A mosaic of yellow, blue, red, and green berets dotted the lawn in front of the Diana Center Wednesday, as Barnard faculty, alumni, and students, donning hats that corresponded to their class year, assembled to inaugurate the opening of the new student center.
The opening ceremony marked the culmination of a seven-year project to replace the McIntosh Student Center with a facility that would be better suited, administrators have said, to Barnard’s ever-increasing population. The Diana opened its doors to students on Jan. 20 in time for the spring semester and has already seen steady amounts of foot traffic.
Audience members included Board of Trustees Chair Anna Quindlen, BC ’74 and principal donor Diana Vagelos, BC ’55.
Standing at the podium, Barnard President Debora Spar led a steady tide of remarks from administrators and students alike.
“We don’t have an opportunity to create a structure like this that often. And when we do, it’s a very big deal,” Spar said.
This is the first time Barnard has added academic space to the campus since 1969.
“When you see it at night, it’s so incredibly beautiful, like some sort of lantern. Diana is among other things the classical goddess of light, so the name is fitting in more ways than one,” Quindlen said.
The seven-story building, with ascending double-height glass atria and a façade of clear and etched colored-glass panels, was designed by architectural firm Weiss/Manfredi. Its 70,000 square feet will house facilities, offices, and classrooms, including a black box theater, event oval, architecture studio, art gallery, and cafeteria, all capped by a “green roof” laboratory for sustainable environment education.
For Courtney Mitchell, BC ’10, the ceremony was a highly anticipated one. “I’m sad that I couldn’t have experienced this more while I was a student, just to see how the building will be adopted by the Barnard community,” she said. “Hopefully it will create this one common place for people to come together.”
Amy Stringer, BC ’13, said the student center has already been incorporated into her daily routine.
“I go to Liz’s Place [the Diana coffee shop] a few times a week to get lunch,” she said. “I’ve also gone by the College Activities Office to purchase discounted tickets.”
The event was one that completed a full circle for College Dean Dorothy Denburg, BC ’70, who cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony of the McIntosh in 1969.
“I am here today as a historical relic,” she joked. Denburg also described the tremendous growth Barnard has experienced, jumping from 1,958 enrolled undergraduates in 1969 to 2,350 today.
Following the ceremony, a group of Barnard alumnae congregated in the lobby of the Diana and remarked on what they said was a tremendous modernization of the campus.
“It appears to me just overwhelming,” Marian Bennett Meyers, BC ’59, said. “We had tennis courts [where the Diana is located]. … The area here was all planted and we called it ‘the jungle.’”
Current and former students weren’t the only ones to turn out for the event—some faculty also rearranged their schedules. Associate French professor Cathy Leung cancelled class so her students could attend.
Will Simpkins, Community and Diversity Initiatives Program Director, said that he was impressed by how the student center has changed the way that Barnard looks from the exterior.
“It’s [a] clean, fresh look. … You can actually see the life of the campus from [the] outside,” he said.
“I think before there was something missing, we had no recreational area,” Nathalie Lissain, BC ’12, added.
The dining space on the second floor will open on Monday and the green roof will officially open in the spring.
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