Dear Barnard Students,
We reach out to you again, after a profoundly difficult week, with our sympathy and support. Many of us, in our own way, have felt intense anger, sorrow, uncertainty, and horror this week.
Our pain is not solely about what is happening to Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East, either. Here at Barnard, some students are scared to move around their own campus, and some students are scared to go to class. There are troubling stories of intimidation, hurtful language, and expressions of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, both subtle and overt.
This is not acceptable. Barnard is fundamentally committed to diversity and to the free exchange of ideas. Barnard will not tolerate threats or hate speech. Please see the College’s Policy against Discrimination and Harassment and Related Procedures. The Office of Nondiscrimination and Title IX, now under the leadership of the Office of Inclusion and Engaged Learning, is designated to address these reports.
But we write to you today not about policies or statements, but about what is at stake right now for each of us.
Even as we acknowledge the reality of what we are experiencing and the validity of what we feel, each of us faces a choice: Do we take our outrage and our grief and our fear and turn it against one another? Or do we choose, however challenging it might be, to cultivate the kind of community we aspire to?
The Barnard community is defined and shaped in our difficult moments. We have seen this community come together in hard times and come out of it better for our response to a challenge. We know it can be done.
But it does not happen because the institution mandates it, or hands it to us. Our communal character and direction grows through the hundreds of choices each individual makes in the moment. We ask you, in this moment, to care for one another, and to build the kind of community that reflects our best selves.
Campus Life and Student Experience, Health & Wellness, and Inclusion and Engaged Learning will host Tea on Tuesdays from 11 a.m.-12 p.m in 115 Milbank. All members of our community are invited to drop-in for community, comfort, or conversation.
In community,
Leslie Grinage
Vice President for Campus Life and Student Experience and Dean of the College
Jennifer Rosales
Vice President for Inclusion and Engaged Learning and Chief Diversity Officer
List of Offices and Resources:
- Furman Counseling Center: 100 Hewitt Hall, 212-854-2092.
- After-hours psychological emergency line: 855-622-1903.
- International SOS for students who are abroad: +1-215-942-8478.
- Deans’ Office for Advising and Support (Class Deans): Milbank 105, 212-854- 2024, dos@barnard.edu.
- International Student Services (ISS): Milbank 119, 212-854-1777, iss@barnard.edu.
- The Earl Hall Office of Religious Life: Religious Life Advisers can be reached for counseling and support directly through the Religious Life website, or by contacting their office at religiouslife@columbia.edu.
- The Office of Nondiscrimination and Title IX at nondiscrimination@barnard.edu. The public reporting form is located on the website.
- CARES emergency line: 212-854-6666; CARES non-emergency line: 212-854-3362.
- Barnard College’s Posting Policy.