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2010–2011 AnnuAl RepoRt of the College

A CultuRe of InnovAtIon

On the cOver: Bryn Mawr college and the seven sisters joined Secretary of State hillary clinton for the State Department’s Women in Public Service Project colloquium, held in Washington, D.c., in December. See page 20 for the story.

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2010–2011 AnnuAl RepoRt of the College

President’s Message 6A Year of Innovation 8Campus Highlights 14Bryn Mawr in the World 20Bryn Mawr in the Media 26

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“This is an amazing experience for them,” says Cull. “They have dozens of opportunities to practice this skill, instead of the one or two opportunities that would be available in a strictly classroom setting—and they get to spend class time thinking about how they can use that knowledge to understand rocks. All of my students love this approach, and they frequently ask for more of the online practice sessions, just so they could practice more!

Just-in-time TeachingAssociate Professor of Economics David Ross developed this online introductory course to help students reacquaint themselves with and master basic economic concepts they will use in advanced courses. The course consists or a collection of online experiments and related online workbooks which cover supply and demand, sales tax, minimum wages, monopoly and cartels, externalities, information and adverse selestion, and network externalities.

Ross notes the distinction between blended learning and just using online source material as a substitute for printed readings. He says, “The online modules provide the student and instructor with

feedback about student mastery. The distinction between blended learning and distance learning is that under the former the residential college emphasis on collaborative exchange between faculty and students and among students remains the defining characteristic of a course.”

Ross has used blended learning in Econ 200 (Intermediate Microeconomics) for a number of years to implement “just-in-time-teaching.” Students complete an online problem set after completing the reading for the next class. Ross says, “I review those results before class to choose the final set of classroom activities and pair or group students based on their level of mastery. In this way, we skip going over material everyone has mastered, focus on skills that need more attention, and have the opportunity to consider the implications of what we have learned.”

“I am excited by the opportunities being opened up by the collaboration of computer programmers, cognitive learning experts, and faculty—opportunities that can only enhance the collaboration of faculty and students in the classroom.”

the “Blended leARning initiAtive”: piloting WeB-BAsed teAChing

CuRRiCulum foR the 21st CentuRy

This past year, Bryn Mawr stretched its curricular wings—with the support of major funding—by exploring three new ways to deliver a liberal arts education and improve learning and teaching for students and faculty.

Provost Kim Cassidy says, “Like every college and university, Bryn Mawr has to regularly re-examine its priorities and enhance our advantages by pursuing new opportunities.”

The first of these new opportunties—supported by a $250,000 grant from the Gates Foundation—is the College’s experiment in “blended learning.” Professors are using web-based tools to engage students at various points in their journeys through courses (see “Blended Learning: Piloting Web-Based Learning” these pages).

The next two programs change the shape of courses. Bryn Mawr introduced “focus” courses and “360° course clusters”—funded by $1 million from the Mellon Foundation—to create an innovative and sustainable liberal arts curriculum for the 21st century (see stories pages 6–7).

What role does web-based learning have for a small liberal arts

college like Bryn Mawr? With a $250,000 grant from The Gates Foundation through its Next Generation Learning program, the College has piloted courses that blend together onsite and online components.

Provost Kim Cassidy says, “We wanted to see if targeted use of technology, blended with the traditional intimate classroom setting, will free up time for more in-depth coverage of complex material and create a more engaged learning environment.”

“We have 35 liberal arts college partners in this grant,” says President McAuliffe, “who will be following our lead. We are the only college of our type to receive a grant from this program. This money will be particularly useful in supporting the College’s investment in the science, technology, engineering, math fields.”

Several Bryn Mawr faculty are participating in the project by experimenting with incorporating online-based learning elements into their courses, with varying goals but with consistent benefits, for example by the enhanced skill-building in Assistant Professor of Geology Selby Cull’s minerology and crystal chemistry course,

and in Associate Professor of Economics David Ross’s introductory econ course.

Skill-building via the web“This is the first core course in the sequence for geology majors, and one that students often find onerous,” says Professor Cull. Students must learn to identify scores of mineral specimens in the field and under a microscope.

To improve students’ retention of what they’ve identified, Cull has created two types of online activities. First in weekly labs, students are given trays of materials to identify, but unlike in traditional labs, they enter their identifications into the online program and get immediate feedback.

“I’ve been wanting to implement a lot of blended learning ideas for a long time now. The Blended Learning Initiative here at Bryn Mawr has transformed the way I can teach.

“I teach classes that require a great deal of memorization, which is important but deadly boring in class. So instead of doing all that in class, now I’ve been setting up online practices and tutorials that the students can do daily, at home, without taking class time. We can then use class time to actually apply all this information to real

problems that the students are likely to encounter.”

At home students practice visual identification three times a week using online quizzes with thousands of images of specimens that Cull has taken. In both cases, these quizzes include not only the new specimens students are studying but also specimens they’ve already learned so that students are constantly reviewing. Cull also uses feedback on the online quizzes to determine what to spend more time on in class.C

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gRAnts to the College/fACulty foR fy 2011$3,062,080 from the National Security Education Program (NSEP), Principal Investigator Dan Davidson (language acquisition)

$1,000,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the development of a 21st Century curriculum.

$399,578 from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation for the Community College Transfer Initiative. This grant makes Bryn Mawr one of just a few liberal-arts colleges participating in a program that helps community-college students transfer to prestigious four-year institutions. Through the grant, Bryn Mawr will partner with the Community College of Philadelphia and Montgomery County Community College to create a pipeline for high-achieving, low-income community-college transfer students to attend Bryn Mawr.

$377,995 from the NSEP, Principal Investigator Timothy Harte (Russian)

$372,500 from the Department of Defense, Principal Investigator Clark McCauley (psychology)

$352,575 from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Principal Investigator Xuemei Cheng (chemistry)

$324,678 from the NSF, Principal Investigator William Malachowski (chemistry)

$300,000 from the NSF, Principal Investigator Victor Donnay (math)

$249,938 from EDUCAUSE/Gates Foundation for the Next Generation Learning Challenge Blended Learning Project.

continued next page

“Having the online component has freed up almost all my teaching time to focus on what’s fun and important for the students.”

— Selby Cull

Associate Professor of Economics, David Ross

Assistant Professor of Geology, Selby Cull

Imagine a cluster of courses conceived to connect multiple disciplines, students and

faculty in a single semester (or in some cases across contiguous semesters) through common issues, themes, and experiences for the purposes of research and scholarship. That describes the innovative 360° curriculum initiative launched by the College last year. The College’s third 360° offering—360° Contemplative Traditions—included three courses and a trip to Japan.

