Grant Barnard a permanent Commencement space

Last year, Barnard’s Commencement was, quite controversially, held outside of the International Affairs Building. Future classes were assured that this would not be the case moving forward, and that after the construction of the Diana Center was finished, Commencement could once again be held on Barnard’s campus. Students were thus surprised to hear President Spar’s recent announcement that she, with the near-unanimous support of the students she consulted, was trying to secure Grant’s Tomb as the Commencement location for the class of 2011. Grant’s Tomb is in Riverside Park at 123rd Street, which is nowhere on Barnard’s campus. If this is setting a precedent for years to come, one must wonder: Will Commencement ever be held at Barnard, and if not, will it continue to wander through the neighborhood, grounded neither in tradition nor location, from year to year?

We understand that last year’s arrangement, and even this year’s, may be temporary, but some indication of the administration’s thought process and efforts to secure a more permanent location would be welcome. Why will Commencement not be held, as was promised, next to the Diana—or anywhere on Barnard’s campus, or, for that matter, anywhere on the campus of the university with which it is affiliated? Barnard would apparently need to pay to use Columbia’s campus, which is one of numerous concerns in choosing a location for graduation. One would think, though, that there must be a suitable space somewhere at the college from which this class is graduating. Grant’s Tomb, while an interesting national landmark and historical site, is not where Barnard women went to school.

The same can most likely be said for wherever Commencement will be held in the years to come, and therein lies the point. Will every class of Barnard women hold their collective breath as they wait to find out whether they will don their caps and gowns anywhere near the place they called home for four years?

This question is a symbolic one, as is the point of Barnard’s Commencement being on Barnard’s campus. But so, too, is Commencement itself. Students graduate whether or not there is even a ceremony, and yet, every May, students gather to commemorate the four years they spent together and all that they learned from their professors and one another. That is a powerful symbol, and one that would be still more powerful if, year after year, it took place at Barnard itself.