The Athena Center Collection

Collection

Identifier: BC13-52

Staff View

Collection Scope and Content Summary

The Athena Center Collection consists of the program’s publicity materials from its founding in 2009, and student projects from The Athena Scholars Program. The collection also includes materials that predate the creation of the Athena Center and relate to predecessors such as the Barnard Leadership Initiative.

Publicity materials consist of posters, flyers, press booklets, event recordings, and programs that highlight the vast array of events and programming that the Athena Center for Leadership Studies organized. The publicity materials also include digital images taken by the Office of Communications at Barnard at Athena Center events.

Additionally, the collection contains a CD that houses a recording of a talk "Becoming Financially Fluent: The Ascent of Money," and a DVD titled "Global Shorts," which is a project of the Athena Film Festival.

Dates

Creation: 2007-2024, undated

Creator

Athena Center (Organization)

Access

Some materials within this collection are restricted: material pertaining to individual student records is restricted for 75 years from the date of creation, in accordance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

Reproductions Restrictions

Reproductions may be made for research purposes.

Publication Rights

No permission is required for reproductions of materials in the public domain or uses that fall within fair use exemptions to copyright as defined under U.S. Copyright Law.

Barnard College retains copyright of materials created as part of its business operations. To request permission to reproduce these types of materials, please contact us at archives@barnard.edu.

This collection may also contain materials created by others, for which copyright is not held by the College. In order to reproduce these materials, permission from the Archives is not required, but it is researchers' responsibility to determine and obtain any necessary permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or other rights.

Please see our Reproductions, Copyright, and Citing Archives page for more information and contact us at archives@barnard.edu with any questions.

Historical Background

The Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College was founded in the fall of 2009 by Kathryn Kolbert, as a special initiative of Barnard College’s president, Debora Spar. The Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College works to challenge cultural stereotypes of leaders, create and promote innovative approaches to leadership development, and educate, promote, and encourage Barnard College students, and young women generally, to leadership roles. Specifically, the Athena Center for Leadership Studies offers educational programs for current Barnard students, public programming for the Barnard community, and develops initiatives to encourage young women leaders, at the high school and undergraduate level.

Some of these initiatives have included or include: the Athena Film Festival, which has partnered with Women and Hollywood and UN Women; the Athena Scholars Program and Leadership Labs for current Barnard Students; Power Talks, which are TEDx Barnard; and mentoring and workshops. The Athena Center publishes a journal of undergraduate and recent graduate scholarship, with articles relating to the theme of women and leadership.

Following Kathyn Kolbert's retirement in 2018, Umbreen Bhatti (Barnard class of 2000) joined the Center as director from 2019-2025.

Extent

5.01 Linear Feet (7 full-sized document boxes, 1 oversized box, and 2 half sized document boxes)

37.20 Gigabytes (648 digital images (.jpg), 14 video files)

Language

English

Additional Description

Abstract

This collection consists of publicity and promotional material, and student projects and posters from the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College.

Collection Arrangement

The transferred disk images are arranged chronolgoically under Digital photographs, 2007-2010, undated. The transferred CDs, as part of the processing work done by Archives staff, were intellectually reorganized to allow the digital materials to be easily integrated into a single system of arrangement.

The archivsit arranged this collection into the following two series and within the series, the materials are arranged chonologically:
Series 1, Publicity and Promotional Materials, 2009 - 2014
Series 2, Social Action Research Projects and Student Work, 2010 - 2014

Physical Location

This collection is located in the Barnard Archives and Special Collections, Barnard Library. To use this collection, please contact the Barnard Archives and Special Collections at 212.854.4079 or archives@barnard.edu.

Acquisition Information

Portions of the Athena Center Collection were transferred to the archives in 2013 and 2014 from the Athena Center. The digital images were transferred from the Office of Communications records in 2018. Event recordings transferred from Instructional Media and Technology Services (IMATS) in 2025.

Accruals

Additions are expected.

Processing History

This collection was processed by Dinah Handel, in October 2014. Student associates transferred and described the imaged disks in 2018. Olivia Newsome integrated the digital materials into the finding aid in November 2023. In September 2025, Olivia Newsome processed a small digital accural, intellectually re-arranged the finding aid, and updated the description.