Silent SpacesThe cultural history and science of contemplation and “mindfulness” was the calm eye at the center of scrutiny by professors and students from chemistry, psychology, and East Asian studies last fall, which included two weeks in Western Japan full of visits to temples and sacred sites. Among the faculty was Professor of Chemistry Michelle Francl, who chronicled the trip in real time via her blog, http://contemplative360.blogspot.com/. Francl also taught one of the three courses of 360° Contemplative Traditions—“Silent Spaces: A History of Contemplation in the West.”

Francl writes, “In the age of the iPod, wi-fi and the cell phone, silence and solitude have become a deliberate choice, not the default. Why would anyone elect silence as a way of life? This course explores elected silence and the ways in which it has shaped, and still shapes, people and places in the Western contemplative tradition from the desert hermitages of the third and fourth centuries through modern communities as diverse as an enclosed order of Carmelite nuns living outside DC to Quaker meetings.”

Notes from JapanCities major Stephanie Tran ’13, who took the Contemplative Traditions course and went to Japan with the group, blogged each day about her experience (http://stephgoestravelling.blogspot.com/). In her post titled, “Japan Day 7: 10,000 Lantern Ceremony,” she writes, “It’s been officially a week since we’ve left Bryn Mawr’s campus.…I had almost forgotten that we were practicing silence this morning, but once I remembered, the interactions I had with people became more interesting, as it wasn’t just the language barrier anymore.”

Later, Tran wrote a post titled, “Japan Day 11: Walking in the Dark.” She writes, “On my down time, I sat in [an artist’s] studio and looked out to the mountains. They looked different today. Nothing ever stays the same. Impermanance.”

Next UpComing in the spring are two new 360° clusters: 360° Perspectives in Sustainability and 360° Learning and Narrating Childhoods. In the sustainability cluster, students and professors from the mathematics, growth and structure of cities, and education programs will look at interrelated challenges to the urban and natural environment including climate change, population growth, and extreme socioeconomic disparities. In the learning and narrative cluster, students will explore issues of human development, education and culture, with a specific focus on sub-Saharan Africa, including a trip to the Titagya school in rural Ghana.

thRee hundRed And sixty degRees of peRspeCtive

A seven Week leAp

What can you accomplish in a month-and-a-half?

If you’re a student in one of Bryn Mawr’s Focus courses, you can learn to resolve the paradoxes of relativity; forecast the Earth’s climate in the 22nd century; and complete your own archaeological field project. As part of the College’s efforts to pioneer innovation in liberal arts education, Focus courses provide intense, 7-week long immersions into a variety of subjects and allow students to experience the breadth of Bryn Mawr’s curriculum.

A prime example is Archaeology 135, taught last fall by James Wright, William R. Kenan Jr. Chair and professor of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology. The Focus format enabled the department to expand upon the spectrum of subjects covered in its course offerings. Wright seized the opportunity to develop a comprehensive introduction to field archaeology that includes field experience.

In addition to spending three hours a week in lectures, students in Wright’s class were each charged with conducting an archaeological survey of a section of the Bryn Mawr campus. Armed with maps and historical data, they charted the evolution of the campus before it was anything but farmland.

The students were also required to draw a model excavation trench that Wright and his graduate student teaching assistant prepared behind Brecon Hall; learn how to navigate database systems using data from Wright’s own Nemea Valley field site in Greece; study artifacts from the Bryn Mawr Collections; and present analyses of their field work using major theoretical frameworks in archaeology.

Wright thinks the course might attract more students to the major. “Archaeologists know that 10 percent of their time is spent in the field and 90 percent in the library and lab,” he says. “But it’s that 10 percent that lights people’s desires. This course is exciting because it fires up students by giving them a hands-on context for their coursework.” And by providing a multifaceted orientation to Bryn Mawr and its resources, the course primes all students to plot their course through the College’s diverse curriculum.

“A liberal arts education should be about sampling the different areas of learning,” Wright says. “We’re offering a tapas bar of the curriculum—an intense taste of the College’s academic offerings. If this initiative encourages students to try something they otherwise would not have, then it’s a success.”

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gRAnts to the College/fACulty foR fy 2011 (Continued)

$247,500 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a continuation of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program (see page 12).

$234,000 from the NIH, Principal Investigator Greg Davis (biology)

$155,534 from the Office of Naval Research, Principal Investigator Eric Eaton (computer science)

$148,500 from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Principal Investigator Darlyne Bailey

$140,000 from the NSF, Principal Investigator Lynne Elkins (geology)

$131,500 from the American Academy of Rome, Principal Investigator Karl Kirchwey (creative writing)

$125,000 from the NSF, Principal Investigator Deepak Kumar (computer science)

$115,350 from the NSF, Principal Investigator Judith Lalonde (chemistry)

$110,000 from the NSF, Principal Investigator Dianna Xu (computer science)

$100,000 from the NSF, Principal Investigator Michael Noel (physics)

$97,900 from the William Penn Foundation for the Nonprofit Executive Leadership Institute (NELI).

$83,625 from the American Council of Learned Societies, Principal Investigator Suzanne Schneider (English)

$83,625 from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Principal Investigator Jerry Berenson (College operations)

$81,000 from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation for graduate fellowships in the humanities.

$70,196 from the NSF, Principal Investigator Rhonda Hughes (math)

$64,152 from the Department of Defense, Principal Investigator James Martin (social work)

$60,000 from the Lee Foundation for scholarships for international students, with preference given to students from China. The annual gift, in memory of Lora Tong Lee, M.A. ’44, is used to fund one full scholarship and one partial scholarship.

$53,000 from The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage through Dance Advance for the 2012 John Jasperse performance.

$50,000 from the Mellon Foundation, Principal Investigator Dale Kinney, professor emeritus (art history)

Professor of Chemistry, Michelle Francl

Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, James Wright

BRyn mAWR one of the top pRoduCeRs of fulBRight AWARdees

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ninA R.W. Cohen ’12 nAmed Rhodes sCholAR

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The 2011 tally of Fulbright awards granted to Bryn Mawr students—five

undergrad and two graduate—placed the College among the top producers of awardees in terms of percentage-to-student body ratio. Sponsored by the U.S. Department

of State, the Fulbright program was established by Congress in 1946 to “enable the government of the United States to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” The 2011 Bryn Mawr awards included five English teaching assistantships and two study/research grants.

Fulbright Scholars On the Road After graduation, Gretchen Knoth ’11 packed her bags for Indonesia to spend a year teaching English to secondary-school children. Knoth, a double major in anthropology and Italian from Portland, Maine, had taken several courses on Indonesian topics at Bryn Mawr, but had never before traveled to Southeast Asia.

Elaine Lavin ’11, a psychology major from

New York City, received the grant to teach English in Taiwan. Lavin became interested in teaching English during a semester abroad in Beijing, where she volunteered to teach English to migrant children whose parents had moved from rural to urban provinces seeking work.

