Lenfest-Center-for-the-Arts

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When I came to Barnard, I already knew that I wanted to graduate early. On paper, it seemed feasible. However, almost everyone I spoke to warned that it would be incredibly difficult. Still, I did not consider an increased workload grounds for abandoning my desire. My parents have taken on more than their fair share of work to care for me. Easing their financial burden by graduating early was the least that I could do. Graduating early would make it financially possible for my brother to apply to his dream schools and for our parents to afford our educational and vocational aspirations past college.

Two children play by the hammock in the back of the hut, yelling and looking into the camera. Piti sits on the ground, preparing traditional cloth while recounting her struggles and successes. This Brazilian terrain has become her home. She reflects on how her life now is very different from her upbringing in a white Brazilian family, yet her attraction to this indigenous group and terrain led her to start her life anew.

Her words reverberated throughout the classical dome of Low Library’s rotunda, evoking the ancient Greek literature to which she alludes in her plays. She began with her first of a million suggestions: “Entertain all your far-out ideas.” She paused, looking up at the expansive ceiling and out at the sea of faces before her in Low Library’s rotunda. “It sounds good in here.”

“Men are nothing but trouble!” Jennifer, a resident at Selinsgrove Center in Pennsylvania, exclaimed, inciting laughter from her interviewer and caregiver. Her interviewer had asked if she had found a boyfriend during her eight years at Selinsgrove, a live-in care institution for intellectually disabled individuals.

As Aline Estefam, a graduate student in urban planning, approached 125th Street and Broadway, she immediately noticed the contemporary architecture of The Forum at Columbia University. With wide windows and sharp white edges, it stands in stark contrast with the surrounding gradient of brown brick buildings.

Jay-Z was met with a standing ovation upon entering The Forum on Columbia’s Manhattanville campus. While Beyoncé—yes, you read that right—slipped inconspicuously into her seat in the audience, Jay-Z sat down to speak on topics ranging from his musical influences to prison reform to his controversial partnership with the National Football League to his historic role in the landscape of hip-hop.

In a few short weeks, in partnership with Women and Hollywood, the Athena Center for Leadership will host the 10th annual Athena Film Festival—an ambitious effort to address the underrepresentation of women in Hollywood, in front of and behind the camera. Films drive culture; they have an enormous impact on how we feel, think, and perceive the world around us—including who we see as leaders. If all we see are men, what does that tell us?

Art X Social Justice’s inaugural event, “Stories in Paper,” featured paper-based artwork made by incarcerated people. Through workshops led by art therapist Laura Betancur, the artists constructed pieces in a variety styles, which reflected a range of experiences.

The tissue box screeches as it is pushed across the desk. The copy machine lulls as pages filled with meaningless numbers emerge and the sound of fingers tapping against a keyboard is heard. These details take on heavy meaning in the high-pressure and misogynistic work environment in which Jane finds herself isolated.