ’71, P’01* • Anne S. Fifer & Eric G. Fifer P’23 • Janet B. Finke ’56* • Debra Paris Finkel ’84 • Carol Turobiner Finley ’83 • Deborah Fins ’75* • Stephanie Fins ’72* • Anna R. Fisch ’86* • Dr. Felice Fischer ’64* • Cynthia P. Fisher & Charles W. Fisher P’20 • Ruth N. Fitting ’51 • Karen G. Fittinghoff & Kevin A. Fittinghoff P’23 • Isa L. Flaherty ’04 • Viola Fong ’86, P’22, P’24* • Amy R. Forbes & Andrew D. Murr P’22 • Rebecca Forrester & Robert Forrester P’21 • Mary Beth Forshaw, Esq., ’84* • Kathleen A. Foster ’61* • Dr. Tamar Frank ’70, P’05* • Elizabeth Kopans Frantz ’68* • Iris C. Freeman ’66* • Dr. Joan Sherman Freilich ’63* • Nancy Lerner Frej ’76, P’15* • Cecilia Freund & Gregor Freund P’20 • Margaret Friedberg ’85* • Lisa Friedlander ’58* • Dr. Michelle Friedman ’74, P’12, P’15* • Linle Froeb & James Froeb P’24 • Ellen V. Futter ’71 • Eva Gans ’62 & Leo Gans* • Diana T. Garcia & Ricardo Garcia P’12 • Nancy A. Garvey ’71 • Helene D. Gayle, MD, ’76* • Alexis Gelber ’74* • Ann I. Gerondelis & John S. Gerondelis P’22 • Risa Loebenberg Gewurz ’93, P’22, P’24* • Dr. Roshanak Ghazinouri & Christopher C. Cooper P’23 • Jane Gilbert ’87 • Jane Gilbert ’67* • Louisa Gilbert ’83 • Dr. Gayle Friedland Glik ’92* • Jennifer R. Goichman & Lawrence Goichman P’96 • Carol S. Gold ’55* • Jo Goldman ’73* • Dr. Susan R. Goldman ’70* • Dr. Sylvie Goldman & Dr. Serge E. Przedborski P’14, P’17 • Emily A. Goldner & Michael J. Humphries P’24 • Dr. Lynn Goldowski & Sam M. Schwartz P’18, P’21 • Nora Fox Goldschlager, MD, ’61* • Caryl Goldsmith ’48* • Toby Golick ’66* • Marcia Z. Gordon, Esq., ’77* • Stephanie Drescher Gorman ’95* • Joan Gorrell ’57* • Ellen T. Graff ’76* • Erika M. Grayson & Blake J. Grayson P’24 • Deborah A. Green ’74* • Patricia F. Green ’62* • Cheryl S. Greene ’66* • Jieh Greeney ’03* • Sarah H. Griffin & James C. Griffin P’21 • Ellen R. Gritz, PhD, ’64* • Ann Carol Grossman & Geoffrey H. Arnold P’13 • Sharon B. Gurwitz ’68* • Joan Beck Hacken-Bitar, MD, ’64* • Mirja C. Spooner Haffner ’96 • Tracy P. Hall & Gavin A. Hall P’24 • Carrie G. Halpert & Avi M. Halpert P’23 • Ann-Marie A. Halsted ’89 • Frances W. Hamermesh ’65* • Fang Han & Ming Zhang P’23 • Rayna N. Hannaway ’96 • Gordana D. Harris ’82, P’15* • Maggie Harty & Ronan Harty P’21 • Mary Jane R. Hawes ’92* • Jordan Hawley & Claire Best • Lisa Abelow Hedley ’82, P’19 • Janet W. Helman ’56 • Lorraine Paola-Herger ’74* • Judith Hershaft-Adler ’62* • Ruth Heuman ’66* • Jane C. Hochman ’64, P’98* • Camille Hodgson ’63 • Laura J. Hom ’94, P’23* • Eunice E. Hong ’96* • Ruth E. Horowitz ’83* • Evelyn Hou ’96 • Lauren Oldak Howard ’67* • Evelyn L. Hu ’69 • Min Hu & Danfeng Li P’23 • Jeanne Schmidt Huber ’53* • Seana E. Hurren & Christopher S. Hurren P’24 • Aimee Imundo ’85* • Harriet K. Inselbuch ’62, P’92* • Lois A. Jackson, DDS, ’73* • Claudia A. Jacobs & Eric J. Jacobs P’21 • Lois Moonitz Jacobs ’79 • Dr. Tikva D. Jacobs ’94, P’24* • Roni A. Jacobson ’93* • Amy D. Jaffe ’71* • Randi Jill Jaffe ’74* • Elaine Jaharis & Steven M. Jaharis, MD P’19 • Chau Janowski & Steve Janowski P’23 • Jane Jelenko ’70* • Lisa J. Jerles ’01* • Sharon D. Johe ’61* • Nancy Platt Jones ’71* • Judith Schwack Joseph ’56* • Nadine F. Joseph ’71, P’01 • Barbara G. Judd ’50* • Linda P. Kahn ’71* • Rachelle Levin Kaiserman ’73 • Dr. Marcia F. Kalin & Dr. Stephen G. Rayport P’15, P’21 • Bina Kalola ’91 • Carole K. Kantor ’62* • Barbara 48

