Left
to right: Alison Bernstein, Anna Quindlen '74, Judith
Shapiro and Diana Chapman Walsh
On the evening of April 28, alumnae,
faculty, students and friends gathered in the James Room to
celebrate outgoing President Judith Shapiro's fourteen years
of service to Barnard College. Shapiro's accomplishments were
highlighted by a panel discussion about the state of women's
education and leadership in America, hosted by the Barnard
Center for Research on Women. The panel, entitled "Looking
to the Future," included Shapiro, former Wellesley College
President Diana Chapman Walsh, and Alison Bernstein, Vice
President of the Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom Program
at the Ford Foundation. Chair of the Board of Trustees Anna
Quindlen '74, who described Shapiro's tenure as the "the
golden age" of Barnard College, moderated.
The four women engaged in a lively discussion,
praising Shapiro's extraordinary career as a champion of women';s
education. Shapiro said that women's colleges represent the
best possible environment in which to foster gender equality.
While many co-ed institutions, she said, are male-dominated
forces that happen to admit women, the boards of all-female
colleges consist of integrated cross-sections of men and women
on equal footing. "Women's colleges are important because
they can be counted on to advance the interest of women and
gender equity," said Shapiro, harkening back to her
1994 inaugural speech, during which she told an exuberant
crowd that, "Women's work, so they say, is never done
-- and neither is the work of women's colleges."
