Shapiro Says Goodbye at Last BC Commencement

The Barnard class of 2008 strutted with pomp and circumstance through the drizzling rain to celebrate moving beyond their college years—with outgoing President and Barnard alumna Judith Shapiro at the helm.

At Tuesday’s Commencement ceremony, Shapiro lauded the approximately 590 graduates and four Barnard Medal of Distinction recipients—New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, tennis legend Billie Jean King, Pulitzer Prize winning New Yorker Editor in Chief David Remnick, and Harlem community organizer Thelma Davidson Adair. Yet Shapiro herself was a surprise medal-winner and perhaps the most notable figure departing Barnard this spring, concluding her 14-year tenure as the college’s president.

“The Barnard community will miss your leadership, your exuberance and your famous gin martinis,” Mayor Bloomberg said during his address. “They’ll also have to get along without the one-poodle canine-security patrol you’ve provided. I’m talking about your inseparable companion, Nora—who, despite Barnard’s ‘no dogs allowed’ policy, somehow still managed to have the run of campus.”

At Shapiro’s last Class Day as president, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and board of trustees chair Anna Quindlen, BC ’74, presented her with the school’s highest honor, saying, “Each of us here today is more than a little verklempt to see you go.”

After accepting her medal, Shapiro exclaimed, “You guys certainly know how to keep a secret!” In July, she will be replaced officially by Debora Spar, formerly of Harvard Business School.

The 2008 graduates, dubbed during the ceremony as “the first all-MetroCard class of Barnard,” received a commencement address filled with comedy from the city’s self-proclaimed “first MetroCard mayor.”

Since stepping into the post—his first political office—in 2001, Bloomberg has been a vocal advocate of women’s rights. In 2003, he and the reinstated New York City Commission on Women’s Issues gathered on campus to announce the organization’s partnership with Barnard to promote advancement of women’s issues in the city. In his speech, Bloomberg catered to the crowd by remarking on the inspiration gleaned from his 99-year old mother and the encouraging determination of his two daughters.

“Let me tell you: This is the city for women who are prepared to strive and succeed,” he said.

Senior class President Remi Sowemimo-Coker, BC ‘08, and Student Government Association President Laura Stoffel, BC ’08, echoed the mayor’s sentiments in their own speeches. Coker, who received the prestigious Frank Gilbert Bryson Prize for her contribution to campus life, alluded to the portrayal of Barnard students in this year’s Varsity Show. Although the production typically pokes fun at Columbia’s all-female affiliate, this year’s performance featured a triumphant Shapiro leading a slew of “strong, beautiful” Barnard protesters in the face of opposition from across the street. Stoffel’s address centered around the word “pioneering” and discussed how the Barnard experience prepares students to take initiative in “a world in desperate need of change.”

During her closing speech, Shapiro sent her fellow pioneers out on their journey as she embarks on a new one herself, as chair of the board of trustees of the nonprofit group Common Cents and a member of several academic societies. After saying she might show up at the future reunions of the class of 2008, she told her classmates, “You are now part of the great chain of Barnard being.”

betsy.morais@columbiaspectator.com