Benson Kaplan ’65* • Julia Nidetz Karcher ’86* • Adela B. Karliner ’59* • Camille Kiely Kelleher ’70* • Regina Dessoff Kessler ’76* • Lina M. Khouja-Kodmani ’94 • Marianne B. Kilby ’57* • Vajra A. Kilgour ’71* • Maureen Killackey, MD, ’74* • Lena H. Kim, MD, ’95 • Barbara Klarman ’59* • Dr. Emily M. Klein ’78* • Eve Klein & Robert O. Owens P’22 • Dr. Orly Klein ’04* • Karlie Kloss & Joshua Kushner • Roberta G. Koenigsberg ’79* • Alexandra Koeppel ’86, P’25* • Prof. Naomi Koltun-Fromm ’86* • Ronak K. Kordestani ’96 • Karen R. Korn ’84* • Carol Stock Kranowitz ’67* • Sonia J. Krishna & Dr. Arvind Krishna P’23 • Ellen B. Kulka ’60* • Josephine Y. Kuo, MD, ’88* • Ka Yan Lam ’19* • Stephanie E. Lambidakis & John H. LeSeur P’22 • Judi Lamble ’81, P’19* • Carol M. Lane ’60, P’90, P’97* • Marjorie Lange ’50* • Melissa A. Lasker ’10 • Dana Lau ’94* • Jane Price Laudon ’67 • Ariel Leachman ’19 • Linda R. Lebensold ’65* • Dr. Cheryl B. Leggon ’70* • Brenda Lehman ’63 • Margaret Rood Lenzner ’68* • Taryn P. Leonard ’96* • Cynthia C. Leung ’94 • Phyllis D. Levinberg ’73* • Jacquelyn R. Levine & Jeremy P. Levine P’24 • Martha Levine & Howard Sedran P’16 • Rachel A. Levine ’92 • Linda Fayne Levinson ’62 • Judith T. Levitan ’76* • Brett C. Levy ’89* • Serena K. Levy ’91, P’21 • Marina C. Lewin ’80 • Marion Ein Lewin ’60 • Cathryn B. Lewis ’95 • Mingzhi Li P’24 • Susan M. Licht ’65, P’97* • Rebecca J. Lieberman ’16* • Tracey J. Lieberman & David M. Lieberman P’09 • Terri Ambron Liftin ’90* • Lisa G. Liman ’83, P’22* • Mia I. Lindheimer ’19* • Naomi Loeb Lipman ’51, P’80 • Lady Mimi Lloyd Adamson ’55* • Roberta Lobel • Professor Helen E. Longino ’66* • Martha D. Lopez & Dr. Fernando Lopez P’22 • Rachel Lowe ’16* • Susan B. Lustig ’61* • Gail R. Lyon & Dr. Bernard L. Markowitz P’22, P’24 • Jianping Ma & Hangbiao Chen P’23 • Janet MacFarlane ’60* • Kathleen S. Madden ’92* • Meredith R. Maierson ’93* • Dr. Marian Gulton Malcolm ’50 • Susannah J. Malen ’99 • Patricia Mallon ’63 • Mary Beth Maloney ’98* • Beth Madeline Mann, Esq., ’80* • Florence F. Mann ’55* • Barbara A. Manning & Douglas W. Greene P’25 • Lisa Manning & Michael J. Trach P’20 • Dr. Giovanna Marazzi & Dr. David A. Sassoon P’22 • Marion T. Marchal ’55* • Ann B. Marmor-Squires ’70* • Dr. Nancy Maruyama ’79* • Eileen R. Matschke & Albert R. Matschke P’23 • Lauren Matthiesen & Andy Matthiesen P’23 • Eva Mayer ’67* • Marilyn Cohen Mazur ’64 • Genine R. McCormick & Michael P. McCormick P’24 • Joan H. McCulloch ’50 • Professor Dusa McDuff • Dr. Rita Gunther McGrath ’81, P’12* • Jane C. McGroarty ’65, P’06* • Dr. Jane Lipsky McIntyre ’68* • Elizabeth M. McNally, MD, ’83* • Dr. Judith Medoff ’60* • Professor