Introduction

What are administrative records?

The Barnard College Archives and Special Collections are charged with collecting, appraising, preserving, and making accessible materials that document life at Barnard College, as well as broader feminist histories.

A large portion of the collections stewarded by the Barnard Archives are considered institutional records: materials that were produced by Barnard’s administrative offices, academic departments, faculty and staff members, students, and alums.

This lesson plan focuses strongly on administrative records: materials that were primarily created by the governing bodies and offices that are responsible for the large-scale management of Barnard College. Higher education administrators are generally considered to include those people and groups who have the most decision-making power about the institution’s finances, human resources, and policies.

Major administrative record collections at the Barnard Archives include:

• BC01.01: Board of Trustees Records
• BC03: Buildings and Grounds
• BC05-01: Dean’s Office
• BC05-02: Barnard College Office of Admissions
• BC05-06: Office of Provost and Dean of Faculty
• BC05-11: Office of General Counsel
• BC05-15: Deans’ Office for Advising & Support Records
• BC05-22: President’s Office Records

Why focus on administrative records for researching divestment, dissent, and discipline?

Administrative records are essential to documenting any institution’s history because they can illustrate and reveal the perspectives, strategies, and priorities of those whose decisions have profound impacts not only on the institution’s internal community, but also on the institution’s public reputation, financial state, and business relationships. Barnard’s administrative history and structures are unique in that they have always been intertwined with Columbia University.

Even when administrators attempt to improve the transparency and democratic nature of their decision-making, the larger institutional community may not always be able to access the details of the conversations or procedures leading to those decisions. Additionally, the specific opinions and impacts of individual actors may be obscured when policies are attributed to a group or office in the abstract. Records that are preserved in the archive may shed light on information and influences behind decisions that were not disclosed at the time, whether deliberately or not.