Athena Center at Barnard College Receives Gift to Endow Its Directorship

Constance Hess Williams, a trustee of Barnard College from 1990 to 2000, has made a generous contribution to the college to endow the directorship of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies on the Barnard campus. Williams, daughter of the late Leon Hess, founder of Hess Oil, is a leading Democratic politician in Pennsylvania. She served in both the Pennsylvania House of Representative and the State Senate. She is also chair of the board of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Williams is a 1966 graduate of Barnard College and holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Kathryn Kolbert, who has led the Athena Center since it was founded in 2009 will now become the Constance Hess William Director. Kolbert, a civil rights attorney, is a graduate of Cornell University and the Temple University School of Law.