Committee on Instruction Records

The Barnard College Committee on Instruction (COI), formerly known as the Barnard Committee of Curriculum and Scheme of Attendance, began meeting in March of 1900. The committee was organized by Seth Low, President of Columbia College, and consisted of Barnard and Columbia administrative and faculty members. Initially, faculty spent most of the meetings discussing students with entrance conditions in addition to overseeing the departments and their courses. Later COI meetings addressed a variety of educational issues. The current Committee on Instruction is (as of the writing of this finding aid in 2024) mainly reviews and approves new courses, including changes to the General Education Requirements (GER). Barnard College has four GER foci: two First-Year Foundations courses (First-Year Writing and First-Year Seminar), a physical education course, Distributional Requirements, and Modes of Thinking. Additionally, The Committee on Instruction is Barnard’s principal formulator of educational policy. It provides advice to the Office of Admissions on academic matters having to do with admissions policy and practice, including the development of recruitment strategies and priorities, the use of standardized test scores, and the evaluation of student outcomes.

In recent years, the COI has considered matters ranging from major modifications to the curriculum, such as changing the General Education Requirements, to the application of the Barnard Honor Code in the classroom, to whether or not to grant a GER designation request for a particular course. Programs such as Senior Scholar, Scholars of Distinction (previously known as Centennial Scholars), the Writing Center, First Year Seminar, and the Experimental College were established under the Committee on Instruction. COI is chaired by the Associate Provost. In addition to the chair, the committee consists of two faculty members from each of the four faculty voting groups, the Dean of the College, the Dean of Students, and the Registrar. A maximum of four students sit on the COI at any one time: the Academic Affairs Representative, who is elected by the members of the SGA for a one year term, and three appointed students, who serve two-year terms.