0 CommentsOn the evening of April 30, the SGA Executive Board emailed an open letter addressed to President Laura Rosenbury and other members of the Columbia and Barnard Administration. They criticized the actions of the administration going back months for alienating students and ignoring their voices, and issued lists of demands and recommendations.
The Executive Board of Barnard Student Government Association (SGA) released “An Open Letter to President Rosenbury and Members of Barnard and Columbia Senior Administration,” criticizing their lack of communication and treatment of the student body over the past two semesters. This letter was sent to Barnard students via email.
In this letter, the SGA E-Board stated that they “fully understand [the] students’ occupation of Hamilton Hall, since renamed Hind’s Hall.” They described the occupation as “a direct response to the feckless nature of Barnard College and Columbia University, which has tokenized and weaponized the diversity of our student body for media optics.” They describe their experience as elected student leaders engaging in communication with members of the administration, meetings which they say “have become a center for deflection, reticence, and absurd wordplay.”
After emphasizing the alienation that has been felt by the student body as a result of the administration’s lack of attention and engagement, the SGA Executive Board laid out their diagnosis of the crisis on campus which culminated in the events of April 30. “This institution’s failure to acknowledge and act on the toll of racial harassment that Palestinian, Arab, Black, and Brown students constantly deal with is the real crisis. It is why Hamilton Hall has been overtaken,” SGA stated. The E-Board claimed that the “real crisis” is Barnard’s “failure to acknowledge the truth behind the divisiveness [the] campus community is facing and [the administration’s] refusal to address this with genuine care, action, and consideration of the entire student body.”
SGA also claimed that Barnard has “fail[ed] to fully represent and acknowledge the full breadth of Jewish students and their experiences.” They attested that instead of “embrac[ing] the discomfort that diversity of thought and experience brings,” the administration has “chosen to prioritize [their] self-interests.”
The SGA E-Board also criticized the administration for allegedly neglecting their duties to maintain the community on campus and placing that burden on the shoulders of themselves and other student leaders, repeatedly “leaving students to create their own communities of care,” they claimed.
The E-Board concluded with a list of immediate demands and a list of recommendations. They also made a specific request for President Laura Rosenbury, who has provided very little information to the Barnard student body and typically only forwards emails already sent out to Columbia students. They urged President Rosenbury to “engage directly with [students] through original communication, addressing our concerns and outlining her vision for leadership in these challenging times.”
.The letter can be found in its entirety below.
The email addressed to President Rosenbury and the Barnard senior administration and sent to students on Tuesday, April 30 at 5:43 pm:
An Open Letter to President Rosenbury and Members of Barnard and Columbia Senior Administration
To the members of the Barnard College administration, which includes:
President Laura Ann Rosenbury, Provost & Dean Linda Bell, VP for Health and Wellness Marina Catallozzi, Assistant VP Ciaran Escoffery, VP for Development and Alumnae Relations Michael Farley, VP Sarah Gillman, VP Leslie Grinage–
As firsthand witnesses towards your treatment of our students in the past seven months and as your closest contacts to the Barnard College student body, the Executive Board of the Student Government Association fully understands our students’ occupation of Hamilton Hall, since renamed Hind’s Hall.
The takeover of Hamilton Hall is a direct response to the feckless nature of Barnard College and Columbia University, which has tokenized and weaponized the diversity of our student body for media optics. As the administrators of Barnard College, whose duty rests in the care, safety, and education of your students, you have shown a shocking disregard and carelessness in your decisions for the school that has harmed and erased your students’ identities.
SGA predominantly comprises Black, Brown, women, and nonbinary First Generation, Low Income (FLI) students of color. Since October 7th, we have seen and experienced firsthand how the Barnard and Columbia administrations disregard and marginalize the most vulnerable members of our community.
Instead of engaging with us–your elected representatives of the student body–in good faith, our meetings with administrators have become a center for deflection, reticence, and absurd wordplay, undermining what has indeed been a case for crisis at Barnard and Columbia: our students’ rights to free speech, academic freedom, and physical and emotional safety on campus.
At the same time, Barnard College and Columbia University continuously expect gratitude from the same student body, and they consistently condescend, belittle, and manipulate. We ask why students are expected to comply when they have not been shown respect, consideration, or the most basic apology for the harm caused by this institution.
This administration’s actions of never centering students in their decisions—effectively subverting their purported values of pluralistic thought, diversity of experience, and identity—have alienated every student body member.
