This coming May, assuming I pass my classes, I will walk across the stage of Radio City Music Hall to accept my college degree. When I do, I'd like to shake a female president's hand.

Until a few months ago, this issue wasn't even on the radar, but it's 2017, and times are changing. Barnard President Debora Spar made the decision to leave the college before the class of 2017 will walk the stage, and Chief Operations Officer Robert Goldberg will take her place as interim president. While I am glad Spar has gotten such a grand opportunity and I am sure Goldberg can keep this operation running, I hope Barnard will take its founding values into consideration when selecting the woman who will give us our degrees before we pass through Barnard's wrought-iron gates.

To my friends in the class of 2017, I like to joke that we are Bold, Beautiful, and Bitter. Even without the infamous cynicism that comes with living in New York City, it seems our class has gotten the worst of it. Our president is leaving. We will never use the new library. Student planning killed eBear, and Foundations killed the Nine Ways of Knowing. Millie's costume has been changed, and she now looks like a deranged subway rat. RIP Maggie. We are graduating into Trump's America, and last year—as usual, but still—tuition was raised another 5.8 percent.

Despite all that jazz, I've found Barnard to be a pretty great place to get educated, especially as a self-identified woman. In classes and conversation, Barnard has steadily reminded me that to be a woman is to be powerful, and that I must use this power to inform, direct, and change. I ask Barnard to uphold the same feminist standards that inspired me to apply here in the first place when it comes time to graduate.

I'd like to shake a woman's hand on stage.

I have nothing personal against Robert Goldberg. I'm sure he's a swell guy, though I echo faculty concerns that he lacks the academic background necessary to run a liberal arts college. Still—to state the obvious—he is a white male. I'm happy to shake his hand—Mr. Goldberg, if you are reading this, I'd grab coffee and a handshake anytime—but I don't want that handshake to come at the culminating moment of my Seven Sisters education, one whose values I hold dear. Honestly, this request shouldn't even be surprising.

Of course, one handshake will not a lifetime make. But graduation is, like it or not, one of those "lifetime events." Parents and family fly in from afar to attend. It is the reward for all that has been accomplished by us in this high-pressure school, in our high-pressure times. Some days, identity quandaries and seemingly endless work conspire to convince us stressed-out students to give up and make memes.

But we don't. We won't. We haven't. Our dedicated work as intersectional, educated women must be recognized as such.

Many reading this will cry, "Liberal!", "Snowflake!"', or "The real world isn't a safe space!" Well—whatever. Barnard is a safe space, and I'll take those titles in stride. Those words are oversimplifications of complex problems, easy rhetoric used to render certain voices, to certain communities, unworthy. But fuck that. This is important.

Symbolism is important. Our education is practically a degree in symbolism, proof we've analyzed literary allusions and math formulas in order to understand larger meanings (whatever meaning means). Besides, graduation is symbolism on its highest horse, pomp and circumstance for the sake of photo-ops and the promised memory of accomplishment.

Events like graduation should do symbolism right—particularly with the inauguration of President Trump having occurred just a few months prior. Before this election, I had believed that American feminism had accomplished many of its original goals. To me, it had been so successful that popular discourse could move past broader questions about women in the workplace to call out feminists that practiced a non-inclusive advocacy. While both problems remain—and is perhaps more urgent than ever—the reality of our moment is that our own president has been recorded speaking about sexual assaulting women. The fact that the "Grab women by the pussy" statement wasn't a deal-breaker for so many voters is totally beyond me and many of us here in Morningside Heights.

Clearly, the fight of the feminist isn't over. Far from it. It is at both a peak and a starting point, relevant in every sphere. This means we must march together, using our voices to root out unfairness wherever and however we can. Here, at a women's college, it is on the graduation stage.

As for whose hand I'd like to shake? I'd invite Gloria, the barista at Liz's Place, to join the stage. She always gives a smile with my coffee, reminds me to add sugar to keep away the bitter.

Before I graduate from my women's college into a world vastly different than the one I thought we'd inhabit, I'd like to shake a woman's hand for good wishes, camaraderie, and a last-ditch bit of girl power before we head outside to fight. I'd hope Barnard wants me to, too.

Joelle Milman is a Barnard College senior studying English literature and creative writing. At the Women's March on Washington, she found an abandoned pink pussyhat and took it home. Cr?nicas runs alternate Tuesdays. You can follow her on Instagram @joellemaxx.

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