German major Didem Uca ’11 received the grant to teach English in Turkey. Although Uca’s parents are both from Turkey and she is a dual citizen of Turkey and the United States, she has never

been to Turkey, and she eagerly anticipates setting foot on her ancestral homeland at last.

Political science major and theater aficionado Alicia Steinmetz ’11 received the grant to teach English in Slovakia, where she plans to pursue her interest in Slovak and Czech culture and cultural relationships. “During a semester abroad in the Czech Republic, I gained a sense of the shared history and evolving identities of both countries,” she explains. “The experience left me longing to learn more.”

Double major in French and Growth and Structure of Cities Sarah Watson ’11 received the grant to teach English in Luxembourg. Watson spent her junior semester abroad in Paris. She also completed a self-designed research project funded by a Hanna Holborn Gray Research Grant in the summer of 2010.

Fulbright Doctoral Candidates Pursue ResearchPh.D. candidate Maeve Doyle, M.A. ’09, received her Fulbright fellowship to conduct research in France. Her focus is the sudden proliferation of owner portraits in a group of medieval devotional manuscripts from northern France, a phenomenon that sits at the intersection of important developments in the histories of literacy, religion, gender relations, and Western conceptions of selfhood and identity.

Ph.D. candidate Lori Felton, M.A. ’10, received her Fulbright fellowship to conduct research in Vienna, exploring the portraiture of Expressionist artist Egon Schiele. In her master’s thesis, Felton focused on the Doppelgänger motif in some of Schiele’s self-portraits. In her dissertation, she plans to extend that analysis.

thRee senioRs Win nsf suppoRt to puRsue ReseARCh

Bryn Mawr graduates have received a remarkable number of National Science Foundation grants in recent years. In 2012, three members of the Class of 2011 received NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, providing each with support three years, including a $30,000 annual stipend, $10,500 cost-of-education allowance, and many international

research and professional opportunities. The fellows are:• Rebecca Rebhuhn-Glanz ’11 of Highland Park, New Jersey, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of

Michican, with a focus on algebra and number theory;• Kerstin Baer ’11 of XXXXX, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics at Stanford University. Her primary area of interest is

topology, which focuses on the spatial properties of objects when they are stretched, twisted, or bent; and • Samantha Wood ’11 of Bethlehem, Connecticut, who was the previous recipient of a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship.

Wood is pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of California, San Diego.

mellon mAys felloWs puRsue oRiginAl pRojeCts in the humAnities

The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, begun in 1988, supports minority students —as well as

others with a demonstrated commiment to eradicating racial disparities—in pursuit of doctorate degrees. Recent Bryn Mawr scholars and their projects include:

• Sociology major Mia Chin ’12 from New York is researching the impact volunteers from places like the United States and Europe have on community organizations in Latin America.

• Philosophy and Africana Studies major Liana Donahue ’12 from New Orleans is researching the idea of moral responsibility and judgment within a criminal gang. During her junior year abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, she worked at a juvenile detention center as an anger management teacher.

• Sociology major Cristina Smith ’12 from Virginia is studying sustainable development, food politics and food security in the Levant region of the Middle East.

• Growth and Structure of Cities major Elena Swartz ’12 of Massachusetts is interested in public health disparities in low-income communities and communities of color in the United States.

• Growth and Structure of Cities major Sana Venjara ’12 of New York has a research goal of deconstructing Muslim women’s public image, and spent her study abroad experience in Cairo, Egypt.

“I have received truly endless encouragement and nurturance from my professors, and support from the administration and from my friends,” Cohen says. “My time at Bryn Mawr proved to me that with hard work, determination and patience, I can pursue the goals—intellectual, professional, and personal —that matter most to me.”— Nina Cohen ’12

Nina R.W. Cohen ’12 began plotting her path through life when she was just 5

years old. The daughter of two physicians, Cohen, nevertheless, decided at that young age that she wanted to be a judge. “I wanted to have discussions about capital punishment with my parents,” she recalls. Her goals brought her from her hometown of Newton, Mass., to Bryn Mawr, one of the few colleges, she says, “willing to take a chance” on her background at an alternative high school with a nontraditional curriculum. Her next step: England, as one of 32 outstanding students to be named members of the American Rhodes Scholar Class of 2012.

The Rhodes Scholarships are postgraduate awards supporting exceptional all-around students from diverse countries to study at the University of Oxford in England. The Rhodes is the oldest and considered by many to be the most prestigious international graduate scholarship program in the world. Past recipients have included President Bill Clinton, New York Times columnist and author Nicholas Kristof, and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

A philosophy major and French minor, Cohen’s scholarly interests center around the theoretical concept of liberty and its meaning in the context of classical liberal

and republican thought. Her research, supported last summer by a Hanna Holborn Gray research fellowship, involves the study of political ideologies and the theoretical underpinnings of the Constitution. She is also deeply committed to issues of disability and has been active as a volunteer and tutor while at Bryn Mawr.

Cohen will be pursuing an M.Phil. in political theory at Oxford. There, she says, she looks forward to further exploring “the theoretical structures of liberalism and republicanism, their implications for Constitutional law, and the manner in which this theoretical work can be applied to enhance governance via judicial conduits.”

Cohen concedes that the experience will be challenging, but she is confident that Bryn Mawr has given her the tools to succeed. The College, she says, encouraged her to keep on charting her own course while providing guidance along the way.

“I have received truly endless encouragement and nurturance from my professors, and support from the administration and from my friends,” Cohen says. “My time at Bryn Mawr proved to me that with hard work, determination and patience, I can pursue the goals—intellectual, professional, and personal—that matter most to me.”

Mia Chin ’12

Liana Donahue ’12

ACClAimed novelist joins BRyn mAWR Community

Novelist Karen Russell joined the Creative Writing faculty for

the Fall 2011 semester as the College’s Distinguished Visiting Writer. Russell was named one of The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40,” and she recently received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her first novel, Swamplandia!, was published in 2011 to universal acclaim, and was a New York Times bestseller; the Times called it one of the 10 best novels of 2011. Russell was named one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35.” Her stories have appeared in Granta, Zoetrope, Oxford American, Conjunctions, and The New Yorker, and have appeared three times in the Best American Short Stories anthologies.

Students have enjoyed Russell’s lively presence on campus, which included her lecture for the inaugural Emily Balch Speaker Series (see About The Balch Seminars below). The lecture was followed by dessert in Thomas Great Hall, which had been transformed into a fanciful swamp, complete with stuffed alligators and Swamplandia!-themed desserts: a Ouija-board cake and leviathan punch.

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eminent philosopheR CAptivAtes student Body

Eminent philosopher and critical theorist Judith Butler’s three-week residency at Bryn Mawr last fall was more than an event—it was a communal intellectual enterprise. Butler came here as part of the Mary Flexner Lectureship, which has

brought some of the world’s best-known humanists to campus since its establishment in 1928. Butler’s transformational scholarship in fields such as gender and sexuality studies and queer theory generated overflow crowds to her public talks. More exceptional was the engagement her lectureship inspired across campus.