Synthia H. Mellon & Professor Walter L. Miller P’07 • Karen Hansen Melnick ’74* • Stephanie L. Mendelsohn & David S. Mendelsohn P’22 • Saroj Menon & Sreedhar Menon P’01 • Daisy Breuer Merey, MD, ’64, P’91* • Beth Steinberg Mermelstein ’76* • Niamh Mesch & William G. Mesch P’23 • Linyu Miao ’24 • Linda Michaelson & David Michaelson P’24 • Lori Miller ’83* • Hollis M. Mills ’18 • Cheryl Milstein ’82, P’14 • Grace A. Milstein ’17* • Susan Weis Mindel ’66* • Marcia Mishaan & Richard Mishaan P’20 • Wendy Kreinen Modlin ’95* • Sylvia M. Montero ’72* • Irma S. Moore ’50* • Leslie Morioka, Esq., ’68 • Mary E. Morouse & James M. Morouse P’23 • Susan F. Morris ’61* • Mary G. Morton & Keith B. Forman P’23 • Anna D. Moskowitz & Paul T. Moskowitz P’20 • Bernice R. Moskowitz ’56 • Elizabeth Mumford & Joseph Gitchell P’23 • Mara W. Murphy & Kevin G. Murphy, Jr. P’21 • Leslie MurphyChutorian ’75* • Jacqueline Muss ’86 • Jessica H. Muss ’98, P’24* • Dee Dee J. Myers & Todd S. Purdum P’22 • Dounia Nadar & Sherif Nadar P’21, P’23 • Marie E. Napoli & Paul J. Napoli P’22 • Rachel G. Narvaez ’03 • Tracy Teicher Nathanson ’85* • Dr. Leena H. Nayak & Dr. Hemal M. Nayak P’23 • Ruth E. Nemzoff, EdD, ’62, P’06* • Lizbeth Neumark ’77* • Tamar Newberger ’85 • Diana H. Newman ’92* • Grace C. Nickel ’19* • Maria Pignataro Nielsen ’82* • Linda G. Niven ’69* • Phoebe E. Nobles ’98* • Professor Deborah Epstein Nord ’71* • Dahlia K. Nordlicht ’93, P’20* • Joyce D. Nordquist • Gail Holler Novetsky ’84, P’15* • Murrill I. Oakes ’13* • Susan Ochshorn ’75* • Mary Ellen O’Connor ’68* • Ellen S. Offner ’61 • Emily Fowler Omura, MD, ’60, P’86* • Josephine O’Neil ’17* • Dr. Lida Orzeck ’68* • Professor Jessie A. Owens ’71* • Susan Page ’63* • Christine C. Palmieri-Bumgarner ’90 • Rev. Dr. Grace H. Park & Dr. Charles J. Park P’19, P’23 • Palak S. Pathak ’00* • Ying L. Peng & Jing S. Yue P’24 • Joy Felsher Perla ’62, P’88 • Thuy Pham Thi Thanh P’21 • Daphne F. Philipson ’69* • Dr. Lisa A. Piazza ’85* • Doralynn S. Pines ’69, P’11* • Jeanine D. Plottel, PhD, ’54* • Tara E. Polen ’89* • Nancy T. Polevoy ’66* • Elisa B. Pollack ’88* • Philippa Feldman Portnoy ’86* • Jessica E. Pouleur ’03 • Jacqueline J. Powers ’92* • Dr. Charlotte Carroll Prather ’69* • Rosalind Pretzfelder ’63* • Carol Prins ’62, P’89 • Soula Priovolos, MD, ’82* • Marina Rabinovich, Esq., ’82* • Judith B. Rabinowitz ’65* • Doreen M. Rachal P’24 • Theresa Racht, Esq., ’77 • Ruth E. Raisman ’86* • Eva Y. Rapp ’94* • Susan Scheman Ratner ’86 • Dr. Saritha Reddy & Naveen Kotam P’24 • Jessica M. Reich ’18* • Dr. Laura Reichel ’82, P’20* • Dr. Alise S. Reicin ’82* • Cynthia Reinhart Richards ’73* • Russell