Barnard College, officially titled as Barnard College, Columbia University, is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia University's trustees to create an affiliated college named after Columbia's then-recently deceased 10th president, Frederick A. P. Barnard. The college is one of the original Seven Sisters—seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that were historically women's colleges.
Barnard College and Columbia University have a historic relationship that’s unique in American higher education. Students share academic resources along with extracurricular activities, athletic fields, and even dining halls.
Barnard is both an independently accredited and incorporated educational institution as well as an official college of Columbia University—a combination that simultaneously affords it self-determination and a rich, value-enhancing partnership.
