Board of Trustees Records

The Barnard College Board of Trustees is responsible for the governance of the College and manages its property, business and affairs. As of 2023, the Board’s bylaws require a minimum of 15 trustees and a maximum of 40, who each serve a four-year term with the possibility of reelection. Select trustees are elected to serve in corporate officer positions on the Board, including chairperson, vice chairpeople, secretary and treasurer. The presidents of Barnard and Columbia serve as ex-officio trustees. As of 2023, the Board consists of the following standing committees: the Executive Committee, the Committee on Budget and Finance, the Committee on Investments, the Committee on Governance, the Committee on Nominations, the Committee on Compensation, and the Committee on Audits and Compliance.

Barnard’s Board of Trustees was established in 1889, a year after the Trustees of Columbia University approved a memorial resolution, authored by Annie Nathan Meyer, for a women’s college affiliated with Columbia. Once Columbia trustees approved Barnard’s provisional charter, Meyer and her allies created a Board of Trustees that would be responsible for governing Barnard; some of the signatories of the memorial, including Meyer herself, were among the first trustees. Meyer enlisted the help of Ella Weed, a Vassar College graduate and influential educator of New York girls, to recruit powerful members of New York’s educated, white upper class to serve on Barnard’s Board, including Laura Spelman Rockefeller, George Plimpton, Henry van Dyke, Jacob Schiff, and Caroline Sterling Choate (McCaughey 2020; Meyer 1935). Barnard’s first Board of Trustees comprised 22 trustees, evenly divided between men and women, who oversaw Barnard’s opening in the fall of 1889, with Reverend Arthur Brooks serving as the Board’s first chairperson until his death in 1895 (McCaughey 2020; Meyer 1935). The official bylaws and charters of the Board and College were voted on in 1894; in 1899, the Board revised its statutes to allow for an alum-elected trustee (Mortarboard 1940). Early trustees tended to serve long terms: of the original trustees and the 31 trustees elected between 1890 to 1914, the average tenure was 18 years (McCaughey 2020). By 1956, the Board had a new term tenure structure in which trustees would serve seven-year terms with the possibility of one reelection ("A History of Barnard College" 1964).

One of the Board’s primary responsibilities is the financial administration of the College, including reviewing the budget presented by the Barnard President once a year and managing the investment and reinvestment of College funds (2023 Bylaws). Because the College only had an endowment fund of about $6,000 at the time of its founding, the early trustees faced significant financial challenges, particularly when the College moved from its original location, a townhouse on Madison Avenue, to Morningside Heights (McCaughey 2020; Dolkart 1998). By 1902, however, funds from John D. Rockefeller allowed for the creation of a large endowment fund, which alleviated the College’s early financial struggles (Dolkart 1998). Since then, trustees have leveraged their wealth and influence to secure funds and donations for expansions to Barnard’s campus and population, from new academic and residential buildings to the creation of scholarships, professorships, and departments.

The Board has played a crucial role in negotiating Barnard’s institutional relationship with Columbia by recommending and enacting amendments to intercorporate agreements regarding the faculty tenure process, shared facilities, and the financial obligations of each institution to the other. Other aspects of College governance that the Board has regularly addressed over the years include the College’s academic performance (particularly in comparison to Columbia’s), alum relations, and increasing Barnard’s endowment through its investment and development strategies.

In addition to routine matters of college governance, the Board has also exerted considerable influence over the College administration’s responses to student protests, discipline, and grievances sparked by local, national, and global events and cultural movements. During periods of increased student activism, Barnard students often sought dialogue with the Board regarding oppressive institutional policies. For instance, during the 1968 campus protests, Barnard trustee Iola Haverstick posted bond for several students who were arrested, and in 1970, a non-voting student representative joined the Board for the first time (McCaughey 2020). As the 20th century progressed, the Board gradually became comparatively more receptive to the opinions and demands of students and faculty related to social justice. For instance, due in part to campus protests against South African apartheid, the Board divested from South African businesses in 1993. From 1998 to 2003, financial consultant Gayle Robinson chaired the Board, making her the first Black woman to lead an elite college board (McCaughey 2020). By the turn of the 21st century, the Board increased its attention toward racial and cultural diversity initiatives on campus.

Sources:
Barnard College Mortarboard, 1940. Barnard Digital Collections. https://digitalcollections.barnard.edu/do/48ac1d71-19d5-4be3-acf2-301a6ff6c265#page/70/mode/2up/search/trustee.
Barnard College, A History of Barnard College, 1964.
Board of Trustees Records (BC01.01). Barnard Archives and Special Collections, Barnard Library, Barnard College.
Dolkart, Andrew, Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture and Development. Columbia University Press, New York: 1998.
Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s. University of Massachusetts Press: 1993.
McCaughey, Robert. A College of Her Own. Columbia University Press, New York: 2020.
Meyer, Annie Nathan, Barnard Beginnings, Houghton Mifflin, 1935.