After Barnard Fire, Students Come Together To Support Those In Need

Upper West Side NY

22 October, 2021

11:51 AM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY ELIANA GOLDIN OCTOBER 21, 2021 When a fire broke out on the sixth floor of Barnard's Brooks Hall on Monday night, Ilana Talamo, BC '25, had no idea that meant she would not be able to return to her room for up to a week. Talamo was in a Columbia friend's dorm room and, after hearing about the fire, assumed she would have to spend the night there. But when she heard that the evacuation had lifted and students would be allowed back into the dorm, she headed back toward her room on the fifth floor of Brooks Hall. When Talamo arrived, she was forced to wait in Barnard Hall for an hour before receiving a text from Barnard's Community Accountability, Response, and Emergency Services. The message alerted Talamo that her dorm room was considered an "affected area" and that she should relocate to LeFrak Center for further instructions. Residents of the fifth, sixth, and seventh floors of Brooks Hall were split into groups and given five to 10 minutes to collect enough personal belongings from their rooms to last "anywhere from 12 to 24 hours." They were given the option of staying with friends, temporarily moving to Plimpton Hall, or relocating to Barnard housing on 121st Street. On Thursday morning, affected residents, including Talamo, received an email informing them that Barnard aims to move students back into the dorm by the end of this week, rather than the 12- to 24-hour block for which the students had prepared. Barnard said in a statement that displaced students will receive a gift card to address "any immediate needs they may have as a result of relocation," and the college will "provide limited dry cleaning reimbursement" for smoke-damaged items. Talamo's experience with Barnard's administration, which she said made her feel "thrown," is not an isolated one. Mia de Castro Basto, BC '25, discovered the morning after that the fire had originated in her friend's room. She said that her friend, a low-income student, was not only dealing with the trauma of the fire, which included losing most of her belongings, but was also worried about how she would pay for all she had lost. According to de Castro Basto, Barnard's communication was ineffective from the very beginning. "That's what I also thought was kind of horrifying," de Castro Bastro said. "She had to go to ResLife herself to contact them, and [they told her], 'Oh, we tried to contact you.' … She lost her laptop and her phone in the fire." Avalon Zborovsky-Fenster, BC '24, observed from several group chats and conversations that students were frustrated by the dissonance between the administration's messaging and the lived experiences of the students. One email from Leslie Grinage, the dean of Barnard College, included phrases such as "after a brief evacuation" and "a few hours later," which Zborovsky-Fenster felt was trivializing the night's events. De Castro Basto echoed this sentiment. "A 'few' means, like, three to four, and [students] were gone for five and a half hours … late at night and also [in the] cold," de Castro Basto said. The email from Grinage also described the fire itself as "small" and emphasized that "no one was injured," which Zborovsky-Fenster believed made students "feel like what happened [was] being minimized." Underwhelmed by the administrative response and nervous for her friend, de Castro Basto, herself a low-income student, turned to her peers to help raise money for affected students. Although she did not disclose the exact number, de Castro Basto says the funds donated are "definitely enough," and she anticipates donating the excess funds to Barnard Mutual Aid. "Twenty four hours ago, I was just like, 'How is my friend going to pay for all [of] this?'" de Castro Basto said. "[I am] still in disbelief." Zborovsky-Fenster started the Barnard Mutual Aid Network last summer to raise and distribute funds to Barnard students in need of financial assistance. In less than 24 hours, Barnard Mutual Aid had raised over $10,000 for the victims of the fire and other students in financial need; according to its Instagram account, it is aiming for $15,000. "Barnard Mutual Aid is about making sure that members of this community are taking care of one another, even when the institution that is supposed to, isn't," the group wrote in a statement to the Barnard community. Staff writer Eliana Goldin can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.