“I was surprised and gratified at how much discussion the Flexner lectures generated among faculty, staff, and students alike,” says María Cristina Quintero, who taught one of five Bryn Mawr courses offered in conjunction with Butler’s lectureship. “There was a sense that we were all participating in a shared conversation, with people talking about the lectures and activities everywhere: in the hallways, the bookstore, the Campus Center and, of course, in the classroom.”

In addition to her talks, Butler conducted faculty seminars and spent time with students in and out of the classroom. In associate professor of English Kate Thomas’ Flexner-related course, Lesbian Immortal, Butler, a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock and film noir, took discussion of Daphne DuMaurier’s novel Rebecca to a new level. “We were able to dig into the text really deeply, and we had a great conversation about

queer temporalities,” says Mary Zaborskis ’12. And, over dinner with 60 Tri-College students, Butler discussed senior projects as well as subjects ranging from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Lady Gaga.

“I was impressed with the confidence and focus of these students who were already, in their own right, young scholars,” Butler recalls. “Their projects were original and thoughtful, and I had the sense that these were young people who had been listened to closely, and who had practice in presenting their ideas with strength and clarity.”

Butler’s impact on the campus is documented on the Flexner Book Club blog, which features lively discussions between faculty, students, staff, and alumnae/i on a variety of topics, including the relationship between scholarship and activism, the Occupy movement, and cyber bullying. Butler too was influenced by the exchange of ideas generated by the lectureship.

“It certainly challenged my thinking and allowed me to understand the variety of responses that my work can provoke,” she says. I was glad that the talks were considered open and accessible, and in turn, I was able to hear a great deal from undergraduates who had questions, criticisms, and ambitions of their own.”

the CReAtive WoRld of kARen RussellBy Rebecca Shaw ’13, excerpt courtesy English House Gazette

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spent time with different types of people.

“That’s been a little disorienting; the public part. I don’t even have a webpage or a Facebook page. It just seems stressful to maintain online identity. It’s hard to put together an outfit in the morning in the real world,” said Russell, straightening her skirt.

The English House Gazette is the blog that publishes articles done by students of Tom Ferrick’s News & Feature Writing Class at Bryn Mawr.

This semester, Russell is teaching Short Fiction II as a distinguished visiting

professor through Bryn Mawr College’s Creative Writing Program. Russell described the experience as “a lucky blessing—an Oprah miracle.”

“There’s always the cliché that if you teach undergrad writing, you’ll get thinly veiled autobiographical stories about fraternity parties,” said Russell. “I have encountered none of that. I’m amazed about the amount of vision and voice in the students’ writing.

Russell’s journey to Bryn Mawr College began in Fall 2010, when she traveled to Ireland to participate in a story festival. In Ireland, she met Robin Black, a previous Bryn Mawr Creative Writing professor.

“We spent many days buying shamrock merchandise,” recalled Russell with a smile. “Robin told me how much she enjoyed teaching at Bryn Mawr. Some behind-the-scenes magic happened with Robin and Dan Torday, the Bryn Mawr Creative Writing Program Director. I really wanted to go to Philly, and I was ready to leave New York, so the timing worked perfectly.”

Literary critic Janet Maslin of the New York Times described Russell as “one in a million.” Maslin wrote that “the proof is in Swamplandia!, a novel about alligator wrestlers, a balding brown bear named Judy Garland, a Bird Man specializing in

buzzard removal, a pair of dueling Florida theme parks, rampaging melaleuca trees, a Ouija board and the dead but still flirtatious Louis Thanksgiving.”

“In the book tour circuit, people ask where my ideas come from. I like to say my home address,” said Russell. “Geographically, South Florida’s a weird place. I

tend to write about childhood to adulthood thresholds. Florida’s a good setting for thresholds since tide lines are always coming in and revising the beach. The swamp itself is a literally uncanny place. It’s neither land nor water.”

In order to publicize Swamplandia!, Russell has been participating in book tours and book fairs around the United States since February.

During the writing process, Russell grew “accustomed to spending hours alone, taking dictation from an imaginary world.” During the publicizing process she

ABout the BAlCh seminARs

In 1946, Emily Balch, Bryn Mawr Class of 1889, was awarded the Nobel Prize

for Peace. Named in honor of Emily Balch, The Balch Seminars introduce first-year students to a critical, probing, thoughtful approach to the world via seminars taught by scholar/teachers of distinction. Distinguished Visiting Writer Karen Russell inaugurated the Emily Balch Speakers Series associated with the seminars.

Philosopher and critical theorist Judith Butler engages with students in the campus café.

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As the saying goes, it’s better to be lucky than good. When it comes to the impact the economic downturn has had on Bryn Mawr’s bottom line, it turns out the school was a bit of both, according to Trustee Cheryl Holland ’80. In this Q&A, the Investment Subcommittee chair discusses how Bryn Mawr

thrived thanks to good planning, strong financial management and some lucky timing.

Q: How did Bryn Mawr escape the brunt of the recession? We had some very long-term investments, but we didn’t have so many that we had to take action on trimming other holdings in order to keep the money flowing to those commitments. Second, we had some extra cash due to effective cash management by the Treasurer’s office [and] didn’t have to draw on the endowment to fund the operating budget. We weren’t forced to make short-term tough decisions with our endowment portfolio.

The other smart decision was our immediate sense that we would have to make cuts in the budget because the endowment did go down. We were able to say, ‘Here are the tough choices that need to be made and here’s what needs to happen in a transparent and community-wide manner.’”

Q: How has Bryn Mawr been strategic in light of the economy?Lots of planning and action happened before the “great recession,” which allowed the College to navigate this downturn with more confidence and clarity. One was faculty changing its governance with the Board and building a more collaborative model for decision-making. When she came on board 12 years ago, one of [former] President [Nancy] Vickers’ goals was to restructure governance. It’s not something you do overnight and required a lot of hard work by a number of trustees and faculty. It just happened to come into play at the time we needed it. You don’t think of governance as playing a role in doing well in a downturn, but it really is critical.

Another key important driver was that we had a strategic task force on balancing the College’s mission and resources. The Finance Committee has really spent its time thinking about what are the strategic levers—what are the key financial drivers for the College’s long-term success. They are the ones who led this whole collaborative effort on planning and resources, allowing us to make smart choices in budget trade-offs during the downturn.

Q: What does the future hold for Bryn Mawr? I think where the College is now is fascinating: we’re in a relatively

strong position, and we know exactly what our challenges are. For example, we’re in an environment where fewer and fewer parents are going to have the flexibility to easily send their children to an expensive college in the future. So, how are we going to develop new ways of being within those constraints?