A. Richardson P’22 • Dara P. Richardson-Heron, MD, ’85* • Heidi G.C. Rieger ’79, P’14* • Nancy O. Rieger ’83* • Professor Elizabeth G. Riley ’72 • Gayle F. Robinson ’75* • The Robinson Family Foundation • Catherine Rocco & Kieran Goodwin P’23 • Kathy H. Rocklen, Esq., ’73* • Joy Montgomery Rocklin ’71* • Debora M. Rodriguez & Stergios Theologides P’24 • Barrie S. Roman P’20 • Dr. Susan Romer ’64, P’87* • Ramona E. Romero, Esq., ’85* • Karen Rosa ’71 • Dena Warshaw Rose ’52* • Alexandra Luchow Rosenberg ’94 • Merri Rosenberg ’78* • Andrea M. Rosenthal ’64* • Wendy Jill Rosov ’86* • Professor Claudia Ross ’70* • Karen S. Rubinson, PhD, ’64 • Susan A. Rudolph ’65, P’91* • Gwen W. Rukeyser & Peter L. Rukeyser P’24 • Dr. Adrienne A. Rulnick ’67* • Laura B. Sachar ’84* • Ann W. Sacher, MD, ’85* • Elka T. Sachs ’88* • Frances Sadler ’72* • Tania Saffari ’19* • Dr. Padmaja Sai & Rajesh K. Sai P’22 • Rosemarie Salerni, MD, ’64* • Michelle Saltz & Ronald Saltz P’24 • Rana Sampson ’79* • Catherine C. Samuels ’69* • Zoe A. Sanders & Howard C. Sanders P’21, P’21 • Gretchen Iverson Sandler & James S. Sandler P’23 • Andrea N. Sankari ’00 • Dr. Namita Sarawagi & Sajin R. Valoth P’19 • Dr. Shilpa P. Saxena & Jayant Saxena P’23 • Julie A. Scelfo ’96* • Carol H. Scharff ’55* • Kerri S. Scharlin ’81* • The Honorable Sara H. Schechter ’65* • Anthony E. Scherer ’94* • Miranda S. Schiller, Esq., ’80* • Dina L. Schorr ’03* • Alice D. Schreyer ’68* • Kimberly S. Schroeder & Timothy C. Schroeder P’16 • Dr. Judith Schwartz ’78* • Patricia B. Schwartz, Ed.D ’62* • Helen S. Scott ’70* • Elizabeth Sedran ’16 • Jasmeet K. Seehra & Ankur J. Goel P’22 • Julia B. Segal ’84 • Marcia L. Sells ’81, P’23* • Beth E. Shalev ’96* • Penny A. Shane, Esq., ’85* • Edith T. Shapiro, MD, ’56* • Judith Basch Shapiro ’59, P’83, P’93* • Nina O. Shenker ’78 • Cynthia A. Sherman, MD, ’75 • Pauline P. Sherman, Esq., ’64* • Terry Shu ’73* • Carol K. Silberstein, Esq., ’69* • Rickie Singer Peaslee ’73, P’15* • Sally H. Sloan & Thomas G. Hentoff P’23 • Benjamin T. Sloss P’23 • Betty Booth Smith ’45* • Dian Goldston Smith ’68* • Dr. Judith Terry Smith ’62* • Linda M. Smith ’63 • Marjorie G. Smith ’54* • Dr. Steven L. Solnick & Maeve N. O’Connor • Jayne K. Sosland ’87, P’24* • Dr. C. J. Spencer & Randal W. Spencer P’09 • Sally Sperber ’85* • Karla Spurlock-Evans ’71* • Nancy B. Staples & David M. Staples P’23 • Christina Steck, Esq., ’80 • Jane W. Stein, Esq., ’68, P’98* • Sally Ann Stein ’72* • Ruth Steinberg, MD, ’72* • Betsy Stephens ’59* • Nancy C. Stewart ’59* • Rene Yang Stewart ’04* • Meg K. Storey ’81, P’17* • Wendy Story & Richard C. Story P’22 • Joyce G. Straus ’80* • Jamienne S. Studley ’72* • Randi A. Sultan ’98* • Dr. Nancy Sun ’85 • Nina Sun & Dr. Zhe Sun • Nicole C. Sundell ’15* • Linda Sweet ’63* • Judith R. Tager ’55 • Morvarid Taheripour ’92* • Renee R. Taketomo ’71, P’13* • Dr. Yuhong Tang & Dr. Yongbin Wei P’22 • Sohni M. Tanna & Dipak K. Tanna P’23 • Benay Taub & Steven Taub P’20 • Janet Carlson Taylor ’67* • Kimberly P. Taylor & James E. Taylor, Jr. P’24 • Mary Beth Terry & Christopher M. Turner P’24 • Sarah D. Thieneman ’15* • Lynn Thommen • Amelia M. Thompson ’19 • Margaret A. Thompson • Cerie R. Tisch ’17 • Dr. Merryl H. Tisch ’77* • Mariana Titorov ’59* • Catherine A. Tolbert & Dr. Ethan W. Tolbert P’24 • Polly E. Trottenberg ’86* • Soching Tsai ’70* • Sophia E. Valiotis ’01* • Cherith Bailey Velez ’97* • Nicole Lowen Vianna ’81* • Jessica G. Viner & Dr. Daniel D. Viner P’24 • Jan L. Vinokour ’72* • Olivia I. Viveros & Guillermo Viveros • Joan M. Vormbaum ’64* • Eleanor Wagner ’71* • Roselin S. Wagner, PhD, ’50* • Hannah Waldman ’68* • Kimberly A. Walsh & Mark J. Lamarre P’23 • Mary C. WalshGorski & Steven T. Gorski P’22 • Liping Wang & Xiaobin Feng P’24 • Qingwei Wang & Fengwei Miao P’24 • Hilary H. Ward & Joseph F. Murphy P’22 • Megan L. Watkins ’97* • Elizabeth K. Weiner ’95* • Gail G. Weinmann, MD, ’72* • Doris Wells, PhD, ’55* • Dr. Kathleen M. Welsh & Dr. Bill Plautz P’19 • Marion MacKenzie Whalen ’61* • Darin E. White ’98 • Lucinda Whiteley & Michael Watts P’22 • Sandra E. Will ’01 • Constance H. Williams ’66 • Dr. Debora Williams-Herman & Dr. Gary Herman P’21 • Marlys H. Witte, MD, ’55* • Joyce Guior Wolf, MD, ’64* • Lisa J. Wolfe ’82* • Laura E. Wolf-Slovin & Karl Slovin P’23 • Eddi Wolk ’79* • Janet L. Armuth Wolkoff ’75, P’14* • Ellen Wong, MD, ’74 • Elly Karp Wong ’97* • Nancy Kung Wong ’62* • Ashley R. Woodruff ’01* • Dr. Amanda L. Woodward & Dr. Andrew J. Campbell P’22 • B. Elizabeth Wright ’61* • Madeline C. Wu ’19* • Emily Yang ’94* • Lan Yang & Bruno Z. Wu P’23 • Simmone K. Yang P’22 • Margaret Yanney ’87* • Lareina A. Yee ’95 • Peggy B. Yeo & Chun Cheng Yeo P’23 • Mae D. Yih ’51* • Chu Lam Yiu • Basha Yonis ’71* • Dr. Xiaohong Yu & Dr. Min Wang P’23 • Lori Zabar ’75 • Elisabeth R. Zahm & Steve C. Zahm P’20 • Janet Levitt Zalkin ’66* • Alexandra G. Zen Ruffinen ’18 • Jingmin Zhang ’12 • Daniel R. Zimmermann P’22 • Felice R. Zwas, MD, ’76* *Notes alumnae who are also members of the Hilltop Society, Barnard’s consecutive giving society that acknowledges donors who made gifts to the Barnard Annual Fund for three or more consecutive fiscal years, including fiscal year 2021. **Criteria is different for the 10 most recent graduating classes. Learn more at giving.barnard.edu/blue-and-bold.

