Lisa Simone Kingstone ‘85
Lisa Simone Kingstone graduated from Barnard College in 1985. Growing up in Berkeley, California, she originally heard of Barnard through a friend’s older sister who was attending Barnard while Lisa was in high school. Lisa remembered her as “beautiful, cool, smart, and interesting,” and she thought, “I want some of that, and maybe that will come from Barnard.”
When Lisa arrived in New York City, she immediately noticed that “these women were tough.” Reminiscing about her classroom experience, she shared, “Barnard women in my classes were not at all tentative. They were raising their hands, disagreeing with the professors, and putting forth their views. And I wasn’t really that way, so I learned how to do that. It gave me a certain kind of voice. I didn’t have to apologize for my opinions because I saw models of women doing that.”
At Barnard, Lisa “loved having a smaller college within a bigger university. Sometimes you didn’t want the big hubbub; you wanted a home campus where you always saw people you knew. I loved that it was a women’s college. And of course, New York City is amazing: bookstores, libraries... I could do research at the New York Public Library. I could go to exhibits on writers. I couldn’t even decide what to do — there was so much.” To her, Barnard and New York were an “intellectual candy store.”
As an English major, she was incredibly passionate about literature. “Barnard had tiny classes, and one of them had three people. Professor Ruth Kivette (Ruth M. Kivette, Ph.D., J.D., 1952-1992, Professor Emerita of English) changed my life. I did my first extended literary analysis with her, and she told me I should apply to graduate school, that I belonged in academia. It was such a vote of confidence when someone says that to you when you’re young.”
After graduating from Barnard, Lisa went on to pursue a master’s degree at Columbia with the ultimate goal of becoming a literature professor. She found incredible success, teaching English literature at the University of Connecticut for twelve years before moving onto King’s College London, where she was a Senior Teaching Fellow (assistant professor). “It was incredibly interesting to teach literature there. I felt like I was explaining Americans to the British through American literature.”
Not only does Lisa feel Barnard prepared her for the world following college, but that her mentors were also a guiding light for her own principles as a professor. She reflected further on her experience with Professor Kivette: “We just talked and shared what we were doing in the independent study, and she treated us like colleagues and made us feel like fellow scholars. The thing I always did with my research assistants and my students is treat them like they are already colleagues. I wanted to know what they had to share, and I’m interested in when students go somewhere I haven’t gone. When I think a student is talented, I tell them that…. I don’t think I realized, but I was definitely channeling Professor Kivette.”
“Barnard gave me an identity — I saw myself as a Barnard woman.” Lisa remembers feeling that “I was among all these really brilliant students, alumnae, and professors. I saw myself in that community.” Seeing what other Barnard alumnae had achieved in the Barnard magazine made her want to see a book of her own there: “I want[ed] to prove to myself that I am worthy of being alongside those Barnard writers.” She achieved this goal with her book Fading Out Black and White (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018) and is now completing two other books.
Lisa now lives just outside of New York City, where the Barnard community is still present in her life. “There are a lot of women from Barnard who I’ve run into or even worked with [whom] I’m always seeing in this area. As soon as we talk about Barnard, [they become an] instant friend.”
Source: Interview conducted by Tanisha ‘24