Convocation Program 2021

CONVOCATION 2021 Tuesday, September Fourteenth Four-thirty in the afternoon

Processional Opening of the Ceremony Séverine Autesserre, Professor of Political Science and Emily Gregory Award Recipient

Greeting from the Board of Trustees Ann Sacher ’85

Greeting from the Alumnae Association of Barnard College Amy Veltman ’89, President of the Alumnae Association of Barnard College and Barnard Trustee

Greeting from the Faculty

Linda A. Bell, Provost and Dean of the Faculty

Greeting from the Staff

Cynthia Yang ’02, Deputy Chief of Staff to the President; Head, Pandemic Response Team

Greeting from the Student Government Association Emily Ndiokho ’22, Student Government Association President

Recitation of the Honor Code

Mary LeSeur ’22 and Melinda Samaratunga ’22 We, the students of Barnard College, resolve to uphold the honor of the College by engaging with integrity in all of our academic pursuits. We affirm that academic integrity is the honorable creation and presentation of our own work. We acknowledge that it is our responsibility to seek clarification of proper forms of collaboration and use of academic resources in all assignments or exams. We consider academic integrity to include the proper use and care for all print, electronic, or other academic resources. We will respect the rights of others to engage in pursuit of learning in order to uphold our commitment to honor. We pledge to do all that is in our power to create a spirit of honesty and honor for its own sake.

Musical Selection Bacchantae

Remarks from the President of the College Sian Leah Beilock

Keynote Address

Nim Tottenham, PhD ’96, Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and Director of the Developmental Affective Neuroscience Laboratory

Remarks from the Dean of the College Leslie N. Grinage

Alma Mater

Written by May Appleton Parker, Class of 1904, sung by Bacchantae

Closing

Severin Fowles, Chair of American Studies and Associate Professor of Anthropology

Recessional

Please join us on campus for the Barnard Block Party celebration following the ceremony.

OUR STORY Upon its founding in 1889, Barnard became the only college in New York City, and one of the few in the nation, where women could receive the same rigorous education available to men. The College was named after Frederick A.P. Barnard, the 10th president of Columbia College, who had argued unsuccessfully with his trustees for the admission of women to Columbia. Barnard’s founding was sparked by the impressive efforts of Annie Nathan Meyer, a student and writer who helped persuade Columbia’s trustees to agree to an affiliated college dedicated to the education of women in the liberal arts.

From the beginning, Barnard was a place that took women seriously and challenged them intellectually, and the College has never wavered from that original objective.

Today, under President Sian Leah Beilock, Barnard’s distinctive place in higher education is undeniable. With the guidance of 12 women leaders over the course of 131 years — including winning the right to hire our own faculty in 1900, the pivotal protests of 1968, the historic admission of transgender women in 2016, and the opening of the Milstein Center in 2018 — Barnard has continued to flourish and excel.

ALMA MATER “COLLEGE ON THE HILLTOP” There’s a college on a hilltop That’s very dear to me, And a certain group of students With ties of comrad’rie.

So we’ll sing to dear old Barnard, And loyal be and true, As we show to coming classes How we love the white and blue.

When the day has come for parting And college days are o’er.

There will always be a fondness For the good old days of yore.

And we’ll sing to dear old Barnard As in memory we see The college on the hilltop Where our classmates used to be.

—May Appleton Parker, Class of 1904

Alma Mater is sung in its entirety only at Commencement. At Convocation, we will sing the first verse twice.