Barnard-Leadership-Awards

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.

QuestBridge, a national organization connecting low-income students to selective colleges, announced Barnard as one of its three new partner institutions earlier this week.

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