Barnard-Honor-Board

In past years, Hewitt Dining Hall has served as a vibrant and cozy space filled with natural light and much conversation among students and professors. Events such as Big Sub and Midnight Breakfast brought the student body together to celebrate and enjoy food. However, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing measures in place, Barnard Dining has been forced to adapt as students returned to campus this spring.

April Tyler, a prominent community leader in West Harlem who was known for her advocacy for affordable housing, died on Feb. 16. She was 60 years old. Her unexpected death has impacted many residents in West Harlem, as friends and colleagues mourn her death and reflect on her decades of service to the community.

The small black box is swaddled in thin drapes, streaked with watercolor branches. The fabric winds its way toward the ceiling, where it hangs like acoustic panels for an orchestra or a Milky Way made out of linen.

Ever since the ninth grade, Alondra Carmona had dreamed of attending Barnard College. When she first heard that Columbia had a sister school right across the street, she looked into Barnard’s campus and programs and immediately fell in love. Nearly four years later, she was elated to read the word “Congratulations” when she checked her application status. However, her celebrations were soon tempered by doubts about being able to afford her tuition.

“Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Let’s go into this with a powerful collective intention.” Alexandra Watson, a First-Year Writing lecturer at Barnard, said as she led a Zoom call in a breathing exercise. With its participants newly focused, the Cite Black Barnard Faculty Cite-a-Thon began.

“The play was about breath before we all started losing ours.”

Despite COVID-19 restrictions that have isolated dance students across the globe, Barnard dance classes are in full swing. In their Zoom rectangles, dancers listen to their lectures and clear spaces in their homes for technique classes in disciplines like ballet and modern. In 2018, Barnard still offered tap classes such as Tap Ensemble and Tap as an American Art Form, which were classes that taught beyond the introductory levels of these dance styles. However, tap classes and lectures have disappeared from the Barnard dance course offerings despite still being listed on the Barnard dance department website.

Once a lively hub for music and dance, the RKO Hamilton Theater, an ornately decorated building located on the corner of 146th Street and Broadway now lies vacant. Recently, local residents have begun to discuss plans to purchase and repurpose the site for the benefit of the community, with many hoping to redevelop the site into affordable housing and a community arts center. However, the theater’s historical and cultural significance has sparked debate on how to balance the need for development and preserving the site’s historic integrity.