Students and faculty condemn Barnard’s ‘pausing’ of Slavic department as sole faculty member’s contract ends

“Nobody thinks that this is a good idea,” said Ava Lyon-Sereno (BC ’26), whose petition supporting Professor John Wright and Barnard’s Slavic department has received over 800 signatures as of April 25.

Photo by Haley Scull/The Barnard Bulletin

By Ava Glicksberg and Jaya Shankar

April 25, 2026

Since 2023, Professor John Wright has been the sole faculty member of Barnard’s Slavic department. After starting at the College as a part-time professor in 2022, Professor Wright was hired in 2023 on a one-year Term Assistant Professor contract, which was renewed for the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 academic years. 

In February, Laurie Postlewate, Acting Chair of the Slavic department, informed Wright that his contract would not be renewed for the 2026-2027 academic year.

“It was just announced. That’s it. There isn’t any kind of negotiation or process or talking about anything,” Wright told The Barnard Bulletin. “I don’t…have any reason to expect that there will be anyone in this position — or in a similar position — [at] Barnard in the fall.”

The College has not announced plans to hire new faculty for the Slavic department. 

Professor Wright has taught several Slavic courses at Barnard, including Literature and Empire, Dreaming Empire: Britain & Russia in the 19th Century, and Women Writers of Eastern Europe — the latter two of which he developed — along with the First-Year Seminar course Emigre Voices, and senior research seminars. 

“To clarify, the Slavic Studies Department is not closing,” a Barnard spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Bulletin. “The College is pausing courses in Slavic literature and reviewing our curricular needs. The term faculty member in Slavic at Barnard taught only one required course for Slavic in the past year, and there were no Barnard students enrolled.” 

The spokesperson informed The Bulletin that no Barnard students were enrolled in the Slavic senior seminar in Fall 2025. According to Columbia University’s Directory of Classes, the Literature and Empire course, a requirement for the Slavic department’s major in Russian Language and Literature, had 37 students enrolled during the Fall 2025 semester. 

“The College continuously reviews course enrollment and student interest to make sure we offer the strongest possible academic experience for our students,” the spokesperson stated. “As is standard when a course or department is under enrolled, we are assessing student need and ways to support student interest going forward.”

“I really do love working with the students,” said Professor Wright. “Someone in a teaching position has a lot of opportunities to interact with many people who choose to be students at this college, as well as at the other … colleges across the street. And someone is being deleted from their role in that community.”

Student and faculty responses

Barnard students and faculty have expressed their disapproval of the College’s decision to not renew Professor Wright’s contract. On April 15, when Ava Lyon-Sereno (BC ’26) learned that Professor Wright’s contract would not be renewed, she and Clara Neilson-Papish (BC ’28) created an online petition and a Google form to collect signatures and testimonials in support of Professor Wright and the Slavic department. As of April 25, the petition has received over 800 signatures.

Photo by Vernon Demir/The Barnard Bulletin

“He’s one of the best, if not the best, professors I’ve had … at Barnard,” said Lyon-Sereno, who took Professor Wright’s Literature and Empire course in the fall of 2025. 

“Our goal is to have Barnard offer [Professor Wright] a permanent faculty position,” stated Neilson-Papish. “I’m hoping that meeting with administration [and] showing the support … will sway them, because I feel like he is an integral piece of this campus, a piece of this community.” 

“I think that advocating for him to have … an actual faculty position is not some utopian idea.” added Lyon-Sereno. “I think that’s a very practical ask.”

On April 17, Barnard’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released a statement titled “On the Non-Renewal and Elimination of Term Faculty Positions and the Apparent Closure of the Slavic Department at Barnard College.” 

“This is but one of several examples of the College solving budgetary problems … on the backs of faculty members and the academic departments and programs of the College,” the AAUP wrote. “We strenuously object to any administrative process or action that results in the suspension or closure of an academic department at the College without substantive and inclusive consultation with the Barnard faculty.”

The statement referenced President Laura Rosenbury’s message that Barnard would not be “reducing faculty positions or instructional service” following the layoffs of 77 College staff members in July of 2025. 