This list reflects gifts of $2,500** or more made to the Barnard Annual Fund in fiscal year 2021 (July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021). Every effort is made to ensure its accuracy and completeness. Kindly notify the Office of Development and Alumnae Relations of any errors or omissions at annualgiving@barnard.edu or 212.923.2023.

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 49

Parenting

Supporting Your Children’s Gender Development Our understanding of gender identity as a concept begins to form when we’re toddlers, and — because exposure to anti-LGBTQIA+ attitudes has the potential to cause long-term psychological damage — it’s essential that educators and families give young people the freedom to explore and recognize how they define it generally and in relationship to the self.

Though attempts to codify restrictive binary gender categories into law can undermine healthy development, nearly three dozen states have introduced more than 100 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills targeting the rights of transgender people, especially youth, over the past few months. This record-breaking flurry of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation threatens the physical and mental wellness of transgender youth and raises newfound challenges for all of us.

In the face of this legislative overreach, it’s our responsibility as educators and family members to support healthy development and combat anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiments.

Research suggests that between 18 and 24 months, most children develop the ability to recognize and label binary gender groups such as girl/boy, and by about age 3, they’ve begun to assign labels to their own gender identity.

During this critical period of development and the years that follow, we can help young people form healthy gender identities through small shifts in daily routines that can make a big difference. Using nongendered language when addressing children in classes can make LGBTQIA+ students and families feel seen, safe, and welcome.

Calling students “third graders,” “historians,” or “folks” may take some getting used to but is a simple step that helps to create welcoming classrooms.

School leaders and teachers must ensure that their schools are embedding literature throughout the day that gives all students opportunities to see themselves and others represented in a positive light. It is crucial that children have an opportunity to read books that include a variety of family structures and gender identities. Additionally, delivering social and emotional learning (SEL) lessons on on gender and sexual identity that give children the space to explore their individual identity, 84

PHOTO BY METAMORWORKS/GETTY IMAGES PLUS

by Professor Erika Kitzmiller and Lauren Overton

while explaining the difference between sex and gender, eliminates some of the challenges and misconceptions many adults face when unpacking the gendered world around them.

Educators can advocate for students by hosting a Gay-Straight Alliance/Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) program to provide affinity space for LGBTQIA+ students and their allies. LGBTQIA+ students who had a GSA in their school were less likely to hear negative comments about their identity and more likely to stay in school, compared with those who didn’t have access to such programs.

Families can also engage in this work by encouraging their children to see and discuss an array of gender identities and family arrangements through books such as Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love and other books found on inclusive websites, including Social Justice Books, Book Riot, and GLSEN’s Rainbow Library Project.

When families read books to their children, they can replace gender-normative language, such as “this girl” or “this boy,” with gender-neutral language, such as “this person” or “this character.”

When our children make assumptions about the character’s gender, we can ask them what might make them think that, and then gently ask them questions that encourage them to reconsider the gender stereotypes they might hold. Families should maintain a sense of optimism and openness as their children explore and develop their own ideas about gender and sexuality and the ideas that others around them hold.

