Spar Chosen As Barnard's President

Barnard College announced the selection of Debora Spar, a senior associate dean at Harvard University Business School and widely-published political scientist, as its eleventh president on Tuesday. Spar will take the post on July 1 when current president Judith Shapiro steps down.

Over the course of a long day, Spar was introduced in turn to Barnard faculty, students, staff, and alumni Tuesday during which she highlighted her passion for teaching and desire to fight the obstacles that constrain women in today’s world.

“Barnard College offers something that is increasingly hard to find in our world, yet increasingly important: an intense and intimate liberal arts environment devoted solely to the education of women,” said Spar in a statement Tuesday morning.

Unlike Barnard’s two most recent presidents, Shapiro and her predecessor Ellen Futter, each of whom either graduated from or taught at a women’s college prior to her selection, Spar comes to Barnard straight from the top of the ivory tower.

The new president graduated magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Edmond A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in 1984. She has been at Harvard for the 24 years since, first to obtain her doctorate in government and then as a professor and administrator at the business school. In her current capacity as Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development at the school, Spar oversees $20 million in research funding.

Spar has written six books and many articles about business. Her 2001 article “Why the Internet Doesn’t Change Everything” described the distinctive nature of the Internet industry. Her penultimate book, “The Baby Business: How Money, Science and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception”, pioneered research about the economy of alternative fertility. Spar was the first academic to mention fertility as a transaction through a business framework.

In various interviews online, Spar said that when she picked up the research topic of fertility through an economic lens, her colleagues did not take her seriously and called her soft. She followed up in 2006 with a book named “The Hidden Market for Babies”.

Spar has also written about AIDS, African economics, the global economy, balance of power, and terrorism.

“As a student, I felt it was important that the next leader of Barnard be in tune with campus life and student issues,” said Laura Stoffel, BC ’08, presidential search committee member, and president of the Student Government Association, in a statement. “She is a great listener and amazingly competent. I just can’t say enough about all her wonderful qualities.”

A leading figure in business academics, Spar also runs Making Markets Work, a joint program between Harvard Business School and the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science. The course in South Africa teaches about the interconnection of the public and private sectors’ effects on economic growth. Spar also spearheaded an initiative in Rwanda, where cabinet members learned about executive education.

“We were certainly looking for someone who would have a rapport with the faculty, either because they a had been a respected tenured faculty member themselves or because they’d been an administrator who’d worked closely with faculty,” said Anna Quindlen, chair of Barnard’s board of trustees and head of the search committee. “And, in fact, in Debora we found both in one person, which is one of the things that made her candidacy compelling for us. ... It’s a little like what one of the justices once said about obscenity: ‘You know it when you see it.’”

Spar’s qualities as a leading scholar are coupled by what peers call outstanding teaching skills. Spar was awarded the Student Association Faculty Award for outstanding teaching and has advised students on research projects.

University President Lee Bollinger said he looks forward to working with Spar. “We are delighted to welcome Debora Spar to the Barnard-Columbia community,” Bollinger said in a statement. “Her appointment opens an exciting new chapter for this premier women’s college.”