Office of General Counsel, 1968-2024, bulk 1980-2002

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Collection context

Creator:
Barnard College. Office of General Counsel and UAW Local 2110
Abstract:
This collection consists of the files of the Office of General Counsel, dating from 1968 to 2024, with the bulk of the materials produced between 1980 and 2002. The collection includes real estate transactions and real estate tax assessments. The materials also cover key moments of tension between the College and the surrounding community, including tenant harassment complaints, as well as conflicts between the College and its employees, including negotiations with the Barnard clerical workers' union (District 65/UAW 2110) and the College's preparation for and responses to the union's strikes, which were supported by students. The collection also includes research and memoranda about various campus issues, including the admission and inclusion of transgender students at Barnard.
Extent:
3.33 Linear Feet (8 boxes) and 0.038 Gigabytes (17 files)
Language:
English .
Scope and content:

There is significant correspondence with union representatives from UAW 2110/District 65 as the union tried to negotiate contracts with the College. The materials include memos, correspondence, notes, strike contingency plans, opinions of counsel, agreements, mortgages, and research files. The collection also includes digital copies, in PDF format, of various policies and codes of conduct that OGC has produced since around 2011.

Biographical / historical:

Reporting directly to the president, the Barnard College General Counsel is the chief legal officer of the College and serves as legal counsel to the President and Board of Trustees (Barnard.edu/generalcounsel). The Office of the General Counsel (OGC) ensures that the College is compliant with federal, state and local laws and regulations, along with other responsibilities. The General Counsel reports directly to the President of the College (Barnard.edu/generalcounsel). Barnard's first General Counsel was appointed in the early 1980s, though the office may have been called the Office of the General Secretary before it became OGC (Barnard Bulletin, February 3, 1995; Smith College).

OGC is responsible for negotiating contracts with the four unions representing Barnard employees. This includes the Transport Workers Union (TWU), which represents Barnard's security, housekeeping and maintenance workers, and United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2110 (formerly District 65), which represents the College's clerical workers (Columbia Spectator, October 24, 1985).

In 1985, OGC developed Barnard's first formal maternity leave policy for faculty (Columbia Spectator, March 20, 1985). In 1988, the General Counsel was named a vice president of the College and took over some of the responsibilities of the Vice President for Student Affairs, including supervision of Barnard Health Services, student residential life, Barnard Food Services, commuter concerns, and other college activities (Columbia Spectator, January 26, 1988). OGC was also responsible for negotiations of the intercorporate agreement of the College with Columbia University (Columbia Spectator, January 26, 1988).From 1993 to 1994, General Counsel Kathryn J. Rodgers briefly served as interim president of the College (Columbia Spectator, November 15, 1993).

After Rodgers's departure in 1995, the role was restructured so that the Office of Health Services, the Office of College Activities, and Food Services were supervised by the Dean of the College and the Dean of Student Life (Columbia Spectator, January 17, 1995). At the time, OGC's responsibilities included working with the College's bylaws and the Board of Trustees; finance and administration, including doing tax assessments; issues with the bursar, including collection matters and student bankruptcies; facilities, including vendor and construction contacts; and personnel, including labor contract negotiations and grievances. In December 1995, when Local 2110's contract expired, a breakdown of negotiations led to one of the longest strikes in a university setting, which lasted through the spring and fall semesters of 1996 (Columbia Spectator, January 21, 1999).

In 2023, OGC was responsible for negotiations with the newly-formed Barnard RA Union (Columbia Spectator, October 23, 2023). As of June 2024, the Office of Nondiscrimination and Title IX now reports to OGC (Bwog, June 15, 2024). OGC also produces codes of conduct and policies for the student body, faculty and staff of the College, including rules about postings, political activity, and campus demonstrations. These policies have come into greater focus in light of the 2024 student protests against the genocide in Gaza.

Sources:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230922085821/https://barnard.edu/general-counsel
https://web.archive.org/web/20241106155335/https://garden.smith.edu/people/kathy-rodgers-70
https://web.archive.org/web/20230601090212/https://barnard.edu/human-resources/twu-local-264-faq
https://web.archive.org/web/20230601090212/https://digitalcollections.barnard.edu
https://web.archive.org/web/20241106155747/https://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu//
https://web.archive.org/web/20240617124446/https://bwog.com/2024/06/barnard-announces-senior-staff-member-turnover-and-administrative-structural-changes/

Access and use

Restrictions:

Personnel records of faculty and staff (including search, tenure/promotion, and disciplinary/grievance records) are restricted for 75 years from date of creation. Three folders contain private arbitration involving explicitly named personnel, and are marked as restricted; this restriction will be lifted in 2064. One folder contains disciplinary letters sent to employees and is marked as restricted; this restriction will be lifted in 2071.

Terms of access:

Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the Barnard Archives and Special Collections. The Barnard Archives and Special Collections approves permission to publish that which it physically owns; the responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron. Copyright for the materials generated by the Barnard Office of General Counsel is owned by Barnard; copyright for third-party materials is not owned by Barnard, unless work for hire of outside counsel.

Single photocopies or scans may be made for research purposes, except for documents in Series 1, Folders 1-6 (Tenant Harasssment Complaints) which cannot be reproduced in order to protect the identities and addresses of tenants.

Preferred citation:

Office of General Counsel Collection, 1968 - 2024; Barnard Archives and Special Collections, Barnard Library, Barnard College.

Location of this collection:
Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning 423
Barnard College
3009 Broadway
New York, NY 10027, USA
Before you visit:
Please contact archives@barnard.edu with research requests or to schedule a visit; see our website for more information.
Contact:
archives@barnard.edu