The below message was sent on Tuesday, September 3, 2024.
Dear Bryn Mawr College Community,
Happy First Day of Classes! It has been a pleasure to welcome nearly five hundred new Mawrters to campus this summer and fall and to watch the community embrace and connect anew. I enjoyed meeting graduate students at GSSWR and GSAS at their orientations and receptions and welcoming the new undergraduates to our house, Pen Y Groes, for ice cream (and dog petting) last week. A special welcome to our new international students, some of whom shared that they are outside of their home countries for the first time in their lives.
Since I last wrote, I have been able to meet additional new and returning students and faculty. I attended part of New Faculty Orientation, saw the Dorm Leadership Teams making banners to welcome the new first years, helped (a little) on move-in day, spoke with faculty and staff at the first town hall of the year, and visited the Academic Fair. I also had a chance to meet the campus transportation staff, the LITS staff, and those working in the Well and at the Book Shop. I had a great tour of the Phebe Anna Thorne School and a delicious meal in New Dorm (love the salad bar!) with my family.
My overriding insight so far is also the least surprising: Bryn Mawr is a remarkable place—largely because of all of you. I can’t wait to hear about the first few weeks of classes and all that will happen in labs and classrooms, clubs as they start up, and on the athletic fields.
Join us this afternoon at 4:30 p.m. on Senior Row to formally launch the academic year with our Convocation event. We will hear from Chair of the Board of Trustees Cynthia Archer '75, SGA President Cole Churchill '25, Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research student Serena Rose Gaskin, and Associate Professor of History of Art Sylvia Houghteling. I will say a few words, and Dean of the Undergraduate College Karlene Burrell-McRae will announce student awards won last spring. Please join us afterward at Wyndham Green for a community picnic of locally sourced foods.
Also, plan to join the community coffee hour on Thursday (September 5th) at 9:30 a.m. in the Great Hall for our first weekly coffee hour and to hear about “What Bryn Mawr Did this Summer,” featuring GSSWSR and GSAS Summer Fellowship recipients and undergraduates working on the Who Built Bryn Mawr? project.
I so value the opportunity to be in face-to-face conversation and encourage you to mark your calendar now for the first lunchtime seminar (September 16, noon in the Great Hall and open to the whole community) on “Current Topics in Higher Education.” We will talk about the purpose of higher education. The price of admission is just 30 minutes of reading of Bryn Mawr '68 alumna (and former Harvard President) Drew Gilpin Faust’s Phi Beta Kappa speech and Boston Globe op-ed on threats to higher education, and a short piece by Brian Rosenberg, author of Whatever It is, I’m Against It: Resistance to Change in Higher Education. The second gathering in October will focus on higher-education finances.
My colleagues in the President’s Office and I are here to serve you.
- Millie Bond, Senior Advisor for External Relations and Secretary of the College, works with the Board of Trustees as the College’s Secretary and will partner with me to build out a new external relations strategy.
- Amanda Chudnow, Assistant Secretary of the College and Senior Director for Special Projects, supports the Board.
- Hedy Gerace, Assistant to the President for Events and Campus Outreach, leads events.
- Susan Lewis is my Executive Assistant.
Follow the links here to request funding from the President’s Office and/or to invite me to events.
Shannon Kearns recently joined the President’s Office Staff as Senior Advisor for Operational and Administrative Strategic Initiatives. She will work with me and other senior staff to better understand, support, and strengthen Bryn Mawr College's people and operational infrastructure, including the next steps in the Workday implementation.
This month, we launch searches for the College’s next Chief Financial Officer/Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Information Officer & Constance A. Jones Director of Libraries. We invite community feedback for both searches and have scheduled Zoom meetings for the community. Please follow the links for the September 11th session for the CIO/Director of Libraries and the September 12th session for the CFO/CAO search. Separate meetings with faculty and with staff in these areas are in the works.
Reflecting on my first eight weeks as President, it’s clear that the students, staff, faculty, and senior staff at Bryn Mawr are incredible. Our commitment to excellence is always and forever a team effort. Or, if you prefer, the work of an orchestra or a complex organism, in which we each make an important contribution to the whole. We do our best work together, and I am already grateful for our collaborations this year.
See you this afternoon,
Wendy
**
President
Professor of Sociology
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr, PA
(Pronouns: she/her - why?)
