Barnard Searches for Successor to Longtime Leader
Barnard College is looking for a successor to its president, Judith Shapiro, who yesterday announced she would step down after 14 years at the helm of the Columbia University-affiliated women's college.
The 65-year-old president, whom board members credit with increasing the college's collaboration with Columbia and courting large donations from alumnae, said she would resign at the end of the 2007-08 academic year to pursue consulting and writing. Ms. Shapiro said she had originally intended to step down after 12 years on the job, but stayed on an extra two years to meet fund-raising targets and oversee planning for a new student center, among other goals.
"I have loved this job so much, but the idea of having a job that would require working less than 16 hours a day has a certain je ne sais quoi," she said of her decision to step down.
Ms. Shapiro, Barnard's 10th leader, said she hoped her successor would maintain the "balance of autonomy and partnership" between Barnard and Columbia. "That relationship is something that always needs tending to," she said, stressing the uniqueness of Barnard's situation as a small, women's liberal arts college within an Ivy League university.
The chairwoman of the Barnard College Board of Trustees, Anna Quindlen, said the outgoing president would leave the college on "very firm footing " — noting that the school's endowment has more than doubled and its applications have skyrocketed under Ms. Shapiro's stewardship. "She's given alums the clear signal that the college is run on a fiscally prudent, and an intellectually prudent level," Ms. Quindlen, a novelist and Newsweek columnist who graduated from Barnard in 1974, told The New York Sun.
Barnard's endowment is $171 million — up from a reported $70 million in 1994, when Ms. Shapiro, an anthropologist and former Bryn Mawr College provost, accepted the job. During her tenure, applications increased to 4,599 from 2,734, according to figures provided by the college.
To find its next president, Barnard is casting a wide net. Career academics, as well as leaders in the corporate and nonprofit organizational sectors, would be considered, Ms. Quindlen said. The search committee, comprising trustees, faculty members, students, and alumnae, is now being formed.
Barnard College was founded in 1889 by a man, Frederick Barnard, though its presidents have always been female. Asked if the school would consider hiring a man to lead the school, Ms. Quindlen replied: "We're looking for the person who is the best fit for us, and I think I'll know her when I see her."
