Barnard College Holds TEDxBarnardCollegeWomen Event

As a Trustee of Barnard College, Dan Zwirn has been a supporter of Barnard education and events.

Barnard recently held an event on campus known as TEDxBarnardCollegeWomen. The event brought together entrepreneurs, artists and innovators for a series of talks on re-imagining leadership. TED is an organization that operates under the mission of "Ideas Worth Spreading." TED talks originally brought people together from three areas: technology, entertainment and design. It has since expanded its subject matter to broader topics.

TEDxBarnardCollegeWomen was one of 150 TedxWomen events held the weekend of December 1. The TEDxWomen2012 event was held in Washington, D.C. and live-streamed to the Barnard event, which was organized and held by the Athena Center for Leadership Studies.

Barnard President Debora Spar kicked off the event at Barnard by asking what skills women need in leadership. Ten speakers, who were leaders in their fields, followed by answering that question in 15-minute presentations covering the Athena Center's Core10.

Among the speakers were Christa Bell, a feminist theater and performance artist with a poetry-slam championship. She started the series talking about inspiration - the motivating and nurturing of people.

Google statistician, Rachel Schutt, followed Bell explaining advocacy: speaking up for yourself and on behalf of others.

Isisara Bey, the founder of Journey Agent Productions and vice president of programs for Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence, went next, speaking about vision; the development of strategies, decision making and acting with a purpose.

Karen Washington, founder of Black Urban Growers, discussed leverage - optimizing your networks.

Jennifer Gilbert founded her own party planning company and had insight into entrepreneurial spirit - being innovative, imaginative, persistent and willing to change.

Linda Kay Klein spoke of negotiation, which is bridging differences and finding solutions that work effectively for all parties.

Actor/director/playwright, Melissa Maxwell, discussed courage: the willingness to experiment, taking bold and strategic risks.

The remaining topics covered the rest of the Core10:

• Ambition - Owning your power, expertise and value
• Communication - Active listening, speaking persuasively with authority
• Resilience - Learn from adversity and failure, bounce back

The day was capped by a live stream video of social strategist and author, John Gerzema. He asserted that 2/3rds of men and women in his studies thought the world would be better if men thought more like women; this brought cheers from the audience (Huffington Post).