Martha Peterson, 1967 - 1978

Martha Peterson became Barnard’s third president in 1967, chosen at a moment when the college sought pragmatic, student-focused leadership amid growing unrest. Her background in public education and student affairs marked a shift from previous presidents and appealed to trustees seeking institutional steadiness. Known for her administrative skill and developmental approach to student life, Peterson had served as Dean of Women at Kansas and Wisconsin, where she earned a doctorate in educational psychology. At 51, she was the oldest president appointed to date and the first from a Midwestern state school, a distinctive choice for Barnard. Her presidency would be defined by the very tensions she was brought in to manage: student protest, generational divide, and shifting institutional authority.

Peterson's arrival coincided with a period of widespread political unrest on college campuses. In spring 1968, Columbia University became the epicenter of one of the most significant student uprisings in the United States. Columbia students protested the proposed construction of a segregated gymnasium in Morningside Park, a project decried as racist and exclusionary by Harlem residents, and the university’s involvement in military research tied to the Vietnam War. Peterson's presidency began amid intense political unrest. Over 110 Barnard students were arrested on April 30th 1986, the day after Peterson’s inauguration. She responded by assuring the public that Barnard students would not be held overnight or required to post bail, a move that sought to deescalate tensions while preserving the college’s public image.

Political unrest continued throughout Peterson’s tenure. In May 1970, Barnard students joined the National Student Strike against the Vietnam War. Organized by the Barnard Strike Coalition, the strike articulated three demands: an end to political repression, an end to the war in Vietnam, and a cessation of university-affiliated war research. Within this movement, Barnard students published the “Women’s Liberation Position Paper” as part of Why We Strike, criticizing the discretionary use of disciplinary policy to suppress political dissent and calling attention to double standards in administrative responses to activism. Faculty participation in student organizing also came under scrutiny during this time. Kate Millett, then a professor of English and Philosophy, wrote a critical piece in the Barnard Bulletin denouncing state repression of student speech. Her later dismissal from Barnard was widely understood as retaliation for her political involvement, further illustrating the limits of academic freedom under Peterson’s tenure. While Peterson positioned herself as an administrator open to dialogue, organizing town halls and affirming the right to protest, she ultimately viewed the era’s activism as destabilizing, a stance that would define the limits of her leadership.

Nowhere was this clearer than in the LeClair Affair of 1968. When Barnard sophomore Linda LeClair admitted in a New York Times article that she was living with her boyfriend off-campus, the administration suspended her for violating housing regulations. The decision, backed by Peterson, sparked intense student and faculty backlash. Protesters condemned the move as a punitive response to a student’s sexual autonomy, emblematic of the institution’s gendered double standards and investment in outdated moral paternalism. Peterson defended the suspension as a matter of policy enforcement, but the episode laid bare the gap between administrative liberalism and the demands of a student body increasingly unwilling to accept regulation cloaked in the language of care. By the fall of 1968, Peterson responded to sustained pressure by opening Plimpton Hall, significantly expanding dormitory space, and permitting off-campus living with parental approval.

Peterson’s presidency also witnessed important shifts in the campus’s racial and intellectual landscape. In February 1969, the newly-formed Barnard Organization of Soul Sisters (B.O.S.S.) issued ten demands to the administration, including the appointment of Black faculty and access to dedicated student space. Within the semester, the college granted B.O.S.S. provisional lounge and office space in Reid Hall and announced the hiring of three Black faculty for the fall. While Peterson did not initiate these changes, her administration was responsive to sustained organizing, even as she avoided identifying herself with the politics driving it. Curricularly, Peterson’s tenure preceded the formal establishment of a Women’s Studies program, but by 1971, Barnard had begun offering more courses in response to mounting student demand. That same year, students and faculty also founded the Women’s Center, later renamed the Barnard Center for Research on Women, marking a key institutional commitment to feminist scholarship and organizing.

Peterson spearheaded negotiations to formalize Barnard’s institutional relationship with Columbia, resulting in unrestricted cross-registration and a structured financial arrangement for Barnard’s use of Columbia’s facilities. These developments offered students expanded academic opportunities and brought long-needed clarity to the administrative and fiscal terms between the two institutions. The revised agreements marked a significant shift in inter-institutional policy and positioned Peterson as a key architect of Barnard’s modern relationship with Columbia. Yet these moves also heightened anxieties among faculty and trustees who viewed the increasingly codified ties to Columbia as a potential erosion of Barnard’s independence.

By 1973, criticism of Peterson’s leadership had sharpened. Eleanor Elliott, newly elected to the Board of Trustees, viewed Peterson’s administration as overly accommodating to Columbia and lacking institutional assertiveness. Aligning with dissenting members of the History Department, Elliott was appointed board chair in 1974 and quickly pressured Peterson to begin searching for another position. Despite broad faculty support and backing from Columbia’s president and several trustees, Peterson announced her resignation in spring 1975.Peterson’s presidency was defined by an effort to manage disruption without confronting the structures that produced it. Her emphasis on procedural order over political vision left her increasingly out of step with a campus undergoing ideological transformation.