Barnard's Denburg to step down as dean for VP job

After 17 years as Dean of Barnard College, Dorothy Denburg will be "changing hats" at President Debora Spar's request on July 1.

In an email sent to Barnard students, Denburg said that she was asked by Spar to instead take on the position of Vice President for College Relations starting this summer.

Denburg primarily served as dean under former Barnard president Judith Shapiro, and she is a BC alumna. In her new position, she wrote, she will oversee Alumnae Affairs and Career Development and the school's global initiatives. She will also work with the pre-college programs, she said, as well as teach a first-year seminar.

"Being your Dean has been a privilege, something I will always cherish," she wrote. "The relationships that I have had with several decades of Barnard students are very dear to me."

"Please note, I am not going anywhere, I am simply changing hats," she added.

Spar said that the position was created to embolden the relationship between students and alumni.

“What was becoming increasingly important and obvious to me is that we have a lot of alumni out there who want to be engaged with the college, and we need to find different ways to engage these alumni,” Spar said. “In the existing structure we have, there’s just no one who can do that.”

She added, “Who [Denburg] knows more of our alumni than any other single person on the planet?”

Lara Avsar, BC '11 and newly-elected president of the Barnard Student Government Association, said that SGA hopes to work closely with Denburg in her new position.

"SGA is excited about being a part of Dean Denburg's new endeavor and can't wait to collaborate with her in whatever way possible," Avsar wrote in an email. "The new position is definitely a crucial one because I have heard, from both students and alumnae, that there is a gap between the two groups. Hopefully Dean Denburg will be the perfect solution to bridge this gap."

Judith Shapiro, former Barnard President, said that she and Denburg worked closely.

“Well we worked together very, very closely because the dean is the senior administrator most in charge of just about everything having to do with students,” she said.

She added that they worked together on a number of initiatives, including the Diana Student Center.

“We planned that building [Diana],” she said. “It was a major project … we wanted to assess all the needs of the campus and Dean Denburg was involved in really looking at campus life and how the new building would fulfill the needs of students.”

Though Denburg says that she is not leaving Barnard but “simply changing hats,” some concerns have arisen as to how the decision was made and why it was made so abruptly after the school year ended.

But Spar maintained that the decision was mutual, and that they look forward to seeing the position come to fruition in the fall.

“Formally it’s ‘at my request’ because I created the position,” Spar said. “This is something that Dorothy and I have been talking about for some time, and we’re both very excited about it.”

Spar added that they wanted the announcement to coincide with the alumnae reunion since this year will mark Denburg’s 40th reunion.

“We wanted to announce it at reunion because given the nature of the position … it’s Dorothy’s 40th reunion, so the symmetry, if you will, was so perfect,” she said. “It was just too good an opportunity to pass up.”

Shapiro said that though she is not as familiar with Spar’s administration, she thinks that Denburg will be able to transfer her skills and expertise to her new role.

“When you retire from being a president, you know, you let go,” she said. “It’s important to do that, and so I would not really know about how things have gone since then … The fact she [Denburg] was such a good dean and connected so well with students should carry over into her new job because all of those students that she connected so well with over those years are now alumni and it’s very important for the health of a college to have good, productive rewarding ties with the college’s graduates.”

The email included no word on who her replacement would be. Spar said that they currently do not have anyone lined up to assume the newly vacant position.

“There is no one in line, so we’re going through a full search,” she said.

Avsar said she looks forward to building a similar relationship with the new dean.

"I would love for the new dean to follow in Dean Denburg's footsteps—she is truly an incredible person and has a passion for Barnard that I respect and admire greatly," she said.

Ultimately, Shapiro said, only Spar can really speak to the future of Barnard’s administration.

“As she [Spar] restructures the administration and puts people in different positions, she is the only one that can really know what direction the administration is going to be taking in the future,” she said.