We can do this outside of our homes, too. When we are eating dinner in our local restaurant with our families, we can employ gender-neutral language to avoid misgendering others. Rather than encouraging our children to tell the “waitress” or “lady” what they want to eat, we can tell them to give “this person” or “this individual” their order. We can engage in local Pride events or Drag Queen Story Hour to offer young children the opportunity to recognize and appreciate the range and beauty of diverse gender identities.

While these changes might be an adjustment for many of us, inaction poses risks to LGBTQIA+ youth and does not contribute to positive gender identities. In the past year, 42% of LGBTQIA+ youth reported considering suicide. LGBTQIA+ youth also reported that when their preferred gender pronouns and legal names were respected, they were much less likely to attempt suicide. LGBTQIA+ students report higher incidences of bullying, which affects their mental health and educational outcomes.

We have a chance to counter this recent string of LGBTQIA+ hate bills and oppressive policies in many ways — perhaps most importantly in our schools and homes. B Erika Kitzmiller is a term assistant professor in Barnard’s Education Department. Lauren Overton is principal of the Penn Alexander School, which educates kindergarten through 8th grade students in Philadelphia.

“But What Can I Do?”

Making change where you are

by Angela Rose Myers ’18 More than a year after the murder of George Floyd, one of the most common questions I am asked as the president of the Minneapolis NAACP is “How can I make a change?” I did not plan on holding a leadership position during nationwide racial justice protests originating just a few blocks from my home. I had to learn on the ground. In a short period of time, I came to understand police policy, the inner workings of city and state government, and how to organize during a crisis. But as people ask themselves — and me — what they can do to make a difference, I find myself thinking about and sharing my own activism journey more and more.

That journey starts in Minnesota, where I was born and have lived the majority of my life. It’s known as a progressive haven with great access to healthcare and an excellent education system. It is also a very white state. According to the 2020 census, Minnesota is 76% white, down from 85% in 2010, and 89% in 2000. Growing up as a Black girl in the Twin Cities, I benefited from my proximity to wealth and to whiteness and oftentimes didn’t see its gross systemic racial disparities on display. In my predominately white school, I remember being told, “Racism will die out when those old Southern racists die” and “Racism is over; we have a Black president.” For a time, this is what I believed, too. I didn’t quite see that it was racism and microaggressions that made me feel constantly isolated. I felt Minnesota just wasn’t for me; I believed there was so much more to the world. So I looked to New York City to truly find — and be — myself.

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In New York, I learned to embrace my Blackness in ways I didn’t know I needed. I loved the experience of walking down 125th Street and seeing Black women with their hair in all different styles. I loved my conversations at Barnard in the Africana Studies Department and at BOSS. I wasn’t an activist, but I was involved in the flourishing Black community that Barnard fostered. After graduating in 2018, I moved back to Minnesota with the goal of fostering the same type of community I had at Barnard. I wanted to get “involved” now that I was back home, but I had no idea what that meant or how to best go about contributing. I decided to start by reaching out to organizations that I felt aligned with my values.

I connected with elders and community members doing work I admired. And I started in on a type of research that required me to learn through doing and by building genuine relationships with people who’ve been impacted by systemic racism.

I quickly learned what my high school history classes left out. And I came to realize that the early identity of Minnesota was shaped through a war: The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 led to the largest mass execution documented on our soil — 38 Native Americans were hanged in front of a 4,000-person crowd — and to the murder and displacement of thousands of Native Americans in the months

ILLUSTRATION BY NDUBISI OKOYE

Last Word

that followed. I learned that the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist activity flourished in both rural and urban areas of Minnesota in the 1920s. In 1907, an arsonist destroyed Brown’s Chapel African Methodist Episcopal in Hastings, the religious center for Blacks in the area, compelling many to leave the city. The last Black resident of Hastings died in 1954. I learned there were lynchings of Black men in Duluth in the 1920s, which the Minneapolis NAACP documented.

And I learned how prosperous Black communities, like those in St. Paul’s Rondo community, were displaced and destroyed by the construction of the I-94 freeway.

Learning Minnesota’s racist history — my home’s history — made me an activist because it compelled me to work to change its present and future.

