Columbia Celebrates Women

This Women’s History Month begins as Columbia College rings in its 25th anniversary of coeducation and hires its first female dean, Michele Moody-Adams.

To kick things off on Tuesday evening, about 70 guests congregated in the Roone Arledge Auditorium for the opening reception of Women’s History Month , organized by Columbia Student Development and Activities and Barnard’s College Activities Office. The event included speakers such as Barnard College Dean Dorothy Denburg, CC/SEAS Associate Dean of Student Affairs Kathryn Wittner, and several students, who discussed the current state of women’s issues at Columbia University’s undergraduate colleges. The largest portion of the evening was dedicated to a panel of speakers who attended Columbia just as the college opened itself to women.

As one of the first women students at the college, Ashima Dayal, CC ’89, remembered being met with some resentment. When she arrived on campus, the senior class was comprised entirely of men with the exception of just a handful of transfer students. “A senior said that the student body had gotten remarkably less interesting [upon the admission of women]. He said that a friend of his who was a juggler and a beekeeper couldn’t get in because some woman with higher SAT scores had gotten in,” Dayal related.
Athletics also presented new grounds for discrimination.

Leslie Gittess, CC ’88, who currently works for Major League Baseball following a 12-year career working for the National Hockey League, recalled her experience as one of the college’s first female athletes as part of the women’s tennis team being deeply affected by the school’s blatant favoritism toward male athletes.

She remembered travelling 45 minutes to and from practice in New Jersey, while the men’s tennis team travelled only 15 minutes to practice on the courts at Baker Field. Underfunded, the women’s tennis team bonded through t-shirt sales and other necessary fundraisers, she said. Nonetheless, they remained frustrated by the discrepancy between how male and female varsity athletes were treated at Columbia.

Dayal echoed Gittess’ thoughts on Columbia athletics of the 1980s. Dayal, currently a partner at a New York law firm, became captain of her varsity crew team during her time at Columbia. She called the boathouse a beautiful building, describing the men’s state-of-the-art changing facilities and juxtaposed them with what she described as the cramped, moldy showers and changing area provided for women. “I’m sure it was a health hazard,” she said.

Gittess said she is pleased with the progress Columbia has made in the area of athletics. Today there are 14 female varsity sports teams and 13 male teams.
Mariana Metalios, BC ’85, adjunct lecturer at SIPA and project director with the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, was in her second year at Barnard when Columbia College accepted its first class including female students.

Metalios said that when Columbia College first began admitting women, people were quick to question whether there was any place for Barnard in the University anymore. “I wasn’t worried because I knew there was something different and special and withstanding [about Barnard], and still is.”

About the prospect of Barnard merging with Columbia College, Metalios said, “I don’t know if Barnard could have been offered anything to lose its Barnard-ness. There was some stubbornness involved, and there was a risk involved because Barnard could have tanked. I personally didn’t have this concern.”

“I’m glad she [Barnard] is still around,” Metalios said.