We’re able to think strategically about what Bryn Mawr might do to elevate our position and our mission to make us a destination school for bright, ambitious young women. For a young woman to step on to a campus that celebrates and encourages every aspect of her life is a powerful sea change of focus that you cannot find in that many places in the world. And the successful outcomes of women’s college alumnae continue to prove it is a meaningful differentiator. As an example, many young women think they want to major in a science, and then they get to a campus and don’t always come out the other end as a scientist. The opposite happens here. There’s something about how you think about the world that changes when you’re at Bryn Mawr.

CeleBRAting 10 yeARs of posse pARtneRship

fisCAl leAdeRship foR A stRong futuRe

the stoRy of ReCoveRy

Seven years ago, the College began to broadly diversify its portfolio. Over the long-term, diversification reduces risk and increases expected returns through lower volatility. In Fiscal

2011, the endowment over-performed both the market and Bryn Mawr’s peers over the long run as demonstrated by the five- and 10-year data shown below. Over the 10-year timeframe, the College’s return is in the top 30 percent of all the peer endowments tracked by Cambridge Associates. Considering Bryn Mawr only began to implement a diversified strategy seven years ago, we are very encouraged by our results. —John Griffith, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer

BRYN MAWR ANNUAL RETURN BY ASSET CLASSJune 30, 2011

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VC/PE International& Domestic

Equities

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HedgeFunds

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26.2%

29.6%

19.5%17.8%

11.3%

3.0%

ANNUALIZED RETURNS: JUNE 30, 2011

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

5 YEAR

5.5%5.0%

2.9%

6.6%6.0%

2.7%

■ Bryn Mawr College ■ Peer Endowments ($500M to $1B) ■ S&P 500

10 YEAR

More than 150 alumnae/i and friends of Bryn Mawr celebrated the 10th year

of the College’s partnership with the Posse Foundation of Boston. The Posse Foundation is a novel scholarship program that helps colleges recruit a “posse” of 10 to 12 exceptional students from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds each year. These students are trained to work as a team before they reach campus. Their mission: to help redefine college access, merit, diversity and leadership.

At the November 29, 2011, party in Boston, several former and current Bryn Mawr Posse Scholars were joined by Massachusetts Governor Duval Patrick and First Lady Diane Patrick, and President McAuliffe and former President Nancy Vickers.

“What a fantastic night,” said President McAuliffe afterward. “There was incredible joy in the room and such an appreciation for what the Posse Program has meant to both the Posse Scholars and the entire Bryn Mawr community. I was especially honored to share the podium once again with President

Vickers, who played such a central role in bringing Posse to Bryn Mawr.”

Speakers at the event included McAuliffe, Vickers, First Lady Patrick, Posse Foundation Regional Vice President Sue Dalelio, Boston City Councilwoman Ayanna Presley, and former Posse Scholar Jackney Prioly ’06, who is now Presley’s director of external relations. First Lady Patrick serves on the Board of the Posse Foundation.

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Left: Posse Scholar Gabrielle Farrell ’12 with Massachusetts First Lady Diane Patrick. Patrick is on the board of the Posse Foundation. Above, President Jane McAuliffe and Alumnae Association President Eileen P. Kavanagh ’75 with former Posse Scholar Jen Rusk ’05.

Trustee Cheryl Holland ’80 was named one of the top 50 women in wealth management by AdvisorOne.

suRgeon geneRAl keynote speAkeR At heAlth CARe inequAlities foRum

oldest CollegiAte AthletiC AssoCiAtion CeleBRAtes 120 yeARs

The oldest collegiate athletic association in the country—Bryn Mawr College Athletic

Association—celebrated its 120th birthday in 2011. Pictures here are some highlights of the 2010–2011 season.

The 2011 lacrosse team (below) was named by the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association as an All-Academic Team (a team GPA over 3.3, one of the top academic lacrosse team in the country).

Shown (left) receiving a gold medal is Meredith Davis ’13, who was named to the 2010-2011 Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area Swim Team, and was also named the 2010 First Team All-Centennial Conference in swimming.

Freshman athlete Claudia Keep ’15 (right) became the first Bryn Mawr cross country runner to qualify for the 2011 NCAA Division III National Championship; she finished 56th out of 277 runners. She also earned All-Conference honors.

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mARy osiRim nAmed deAn of gRAd studies

Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Africana Studies Program Mary

Osirim was named in 2011 the College’s new dean of graduate studies. This position oversees programs in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. In addition to chairing the sociology department, Osirim has served as a co-director of the College’s Center for International Studies and its Center for Ethnicities, Communities, and Social Policy (now the Center for Social Sciences).

President McAuliffe with Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin and Dean of the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research Darlyne Baily.

In April, Vice Admiral and U.S. Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin led a panel for Bryn Mawr’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research in collaboration with

the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Benjamin is founder and former CEO of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Alabama, and immediate past chair of the Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States. She was the first physician under age 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees. Her awards and honors include a MacArthur “Genius” Award; the 2000 National Caring Award; The Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights; being named one of the “Nation’s 50 Future Leaders Age 40 and Under” by Time magazine; and being named “Woman of the Year’ by CBS This Morning.

RARe m. CARey thomAs AWARd goes to judith jAmison

At Commencement 2011, dance icon Judith Jamison, choreographer and artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, received the College’s highest

honor, the M. Carey Thomas Award, given only 18 times since 1922. Past recipients of the award have included Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Katharine Hepburn ’28.

Jamison was a dancer with the Alvin Ailey troupe from 1965 to 1980, perhaps best known for her tour-de-force solo “Cry.” In 2009, Time magazine put Jamison on its list of the world’s 100 most influential people. Her numerous awards include Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts. She was recently feted at a White House ceremony celebrating dance and ballet hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama.

“Judith is a national treasure,” said President McAuliffe on conferring the award. “Like many of the former M. Carey Thomas Award winners, her art transcends the boundaries of its medium and has become a part of the fabric of American culture.”

Commencement weekend also features a private performance by the Ailey II dance company for graduating students and their families. Kaushiki Dunusinghe ’12 (above) was named the 2010 Honorable Mention

All-Centennial Conference in outdoor track and field.

Soccer player Karina Siu ’14 (right) was named to the soccer 2011 All-Centennial Conference Honorable Mention Team.

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Volleyball players Katie Merrill ’12, below (1st team, 2011 Player of the Year), and Mikecia Witherspoon ’12 (2011 Honorable Mention) were named to the volleyball All-Centennial Conference team. Merrill was also named to the 2011 Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area Volleyball Team.

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21

tAke A deep BReAth And leAdReflections on the Women in Public Service Colloquium By Elizabeth Held ’12

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took to the stage at the Women and Public

Service Colloquium and, with a wry smile, said, “Actually, it was 18 million cracks.”