“The removal of productive and highly effective instructional faculty, whether by layoff or by nonrenewal, has a deleterious impact on the College’s academic mission and violates the spirit of President Rosenbury’s priorities as she expressed them to the faculty in the summer of 2025,” continued the statement. 

When asked to comment on the student petition and community reaction, Professor Wright wrote in a statement to The Bulletin, “It’s felt like a storm of support so sincere and powerful as to be almost beyond my grasp … It’s an honor for me that students are speaking up for my work, and it’s good that students are speaking up for their rights.”

Comments from colleagues of Wright, alumni

Barnard and Columbia alumni, along with faculty at other institutions, have also expressed their support for Professor Wright in written testimonials, petition signatures, and public comments.

“Like all of my Slavic Studies colleagues and countless other faculty members of various disciplines nationwide, I am appalled by the termination of John Wright’s teaching position,” Professor Ainsley Morse, Associate Professor of Comparative Slavic Literatures at the University of California San Diego, wrote in a statement to The Bulletin. “By this action, Barnard College is systematically decreasing the value of the education it offers.”

Morse continued, “At a political moment in the US when individual courage and resistance to idiocy is perhaps more crucial than ever before, I strongly encourage a reconsideration of this venal and wrongheaded decision.”

Margarita Eremeyev (SEAS ’09) wrote to The Bulletin, “I took a class with Professor Wright to fulfill an elective requirement and it was the most fortuitous choice of my entire academic career. ... I cannot believe that Barnard is willing to terminate such a brilliant scholar and dedicated mentor.” 

“This move deprives students of a remarkable lecturer and research advisor,” wrote Regina Fox (GS ’26). “I’m a native Russian speaker who came into his classes with prior academic and professional experience in the field, and I still learn something new in every session.”

Changing language offerings

Professor Wright and other Barnard community members expressed concern about future course availability in light of the College’s decision to require first-years to take a majority of their Foundations curriculum courses at Barnard.

“There will be no courses at Barnard for people who want to — in their first year, or for their Foundations [requirements] — take something like this,” said Wright. “For some people, this is an introduction to literature at college, not just an introduction to Russian or Slavic stuff. There won’t be anything like that.” 

“The idea that [first-years’] options are being reduced … is very, very upsetting,” stated Lyon-Sereno. “I and so many students have had such incredible experiences in [Professor Wright’s] classes. The idea that other students wouldn’t get that is really devastating.”

“Barnard’s Foundations curriculum provides robust offerings to ensure our first year students are adept at thinking critically, interpreting information and communicating their ideas,” a Barnard spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Bulletin.”Our language offerings are and will continue to be a core feature of this program.” 

All four majors offered by the Barnard Slavic department require at least three years of language instruction and at least two literature courses in the region relevant to the student’s study. Courses in Slavic languages are only offered at Columbia College. 

“Barnard students wishing to study the Russian language, including first-year students, have for a long time taken those courses at Columbia, and nothing will change about that arrangement,” the spokesperson wrote. “We look forward to working with cognate departments at Barnard and our colleagues at Columbia to support interest in Slavic literatures and cultures.”

Future of the liberal arts at Barnard

Following the non-renewal of Wright’s contract, members of the Barnard community have questioned Barnard’s commitment to its mission to “provide the highest-quality liberal arts education.”

“Regardless of my position … it seems to me that at a liberal arts college, what the students are paying for — which is to come to college and take courses — should be the ‘number one thing’ at the institution,” Wright stated. “Without that, what are you doing?”

The AAUP highlighted similar concerns in their statement.

“We question the College’s priorities: why the unjustified and significant increase in senior administrative positions at the same time that critical faculty positions are being eliminated?” the AAUP wrote. “Who, after all, best serves the core liberal arts mission of the College, if not those who actually educate our students?” 

“I feel like you see this happening at other schools, where they’re just kind of closing down the humanities departments. But I didn’t think it would happen at Barnard, and I’m really disappointed it did,” said Neilson-Papish. “I don’t think you can pride yourself on having a liberal arts experience when you’re closing down these departments.”

“[Students] invest their irreplaceable time in relationships with faculty, and they pay the institution money to guard that investment,” wrote Wright. “When representatives of the institution discard a faculty member like trash, they are violating the students’ trust by discarding also the time that no power on earth — not even the power of money — can ever give back to the students.”