BRYN MAWR COLLEGE

Bryn Mawr College was founded by Dr. Joseph Taylor and a group of women and men belonging to the Religious Society of Friends. The new college was the first in the United States to offer women both undergraduate instruction and graduate instruction for the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in a variety of fields. Bryn Mawr's first class of students arrived in 1885, and in 1888 the first degrees were awarded, one A.B. and one Ph.D. Today Bryn Mawr remains the only predominantly women's college with a wide range of graduate programs. The graduate programs became coeducational in 1931. While the College's formal ties with the Society of Friends were broken in the 1890's, the institution maintains its commitment in spirit to the ideals inherent in its Quaker founding.

In 1915 the Carola Woerishoffer Graduate Department of Social Economy and Social Research was established, the first program in the nation in a college or university for graduate social work education. In 1970 the department became the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, which currently offers three degree programs: the Master of Social Service, the Master of Law and Social Policy, and the Doctor of Philosophy. In addition, a variety of programs are administered by the Office of the Dean of the Undergraduate College, currently including the College's summer school, the Post-Baccalaureate Program in Premedical and Allied Health Fields, and the Katharine E. McBride Scholars Program for women beyond the usual age of college entry who wish to earn an undergraduate degree. From 1976 through 1995, these programs were situated in a separate Division of General Studies.

The College's mission statement, as articulated for the Middle States Self-Study of 1998, is:

The mission of Bryn Mawr College is to provide a rigorous education and to encourage the pursuit of knowledge as preparation for life and work. Bryn Mawr teaches and values critical, creative, and independent habits of thought and expression in an undergraduate liberal arts curriculum for women and in coeducational graduate programs in Arts and Sciences and Social Work and Social Research. Bryn Mawr seeks to sustain a community diverse in nature and democratic in practice, for we believe that only through considering many perspectives do we gain a deeper understanding of each other and the world.

Since its founding in 1885, the College has maintained its character as a small residential community which fosters close working relationships between faculty and students. The faculty of teacher/scholars emphasizes learning through conversation and collaboration, primary reading, original research and experimentation. Our cooperative relationship with Haverford College enlarges the academic opportunities for students and their social community. Our active ties to Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania, and the proximity of the city of Philadelphia further extend the opportunities available at Bryn Mawr.

Living and working together in a community based on mutual respect, personal integrity and the standards of a social and academic Honor Code, each generation of students experiments with creating and sustaining a self-governing society within the College. The academic and co-curricular experiences fostered by Bryn Mawr, both on campus and in the College's wider setting, encourage students to be responsible citizens who provide service to and leadership for an increasingly interdependent world.

Bryn Mawr maintains cooperative and consortial relationships with a number of institutions including particularly Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges and the University of Pennsylvania. The most important of these is with Haverford College. Bryn Mawr and Haverford together form a two-college community in which a wider range of academic and extra-curricular programs is available than either institution could offer alone. Bryn Mawr and Haverford students may register for courses and major at either college. In recent years, a number of new two-college academic programs have been put in place. The two colleges cooperate in appointments matters, in student services, and in grant-seeking for their academic programs. The Two-College Committee on Academic Cooperation provides a forum for faculty and administrators to review and discuss the coordination of academic programs. The Bryn Mawr Board of Trustees and the Haverford Board of Managers confer with one another through their Joint Council and hold some of their regular committee meetings together. (Click here for policies relating to the cooperative relationship between the two colleges.)

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Maintained by the Office of the Provost.
Posted Summer 2001.
Confirmed Summer 2006.