She was correcting Melanne Verveer, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, who had mistakenly said Clinton put “15 million cracks” in the glass ceiling—a reference to the number of votes Clinton received during her run in the 2008 Democratic Primary.

The event was the kick-off celebration for the Women in Public Service Project, a joint initiative between the State Department and the Seven Sisters women’s colleges Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Wellesley. Clinton announced the initiative on March 8—International Women’s Day—with the goal of encouraging more women to enter the public sector.

I attended the colloquium as part of Bryn Mawr’s media team and was covering it for USA Today College.

One of the things that most struck me at the Women and Public Service Colloquium was how often failure came up. It seemed paradoxical to me. Why would these leaders talk about how difficult working in public service could be when trying to encourage people to follow in their paths?

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius made it all clear in her remarks though.

She said, “The willingness to fail is necessary to succeed.”

Like most Mawrters, I consider myself a perfectionist. Success, I used to think, does not come with a side dish of failure.

But I eventually realized that by talking about failure, these

incredible women were actually talking about the importance of taking risks.

Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, praised Clinton for her presidential run.

“It’s quite rare…to see someone take that risk,” she said. “It should inspire greatly.”

Lagarde argued that even though Clinton hadn’t succeeded in becoming president, taking the risk, even when failure was a possibility, was something that deserved to be praised.

Risking failure is the only way to move forward.

Looking back on my past four years at Bryn Mawr, many of the best things that have happened have come from risks of some sort.

In my freshman year, I decided I needed a friend in my French class. I chose someone at random, started talking, and hoped she would like me. Three-and-a-half years later, she’s one of my best friends.

That same year, I chose a class at random—the History of Western Civilization—that I thought was too difficult for me. It turned out to be one of the best courses I’ve taken during my college career.

Both times, I could have easily fallen flat on my face. My friend could have rejected me, and I could have failed the class. But I didn’t. The risks paid off.

Last year, I took another risk and ran to become the Self-

Government Association Election Head. I wasn’t sure that I had the qualifications for the position, but I won, and it has been a rewarding position.

One of my duties as Election Head is to recruit candidates. Many of the women I talk to about running feel like I did: not fully qualified to run or hold a position.

According to Sebelius, this is fairly common. Women, she said, often think they need one more course or year of experience before taking on a more challenging position.

When an opportunity comes along, Sebelius advises, “take a deep breath, and even if you don’t know what’s on the other side, go.”

In May, when I graduate and embark on the next phase of my life, I’ll be thinking of Sebelius’ words. As I walk across that stage, I’m guessing I won’t feel quite ready, but I’ll take a deep breath and walk across.

Women in puBliC seRviCepRojeCt lAunChes

The December 15 Women in Public Service Colloquium

marked the official launch of The Women in Public Service Project, a joint initiative founded by the State Department and the Sister Schools (Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, and Wellesley). Bryn Mawr was represented at the Colloquium by President Jane McAuliffe, several faculty and staff members, trustees, a number of current Bryn Mawr students, and a contingent of alumnae.

The Women in Public Service Project brings together female leaders to increase the number of women involved in political and civic leadership. This global effort’s goals include challenging the world community to nurture and advance a new generation of women committed to public service, and identifying and addressing the obstacles that prevent women from committing to a life of public service and political leadership.

In her Chronicle of Higher Education post about the initiative, President McAuliffe wrote, “For the top women’s colleges in this country, a partnership with the State Department that encourages women’s leadership throughout the world, that provides focused training for public office and diplomatic service, and that offers our alumnae in public service as powerful mentors fits perfectly with the missions that we were founded to serve.”

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foRty-five students Attend WoRkshop on hoW to mAke Business dReAms ReAlities

Forty-five students spent the last few days of the 2011 fall break learning how to take the big ideas they’ve developed as Bryn Mawr students and turn them into viable business opportunities.

The students were taking part in the second in an ongoing series of workshops that expose students to practical business and finance skills and concepts during the College’s fall, winter, and spring breaks.

“More than anything, to be a successful entrepreneur you have to see the big picture,” says Bryn Mawr Chief Financial Officer John Griffith, the person responsible for putting these workshops together. “That’s what Bryn Mawr’s students and the liberal-arts education they receive here are all about.”

Covering “The Basics of Entrepreneurship,” the two-day workshop was presented by Golden Seeds, a New York-based investor group that provides early-stage capital to female entrepreneurs.

“Women remain dramatically underrepresented in the finance fields,” says Griffith, “so to be able to partner with Golden Seeds was great for our students.”

Yashaswini Singh ’13, an economics and math double major who attended the workshop, says, “Students quickly realized that business skills are not just critical for ‘for-profit business,’ but also support the inbuilt desire of Bryn Mawr students to give back to the community and to advocate for female empowerment.”

Students were joined at lunch by guest speakers Catherine Allegra ’84 and James Tanner, an alumnus of Haverford College. Allegra and Tanner are co-founders of Wall Street on Demand, a company that provides designs and develops websites, reports and financial tools for the financial-services industry.

“It was reassuring to hear Catherine talk about how she’s been able to use the education she received at Bryn Mawr to succeed in the business world,” says Singh, “and how Bryn Mawr, the honor code and the essence of self governance continue to shape her identity in the professional world as well.”

“Although I came into the program not really knowing what to expect,” says participant Rhianna Shasheen ’14, “I would say that I was thrilled with the knowledge I acquired in the entrepreneurship workshop. I found that many of my interests, which originally seemed unsuited for the business world, could easily be applied to a business model based on my own hopes and aspirations.”

“This is the second one of these workshops we’ve done,” says Griffith, “and putting current students in contact with alumnae who are able to share their real-world success and inspire the students to dream big has been one of the most important aspects of both programs.”

A Certificate in Finance course was also well attended in 2011, with alumnae speakers Meera Gilbert ’90 (principal, Meera Gilbert & Assoc., LLC, a recruiting firm for the financial services industry), Dana Niblack ’93 (managing director of Perella Weinberg Partners), Jamie Higgins (Haverford ’98; with Goldman Sachs), Alexandra Kaufmann ’04 (with Pershing Square), Fay Donohue ’72 (CEO of Delta Dental), and Carol Pepper ’84 (CEO and founder of Pepper International, LLC).

The Basics of Entrepreneurship workshop is part of a series of student education programs sponsored by Bryn Mawr’s Treasurer’s Office. The winter 2012 program will focus on careers in management and management consulting.

Elizabeth Held ’12

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23

BRyn mAWR hosts live stReAm of tedxWomen

TEDxWomen—a live webcast featuring well-known figures such as Jane

Fonda and Gloria Stenem—is a TEDx event organized by the Paley Center that focuses on women, and women’s issues. The Bryn Mawr event was called TEDxBrynMawrCollegeWomen, and was one of many TEDx events happening around the globe on December 1, 2011. Students, faculty and staff had the opportunity to watch the live sessions then discuss the ideas presented during the breaks.

