<p>"At least columbia girls have class and dont stoop to their levels."</p>
<p>One could argue that they're the source of the problem, since they're the ones who feel threatened and shortchanged by the inclusion- after all, they figure, THEY got into 'Columbia' and get defensive about it. </p>
<p>"I hate THIS DOUBLE STANDARD...its fine if every freaking Barnard girl joins an anti-columbia facebook group but if a Columbia girl joins an anti-barnard facebook group its such a big deal."</p>
<p>Actually they'll just say that Columbia started the barnard hating first.</p>
<p>People: There's no winning this arguement, and it's not worth even getting into it. It's like trying to argue Israel-Palestine, only worse because it involves gender!</p>
<p>But hell, since I'm already here I may as well throw in my two bits.</p>
<p>1) Barnard is an independent college affiliated with Columbia University through an intercorporate agreement between the two institutions. I'll expand on this later.</p>
<p>2) For all intents and purposes, CC SEAS and BC students are all part of the 'greater columbia undergraduate community' you might say. Cross-registration is nearly transparent from the columbia side- Barnard courses are listed in the CU directory of classes, so theres plenty of shared classes, except for core requirements at both schools. You'll all go out to the same bars, the same parties. While Barnard has it's own housing, theres an arrangement between the schools allowing an exchange of students so that you can form mixed suites at both schools. You cannot swipe into eachothers dorms though (i.e. a Columbia student living in Carman cant get into the barnard quad, and vice versa) you have to be signed in as visitors (stems from having two different administrations.) Despite all kinds of little bureaucratic affiliations involved, theres basically one huge set of student organizations between the two schools- you'll be sharing the same extracurriculars. So, socially you're one student body. Academically you'll have a lot of overlap as well.</p>
<p>3) Nitty gritty details. Barnard has its own trustees, own administration, etc. etc. It has its own faculty for the most part as well. There are some overlapping sticky tenure issues I'm not wholly familiar with. The agreement allows both schools to be judicious with space and resources. While larger general departments tend to overlap, (history english etc.) other departments are split up or shared. Theatre and Urban Studies are at Barnard, Architecture is a joint department etc. For the larger departments it's really just one big pool- I'm a history major and I've taken courses with 'both' departments.</p>
<p>4) Here's what makes columbia and barnards relationship different from being like any other two independent but close schools (MIT and Harvard offer cross registration etc.)- 1) as part of the intercorporate agreement, Barnard students get degrees issued from the Trustees of Columbia University, same as columbia students, theirs' just say Barnard College on them. This is something Trolls love to hang their hats on (some of you may of encountered Byerly and his constant wondering out loud about USNWR), and that people who want to incite an arguement will throw out. But dems the breaks. Some would argue that this is a double standard since Barnard loves to play it both ways- how close they are to Columbia but how independent they are (Barnard his been known to get hissy when someone says just 'Columbia' instead of 'Columbia-Barnard' when both schools are involved. You might wonder why Columbia doesn't cut this extra benefit off, but they get something out of this too. Columbia gets to grandfather in all the women who graduated from Barnard before columbia college went co-ed in 1983 as Columbia Alum- from Zora Neale Hurston to Margaret Meade. And can continue to include them among University alumni. 2) Columbia and Barnard have an athletic consortium with the NCAA, one of three in the nation and the only one in Div I, allowing students from both schools to play under Columbia Athletics as 'Columbia'. There is no Barnard Varsity athletics taht was merged into Columbia in 1983- barnard students play for Columbia teams now. If you want to take this to its logical conclusion, that means at least those barnard athletes are Ivy leaguers since they play in the conference (which is all the IL is) ;). Of course this is additional Troll material- Barnard is a backdoor allowing columbia to sneak in more athleres etc. etc. Just tune them out at this point.</p>
<p>The closest comparison for Columbia Barnard are the Claremont Colleges in california. Look 'em up. That's it, I'm done. If anyone starts me on e-mail addresses I will hang you by the strings of your own obsesion with minutiae.</p>