On Wednesday, Barnard administration announced updates to campus demonstration policies and changes to Barnard’s policy development and revision process in an email to students. These amendments come several months after the policies were first implemented during the height of campus protest activity during the Spring 2024 semester.

On Wednesday afternoon, several senior Barnard administrators sent an email to students announcing updates to existing policies surrounding campus events and demonstrations, as well as the revision process for College policies at large. The email, signed by Vice President and Secretary to the Board of Trustees Ciaran Escoffery, Vice President for Campus Life and Student Experience and Dean of the College Leslie Grinage, Interim Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Sandra Kim, Vice President and General Counsel Serena Longley, and Executive Vice President for Strategy and Chief Administrative Officer Kelli A. Murray, outlined both the amended policies and feedback and revision protocol for future policy changes. 

The College has adopted a revised version of the Policy for the Development and Revision Process for Barnard College Administrative Policies, which now includes student, faculty, and staff feedback as a part of the College’s policy-making and revision process. The new process requires the College to give notice to the Barnard community of any proposed administrative policies and “provide[s] opportunities for open comment,” according to the email. Additionally, the College will allow “affected groups,” such as students or faculty, the opportunity to submit feedback in writing and meet with senior administrators. These changes to the policy development procedure were made in the hopes that the resulting “policies [will] better serve our community,” senior administrators wrote. 

According to the email, if a policy is time-sensitive and must be implemented before the feedback process can be conducted, those policies may become effective immediately and are subject to additional review within 90 days. 

The College’s Policy on Safe Demonstrations, first implemented on February 20, underwent several changes that “input [Barnard] received from the Barnard community throughout last spring and summer,” the email stated. The changes to the demonstration policy are as follows:

• The required notice period for campus demonstrations has been reduced from 48 hours to 36 hours.
• The permitted hours for demonstrations on Futter Field were originally from 2 pm to 6 pm but have now been extended from 12 pm to 6 pm.
• Silent demonstrations are exempted from the 36-hour notice period and may take place without registration and administrative approval.

In the email, senior administration provided a form for members of the Barnard community to provide feedback on the updated policy and emphasized that demonstrations are assessed for approval “without consideration of the nature or content of the demonstration or the identity of the requestor(s).”

Email from senior Barnard administration to the Barnard community on Wednesday, September 11 at 4:19 pm:

Dear Members of the Barnard Community, 

Over the summer, the senior staff reviewed a number of existing College policies to incorporate your feedback about ways we could improve them and the policy process overall. As mentioned in President Rosenbury’s email to faculty on August 28 and in the 411 and Connections newsletters on September 5 and September 6, a crucial step was to revise the Policy for the Development and Revision Process for Barnard College Administrative Policies to formally include students, faculty, and staff in the development of College-wide policies. The prior iteration of this Policy, which went into effect in 2019, did not provide any formal role for students, faculty, or staff in policymaking. We are pleased to have this expanded process to incorporate the voices of our community. 

Policy Development and Revision Process

In this new process, the College will now give notice to the entire Barnard community of any proposed new administrative policies or revisions to existing policies and provide opportunities for open comment. The College will also seek input directly from affected groups (e.g., students, faculty, and/or staff), providing opportunities for those groups to submit written comments and meet with senior staff members to provide feedback. The senior staff will consider all feedback received. We hope this approach will result in policies that better serve our community, and we look forward to working with you toward this goal.

Temporary Policies

If a policy is time-sensitive for critical College operations, this new framework also provides a path for implementing temporary policies, which are effective immediately, but are still subject to a more comprehensive review process within 90 days. If the full policy review process is not initiated within 90 days, the temporary policy will automatically lapse.

Temporary Policy for Safe Campus Demonstrations

A revised Policy on Safe Demonstrations is the first temporary policy issued under  this new procedure. This revision reflects input we received from the Barnard community over the course of last spring and summer. We look forward to receiving even more input through the new comprehensive review process, which we will begin immediately. 

Although we encourage everyone to read the entire temporary policy, we highlight key changes from the prior policy below:

• The notice time has been reduced from 48 hours to 36 hours, meaning that you now must provide only 36 hours’ notice before a desired demonstration time. 

• The hours for demonstrations on Futter Field have been expanded from 2 to 6 p.m. to 12 noon to 6 p.m.

• Silent demonstrations have been explicitly exempted from the registration process and may proceed without prior registration.

As before, the College will approve demonstration requests without consideration of the nature or content of the demonstration or the identity of the requestor(s).

Anyone wishing to provide comments on this policy may submit feedback using this form through October 4, 2024. The College will also work with the Faculty Governance and Procedures Committee, the Barnard Staff Advisory Council, and the Student Government Association to obtain additional feedback about the demonstration policy.

We look forward to working with you to develop and implement policies that best serve the Barnard community. If you desire further clarification about any policies or rules, please email policies@barnard.edu.

Sincerely, 

Ciaran Escoffery

Vice President and Secretary to the Board of Trustees

Leslie Grinage

Vice President for Campus Life and Student Experience and Dean of the College

Sandra Kim

Interim Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Serena Longley

Vice President and General Counsel

Kelli A. Murray

Executive Vice President for Strategy and Chief Administrative Officer

Barnard College via Bwog Archives