Shapiro to Step Down After 2007-2008

Judith Shapiro will step down as president of Barnard College at the end of the 2007-08 academic year, she announced today. She will be leaving the school after 14 years at her post.

"Fourteen years is a long run on Broadway-or, for that matter, in any college or university," Shapiro wrote in a statement. "The timing is right for this transition. ... We have arrived at a place where Barnard is among the strongest colleges in the country, and the most sought-after women's college. We have more than justified the faith and courage it took back in the early 1980s to follow our own course as a first-rate liberal arts college for women."

In the press release, Anna Quindlen, chair of Barnard's Board of Trustees, said, "What a gift Judith Shapiro has been to this college! Under her leadership Barnard has experienced enormously enhanced selectivity and national stature and cemented its dedication to educating the women leaders of the future. The Shapiro years have been a golden age for Barnard College, in terms of both growth and stability, and we will move forward from a position of great strength because of Judith's fourteen years here."

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