Barnard College has a new president -- Barnard announced on Tuesday that Debora Spar, a senior associate dean at Harvard University Business School has appointed as its eleventh president.

On Tuesday morning, the Barnard Board of Trustees announced the selection of the college’s 11th President, Debora Spar. Spar is the Spangler Family Professor and has been Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development at the Harvard Business School. Anna Quindlen, Chair of the Board of Trustees and award-winning author, introduced Spar and her family to the Barnard community at a reception held Tuesday night for students, faculty, alumni, and community members.

A charismatic intellectual deeply committed to the value of single-sex education for women.

Though Spar has had no previous association with the University, Quidlen is confident that she is ready for the challenge of being its President, and Spar says she is excited to be working at a women’s college.

She has such a powerful feeling about the need to support women, something that she’s done throughout the years at Harvard business school, and also about the importance of the liberal arts throughout the curriculum, that in a very short period of time we had no concerns about that at all.

It is a different world for women still than it is for men, and there’s a different set of challenges and a different set of obstacles, and that’s what drove me to want to be at a place where I could concentrate more of my energy on thinking about those kinds of problems and issues and opportunities.

Spar says she is excited to begin meeting the students and learning more about the school.

I’m so excited to be here; I think this is a phenomenal place, both Barnard and Columbia. I would really want students to feel comfortable reaching out to me, shooting me an email, letting me know what their concerns are, and I look forward to meeting as many students as I possibly can.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger also attended the reception, and added his congratulations and warm wishes.

I think Debora will be fantastic,; everything I’ve heard about her is that she’s really quite special, and we’re delighted to have her as part of the Columbia/Barnard Barnard/Columbia community. I’m really looking forward to working with her.

We'll have more on student reaction to the appointment of President-elect Spar at the end of the broadcast.