Name: Columbia University will remove name of slave-owning doctor from dorms
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Columbia University will remove name of slave-owning doctor from dorms

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&nbsp;Monday, Aug 31st 2020| 28 Columbia University is taking the name of its medical school's founder off of a campus dormitory because he owned slaves and once advertised a reward for the return of one who ran away.&nbsp;The Bard Hall building located on Haven Avenue in New York, which is home to clinical students studying at Irving Medical Center, was named after Samuel Bard when it opened in 1931.&nbsp;Columbia President Lee Bollinger told students and faculty in a letter on Friday that it will be rechristened 'with a name that represents our University's values.'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bollinger said a panel assembled in June to study campus names and symbols associated with race and racism unanimously recommended that Bard Hall be renamed.&nbsp; Bard, who lived from 1742 to 1821, was a pioneer in obstetrics, helped develop a treatment for diphtheria and served as the personal physician to President George Washington.&nbsp;In 1767, he founded what is now known as Columbia's Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.&nbsp;In 1776, he placed an advertisement in the New York Gazette offering a $10 reward for the return of a tall, thin and talkative slave named James who was believed to have fled toward the East End of Long Island.Bard owned three people as slaves, according to the 1790 census.&nbsp;A says he owned eight slaves in the 19th century.&nbsp;Bollinger had asked asked Interim Provost Ira Katznelson to lead discussions about racial symbols.He said that the university was not erasing Samuel Bard's contributions to the school 'but we must not recall this history without also recognizing the reason for our decision to rename Bard Hall.''We all understand how careful we need to be in shaping the environment, symbolic as well as physical, in which we ask our students to live and to call home,' Bollinger wrote in the letter announcing the change.Excising Bard's name from the dormitory felt 'especially vivid' at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, he wrote, 'where the contradiction between the egalitarian health service norms they cherish and slavery's denial of full human standing is starkly blatant and offensive.'&nbsp; Dr. Raymond Givens, a cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at Columbia, told that he has wanted the name changed for some years.&nbsp;'On the one hand it was a point of pride to be able to give my son that type of headstart in life,' Givens, who is Black, said. 'But knowing that I was dropping him off every day in a building named for somebody who would have seen him as property was kind of a heavy feeling.'&nbsp;He started a &nbsp;months ago after the killing of George Floyd.&nbsp;'Names matter,' Dr. Givens told the . 'When people protest these police killings, the chant is, "Say their names".'&nbsp;Last month, Columbia's Teachers College announced it was removing psychologist Edward Thorndike's name from a campus building because he was a proponent of eugenics and expressed racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic views.&nbsp;Bard's grandson, John Bard, founded Bard College north of New York City.&nbsp;&nbsp;Share what you thinkThe comments below have been moderated in advance.The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.Post comment to your Facebook TimelineBy posting your comment you agree to our .Submit CommentClearDo you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline?Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual.&nbsp;NoYesDo you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline?Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usualWe will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook.You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our .Published by Associated Newspapers LtdPart of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday &amp; Metro Media Group&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;Monday, Aug 31st 2020| 28 Columbia University is taking the name of its medical school's founder off of a campus dormitory because he owned slaves and once advertised a reward for the return of one who ran away.&nbsp;The Bard Hall building located on Haven Avenue in New York, which is home to clinical students studying at Irving Medical Center, was named after Samuel Bard when it opened in 1931.&nbsp;Columbia President Lee Bollinger told students and faculty in a letter on Friday that it will be rechristened 'with a name that represents our University's...

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Columbia University will remove name of slave-owning doctor from dorms

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