To use both Pro-Palestine and Zionist students as a reason for your careless decisions, to fragment the campus community through your inaccurate rhetoric dividing Islamophobia and anti-semitism which are interconnected—it is inevitable for us to conclude that the student body serves as scapegoats for the institution’s actions.
This institution’s failure to acknowledge and act on the toll of racial harassment that Palestinian, Arab, Black, and Brown students constantly deal with is the real crisis. It is why Hamilton Hall has been overtaken.
The real crisis is this institution’s failure to acknowledge the truth behind the divisiveness our campus community is facing and your refusal to address this with genuine care, action, and consideration of the entire student body. It is why Hamilton Hall has been overtaken.
This institution’s failure to fully represent and acknowledge the full breadth of Jewish students and their experiences is the real crisis. As our educational institution administrator, you have shirked your responsibilities in encouraging proper and respectful dialogue and debate with the campus community. You have failed to embrace the discomfort that diversity of thought and experience brings—instead, you have chosen to prioritize your self-interests.
The failures of this institution have contributed to the rift and distrust circulating throughout our student body. You have left the onus of addressing this rift to the campus’s SGA and other representative bodies. You have left the duty of restoring this trust on the shoulders of these representative bodies of students–the trust you have broken.
The failures of this institution are not contained within the gates of Barnard and Columbia. They are being watched by the eyes of students across colleges in the United States, who have signed a joint statement standing with our students here. From the student government of New York University downtown to members of Cornell University in Ithaca, to those at the Seven Sibling colleges, to those from Pomona College on the West Coast, and to the college council at Emory who has just suffered a series of police brutalities against their students, police who were similarly called onto them by their own President–we are all watching and recording your actions. Your names and responsibilities will be recorded forever by the student leaders of Barnard and the student leaders across the United States.
Columbia’s administration’s weaponization of our seniors’ graduations, coupled with your insensitive measures to shut down campus and deny your students access to food, healthcare, and the education we have paid for, is the real crisis. Once again, leaving students to create their own communities of care.
Barnard SGA has and will continue to do everything in its power to advocate for our students to be seen, heard, and cared for by their chosen institution. We came to this institution because it shared our values of care, empathy, and progressiveness. It is clear today that our students, faculty, and members of our staff do—yet our administration, as a whole, does not.
In the spirit of commitment to our student body’s welfare, we present a series of demands and recommendations in response to the unresolved issues of this academic year:
Immediate Demands:
- Full Amnesty for Suspended Students: We insist on full amnesty for all suspended students, with particular emphasis on seniors, to safeguard their academic progress and future opportunities.
- Academic Considerations for Finals: We demand the cancellation, optional participation, or deferral of final examinations to accommodate the diverse needs and current stresses our student body faces.
- Campus Accessibility: Barnard’s campus will be immediately re-opened to all BC/CUID holders to ensure our community remains connected and supportive.
Recommendations:
- Acknowledgment of Harm: We urge Barnard College to formally acknowledge the harms inflicted upon the student body, validating the lived experiences of those affected.
- Bridging the Administrative Divide: A strategy must be developed to address and heal the rift between the administration and students, prioritizing safety and inclusivity across our entire community.
- Student-Centric Decision-Making: We advocate for creating pathways centralizing student voices in all institutional decision-making processes.
- Standards of Academic Expression and Freedom: Collaboratively establish academic expression and freedom standards, incorporating substantial input from faculty and students.
- Transparency with the Board of Trustees: To foster trust and clarity, it is critical to establish a more transparent communication channel between the Board of Trustees and the student body.
- Inclusive Communication: We recommend enhancing communication practices to include students, faculty, staff, and administration in the decision-making processes, ensuring that all voices are heard and considered.
Regarding President Laura Rosenbury:
We express profound disappointment in the lack of substantive communication from our President, Laura Rosenbury. In the past two weeks, we have received only three emails from President Rosenbury, two of which were mere forwards of messages from President Shafik. We urgently request that President Rosenbury engage directly with us through original communication, addressing our concerns and outlining her vision for leadership in these challenging times.
Through these demands and recommendations, we seek to address the immediate challenges and lay the groundwork for a more equitable and responsive governance structure at Barnard College.
Sincerely signed,
Barnard Student Government Association’s Executive Board
Barnard campus via Bwog Archives
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