With this knowledge, I also began to notice a pattern of police violence against Black Minnesotans. Since the late 1990s, more than 200 people have been killed at the hands of the police in Minnesota, and of those, many had Black ancestry, according to the Star Tribune. I learned their names: Jamar Clark, Philando Castile, Kobe Dimock-Heisler, Winston Smith, Dolal Idd, Travis Jordan, Jaffort Smith, Demetrius Hill, Cordale Handy, Isak Aden, George Floyd, Daunte Wright, among many others. The hardest part was learning these names through their loved ones, many of whom form the group Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence. Meeting these families and learning about my state’s legacy of violence against Black people made me reexamine Minnesota. It made me reexamine my own assumptions about the status quo of the state’s whiteness and the magnitude of its history. And it made me see how cultures, communities, and lives were lost due to white supremacist violence, as well as the often invisible violence that is necessary to maintain “business as usual.”

In November 2020, I was elected to lead the Minneapolis NAACP. But there are many forms of activism and community organizing. You can participate in direct services, self-help, education, advocacy, and direct actions. I am not an adept

organizer of protests, campaigns, or events. But in my role, I get to help my community by advocating for policies that end police violence.

Our advocacy has meant putting in a lot of legwork toward incremental changes to police accountability.

I’ve worked to create and pass a model policy on police response to First Amendment-protected public assemblies and testified for a bill that would ban peace officers from receiving or maintaining an officer license if they were a member of a group identified as a white supremacist terrorist organization by the FBI. We can push this work further by taking actions such as pressing for time requirements on the release of body camera footage and ending pretextual stops. But we must also work toward larger, more comprehensive policy work that transforms the criminal legal system and abolishes its white supremacist practices that have perpetuated violence and inhumane conditions.

If you would like to make a change in the world, now is the time to start, right where you are. In your community, company, city, or college campus, you have the power to make an impact. B Angela Rose Myers ’18 is the president of the Minneapolis NAACP and a master’s student of human rights at the University of Minnesota.

FALL 2021 | BARNARD MAGAZINE 87

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Answers on page 81 5. S ummer shindig where you might make a splash 6. Letter before bravo 7. Jazz improvisation 8. Night before 9. Sees red 10. Neuroscience major’s focus 11. Enthusiastic review 12. Like some whiskey 13. Edibles ingredient (abbr.)

17. Tour de force 22. Chest protector?

24. Indent key 25. Tango requirement, it’s said 27. Hem lines 29. Water in Guatemala 30. Some co-parents 31. Hawaiian coffee region 32. Wicked

33. Normal distribution in a statistics course 35. Ideal group of collaborators 39. Strategy designed for success 41. Piece of Senior Experience swag 42. Garden tool 43. Obtain 45. Spasm 47. “___ we forget” 50. Speak from a soapbox, maybe 51. Flowers often sold by the dozen 52. It’s a long story 53. Each, informally 54. Make a run for it 55. Penne ___ vodka 57. ID on a college application 60. H ow the shin bone’s connected to the thigh bone, for short 61. Sallie Krawcheck vis-à-vis Ellevest, for one

Helen Hershfield Avnet ’35 (1915-1974) was a researcher in the field of medical economics who broke new ground in the 1960s by conducting research and proving that psychiatric and dental care could be insured and by studying medical usage patterns. During the Great Depression, Helen participated in the founding of Group Health Insurance Inc., which eventually became Emblem Health Insurance — one of the country’s largest nonprofit providers today.

ILLUSTRATION BY ROWAN WU

Wishing to honor her mother, Helen’s daughter Jean Avnet Morse reached out to Barnard in gratitude for the College’s help in shaping Helen’s lifelong interests. After careful consideration, Jean chose Barnard as a beneficiary of a gift in her will. Her generosity will fund internship awards to students who are interested in public health.

Through this gift, Jean will leave a loving legacy in tribute to her mother, an influential figure who helped enable Americans to have greater access to healthcare.

To learn more about how you can join Jean in support of Barnard and its world-changing young women, please visit plannedgiving.barnard.edu or contact JiHae Munro, Director, Planned Giving 212.853.8313 | jmunro@barnard.edu

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