Special Lecture Delivered by Barnard College President Debora Spar
- 작성처
- Date2011.12.16
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Special Lecture Delivered by Barnard College President Debora Spar
On December 6, 2011, Barnard President Debora Spar visited Ewha to deliver a lecture on the challenges facing women today. The lecture, titled “Great Expectations: Dreams of Sex, Choice, and Beauty at the Edge of the Feminist Era”, was based on research for a book that the President is currently working on, and detailed the difficulties modern women face in both the workplace and domestic life, as well as the pressures to conform to an unrealistic standard of beauty.
Although women have many more opportunities now than they had thirty years ago, President Spar suggested that modern day feminism has strayed from its original purpose of empowering women and harnessing that power for positivechange. Instead, said Pres. Spar, “generations are turning away from external and social goals and instead focusing on personal advancement”. Instead of focusing on making a difference in society, women focus on an impossible pursuit of internal perfection, which could, she says, be what hinders professional success as well as personal happiness.
In addition to the engaging lecture, President Spar and Mr. Bret Silver, Barnard’s Vice President for Development, spent the day at Ewha’s campus. They were welcomed by Ewha President Kim Sun-Uk and other top university administrators at a luncheon at the President’s residence as well as a VIP reception attended by prominent scholars and alumni with links to both Ewha and Barnard.
A highlight of President Spar’s visit was the opportunity to meet with Ewha students that had participated in Barnard’s Visiting International Student Program (VISP). The program allows Ewha students to take courses as full-time, non-credit earning students at both Barnard and Columbia University. Students spend a semester on the Barnard campus, paying only the university’s room and board and fully experiencing student life.
President Spar noted that the Ewha students participating in the program had done very well, and that the experience was valuable since being “exposed to as many students from as many different countries as possible [is] what they are going to need to function in the world”.