The TEDxWomen stages in New York and Los Angeles were connected and the speaker sessions simulcast to both locations so that attendees experienced an extraordinary program of speakers from both coasts.

Senior Yong Jung Cho, who attended the event, writes that she was “inspired, motivated and hopeful. The talks allowed

me to realize how grateful I am to be a Mawrter. The speakers at TEDxWomen spoke about the importance of confidence and the value of being one’s true self. In a world still discriminatory against women and girls and where media ignites and reinforces certain social expectations, being comfortable and confident with one’s identity is crucial to one’s happiness and success.

“A friend once told me that when choosing a college, it is important not to base decisions on who you are, but who you would like to be,” Cho continues. “As a senior getting ready to enter into the ‘real world’, I feel as though Bryn Mawr has prepared me precisely because I am part of a community that supports me to become the best person I can be. I am surrounded by people who constantly motivate me. Not only am I surrounded by incredible peers, but brilliant, friendly faculty and considerate,

hardworking staff. This community has shaped my college experience and who I have become. I am proud to be the person I am.”

The all-day event took place in Goodhart Hall’s McPherson Auditorium and was organized by Bryn Mawr College’s Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center, the Self-Government Association, and the College Communications Office.

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defining eduCAtion foR A ConneCted WoRld

As communities worldwide have become more diverse and more

connected, globalization has gone from buzzword to reality—

one that bears real consequences for liberal arts colleges in the 21st century. Through myriad efforts, Bryn Mawr is actively engaging with the opportunities and the challenges of entering a global system of higher education.

“Colleges need to think about their position in this global system,” says Susan Sutton, Senior Advisor for International Initiatives. “How can we rethink the Bryn Mawr’s mission to have a global aspect to it? How can it take its mission from educating future leaders of the U.S. to educating future leaders of the world?”

The College is currently developing the infrastructure

necessary to address these issues, including forming a new international advisory committee that met for the first time in Singapore this past January. Made up of Bryn Mawr alumnae and parents of Bryn Mawr students, the council is being asked to help increase Bryn Mawr’s visibility among prospective international students and parents, to provide support to Bryn Mawr students studying or pursuing internships abroad, to help guide the College in the development of academic partnerships with institutions around the globe, and to assist in building stronger connections with all of the College’s international alumnae and parents.

“As Bryn Mawr’s community becomes increasingly diverse and students and faculty are engaged in ever-broader academic and experiential pursuits, it is essential that the institution continue to build the structures to support our global presence,” says Bryn Mawr President Jane McAuliffe. “The

College’s international alumnae/i and parents can be an invaluable resource in helping ensure these programs are developed in efficient and thoughtful ways.”

The College has also launched several pilot programs to partner with institutions abroad, including collaborating with Effat University, a women’s college in Saudi Arabia, to develop its science curriculum, and with Lady Shri Ram College, a women’s college in Delhi, India, to study school reform in Delhi and Philadelphia.

Sutton hopes to see these developments reflected back at home as well through an increased international focus in the curriculum. “You can’t be a successful scientist or businessperson unless you think about things globally and interact well with people from other nations,” she says. “This will better position our students for success in their careers.”

Susan Sutton ’69

In January 2012, a group made up of Bryn Mawr alumnae and parents of Bryn Mawr students met in Singapore as founding members of the College’s International Advisory Council. The 11 council members in Singapore were joined by three additional council members via video conference. Pictured above are (front row, from left) Betty Wei Liu ’53, Pratima Kirloskar (parent), Caroline Sim ’88, Courtney Seibert-Fennimore ’88, Binaifer Nowrojee ’86, President McAuliffe, Watanan Petersik ’81, and Chingling Tanco ’80; (back row, from left) Sanjay Kirloskar (parent), Jan Vasko (parent), Secretary of the College Ruth Lindeborg ’80, Chief Enrollment and Communications Officer Jenny Rickard, Susan Sutton ’69, Stuart McCarthy (parent), and Danny Tang ’07.

ideAs in ACtion

Although her interests lie in political philosophy, political science major

Julie Gorham ’12 found the inspiration for her senior thesis, not in a lecture or the pages of a book, but while navigating the on-the-ground realities of the Philadelphia family court system. Her experience came courtesy of Bryn Mawr’s Praxis Program, organized by the Civic Engagement Office, which offers experiential, community-based courses that integrate theory and practice through student participation in active, relevant fieldwork.

Gorham, a Katharine E. McBride Scholar, took a Praxis III course—essentially an independent study that requires students to contribute to the work of field partner organizations while conducting a scholarly study of their own experiences. Gorham chose to work for the Women’s Law Project, a Philadelphia non-profit that engages in high-impact litigation, advocacy, and education aimed at advancing the rights and status of all women.

Under the guidance of Women’s Law Project associate director Dabney Miller (a Graduate School of Social Work alumna), Gorham staffed the non-profit’s volunteer telephone counseling service and conducted research to improve its outreach efforts. For the latter she compared zip code data on calls to the counseling line to zip code data on domestic violence calls to the Philadelphia Police Department. She targeted zip codes with a significant discrepancy between the two types of calls with improved outreach, such as flyers with more accessible language and increased mailings to community organizations that could proliferate the information.

To fulfill the academic requirements of the Praxis course, Gorham worked with faculty advisor Marissa Golden, Associate Professor of Political Science, to develop a syllabus of reading and coursework that explores complexities faced by legal advocacy organizations, such as empowering clients while respecting their autonomy. Gorham also studied protection from abuse hearings in Philadelphia’s family court system, and she found that, compared to other Pennsylvania counties, Philadelphia saw a disproportionately high percentage of such cases resulting in continuances or dismissals.

“My hope is,” Gorham says, “that in reviewing legal procedures and examining these disparate statistics, the Women’s Law Project can be aware of a potential problem in the system and work with others to form a solution.”

Although Gorham has completed her Praxis course, she

continues to pursue the ideas it inspired in her thesis work on the political and legal expectations of families and households—entities that traditionally have been excluded from some lines of Western political philosophy.

“This really came about from researching protection from abuse hearings,” Gorham says. “I recognized that there’s a problem with saying the household or the family is strictly private because there are issues of justice that take place in the family setting.”

Such a profound integration of theory and practice is what distinguishes Praxis, Golden explains. “The Praxis III really demands a lot of students because they’re essentially doing a job, and then we require the to reflect on it in a scholarly way,” she says. “Julie is so off the charts in her analytics skills that she really exemplifies how students can be true scholars but use their learning to make active contributions.”

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volunteeRs By the numBeRs

LeaDeRSHiP POSiTiONS (189) • Alumnae Bulletin Editorial Committee• Alumnae Technology Advisory

Committee• Board of Trustees 64• Campaign 2012

Planning Committee• Friends of Athletics Executive Board• Friends of the Library Board• Nominating Committee• Parents Committee• President’s

Advisory Council 25• Graduate School of

Social Work and Social Research Board of Advisors

FUNDRaiSeRS (246)• Annual Fund Class Chairs 84• Annual Fund Class

Committee• Annual Fund Committee• Caroline McCormick Slade Society

Committee• GOLD Committee• Reunion Gift Committee 75• Senior Gift Committee• Taylor Society

aFFiNiTy OUTReaCH VOLUNTeeRS (315 )• Admissions Reps 95• ARS Chairs• Black Alumnae

Affinity Group• Career Externship 149

Sponsors • Career Network

Representatives• Club Presidents 45• Club Webmistresses• Latina/o Alumnae Affinity Group

VOLUNTeeRS FOR CLaSSeS (398)• Class Editors 107• Class Presidents• Class Webmistress• Reunion Event Committee 114• Songmistresses

Julie Gorham ’12

PHOTO: JJ LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY

Trustees Cynthia A. Archer ’75*Edith Aviles de Kostes ’88Bridget B. Baird ’69Susan Kelly Barnes ’76* Frederick C. BaumertMary L. Clark ’87Joan Breton Connelly, M.A. ’79, Ph.D. ’84 Arlene Joy Gibson ’65*Linda A. Hill ’77* Denise Lee Hurley ’82Justine D. Jentes ’88Amy T. Loftus ’90Ann Logan ’76Susan MacLaurin ’84Margaret M. Morrow ’71*Randolph M. NelsonGeorgette C. Phillips ’81William E. Rankin Willa Seldon ’82*Beth Springer ’86Janet L. Steinmayer ’77*Irving B. Yoskowitz

ex OfficioJane D. McAuliffe President of the CollegeEileen P. Kavanagh ’75 President of the Alumnae Association

Special RepresentativesCatherine Allegra ’84Drew Gilpin Faust ’68Cheryl R. Holland ’80 Catherine Koshland Chair, Board of Managers, Haverford CollegeBarbara P. Robinson ’62

Trustees emeritiBarbara Goldman Aaron ’53Robert Aiken, Jr.Betsy Zubrow Cohen ’63Lois Miller Collier ’50Anna Lo Davol ’64Anthony T. EndersConstance Tang Fong ’55Nancy Greenewalt Frederick ’50Lucy Norman Friedman ’65Donald N. GellertHanna Holborn Gray ’50Johanna Alderfer Harris ’51Alan HirsigFern Hunt ’69Beverly J. Lange ’67Jacqueline Koldin Levine ’46Roland MacholdJacqueline Badger Mars ’61Ruth Kaiser Nelson ’58Dolores G. Norton, M.S.S. ’60, Ph.D. ’69David W. OxtobyRobert ParskyShirley D. Peterson ’63R. Anderson PewJohn S. PriceAlice Mitchell Rivlin ’52Sally Shoemaker Robinson ’53Rosalyn Ravitch Schwartz ’44Edmund B. Spaeth, Jr.Susan Savage Speers ’51Barbara Janney Trimble ’60Betsy Havens Watkins ’61James WoodSally Hoover Zeckhauser ’64

* Officers and Special Representatives are elected for one-year terms.

memBeRs of the BoARd of tRustees 2011–12

$25,000

2010 REVENUE($103.4 MILLION)

GOVERNMENTGRANTS 5%

OTHER 4%

GIFTS & ENDOWMENTINCOME 38%

STUDENT NET TUITION& FEES 53%

AVERAGE UNDERGRADUATE GRANT

$22,395$24,917

$27,392$29,744 $30,837

$0

$5,000

$10,000

$15,000

$20,000

$30,000

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

PREVIOUS YEAR NEW $ AVERAGE GRANT

38% ($8,442) increase in average grant

CHANGES IN FINANCIAL REALITY2004-2009

-30%

-10%

10%

30%

50%

70%

BMC19%

Debt IncreaseUnrestricted Financial

Resources Change

PrivateColleges

72%BMC33%

PrivateColleges

-28%

UNDERGRADUATE ENROLLMENTFY 1999-2009

1250

1240

1230

1220

1210

1200

1190

1180

1170

1160

99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09

enrollment Numbers

Out of a record-high applicant pool, the College has enrolled 362 students

in the Class of 2013. The quality and diversity of the

entering class remain strong. 62% of the entering students ranked in the top 10% of their high school class, and the median SAT of the group is 1300. 19% of the members of the Class of 2013 are the first in their families to attend a four-year college, 34% are students of color, and 21% are from international backgrounds.

As a result of stabilizing first-year enrollments and increasing retention rates, the College closed the 2008–09 year at the highest enrollment in its history.

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CommentARy in the pRessCommentaries by Bryn Mawr President Jane McAuliffe appeared in The New York Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and on the website Inside Higher Ed.

feAtuRed in stoRiesBryn Mawr Professors of English Katherine Rowe and Jane Hedley, as well as students Jennifer Cook ‘11 and Jen Rajchel ‘11, were prominently featured in a March New York Times article on digital humanities. Bryn Mawr was also featured in the Times in February, when Hannah Smith ’14 wrote about her experiences as a first-year student.

The College’s Teaching and Learning Initiative was featured in the U.K.’s Times Higher Education and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Members of the faculty were also consulted for their expertise by the Associated Press, CNN Money, and Philadelphia’s ABC affiliate, among others.

The College appeared in the usual college rankings published each year as well as on a few less traditional lists, including Travel and Leisure’s roundup of “America’s Most Beautiful College Campuses.”

WRitingPsychology Professor Clark McCauley started penning a blog for Psychology Today, and Elizabeth Held ’12 spent the fall 2011 semester writing for USA Today’s website as a Collegiate Correspondent. Her posts have covered everything from campus safety to the relevancy of single-sex colleges.

pop CultuReBryn Mawr also had a presence in pop culture during 2011. In December, the television shows Boardwalk Empire and The Office mentioned the College. The 30 Rock writers also continued to show their love (we think) for Bryn Mawr in 2011. In the season finale, viewers learned that Jenna Maroney (played by Jane Krakowski) performed at the halftime show for the inaugural “Wool Bowl,” in which Bryn Mawr had an 11-2 halftime lead over Hiram College in a game that was apparently full of safeties.

We’Re no foolsThe April 1 word of Bryn Mawr’s partnership with the Bithnian University of Science and Technology was tweeted and retweeted and spread like wildfire. News of the first-of-its kind collaboration made it into the Huffington Post, Inside Higher Ed, and a number of other websites and blogs including a blog maintained by NPR’s Fresh Air.

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IA “ even after the majority of U.S. colleges and universities have gone coed, women’s colleges continue to prepare an inordinate percentage of their students to succeed in fields traditionally dominated by men.” —PreSiDent McAUliffe in the neW YOrk tiMeS