For Starters: Fall 2020
Move-In Day. Let's Dance. Remote Internships.
1. Move-In Day
Students started arriving on campus in late August for a staggered move-in that stretched out over several days. It was the beginning of a year like no other, with masks and physical distancing the norm. Along with Haverford, Bryn Mawr is holding a 15-week fall semester that includes both in-person and remote instruction for students on campus and off.
2. Agents of Change
“Embrace the idea that you can be an agent for change and that you can work for those we have left behind as societies,” says Gretel Cuevas ’20.
Along with Mahika Vajpeyi ’21, Cuevas is featured in a video announcing the launch of a new UNICEF crowdsourcing platform developed by yet another Mawrter, Sanchi Ravishanker ’15.
Called Global Development Commons (GDC), the new site will gather evidence and innovations in support of the UN’s child-focused Sustainable Development Goals. Publicly accessible to governments, policymakers, frontline workers, researchers, and students, GDC aims to tackle COVID-19 and other pressing pre-pandemic needs, like mental health and social protection.
“One of the most exciting parts for me was to be able to involve a few Bryn Mawr students,” Ravishanker says. For her part, Vajpeyi says, “Inclusive development would mean all children in the world have equal and guaranteed access to quality education, sanitation, health care, and other facilities.”
Click here to watched the video.
3. Let's Dance
Professor of Dance Mady Cantor performed in Connecting the Distance, a new work from Expansions Contemporary Dance Ensemble at Philadelphia’s 2020 Fringe Festival. Cantor worked as part of a team of dancers to create videos for interactive walking tours in Mt. Airy and North Philly. The multimedia project presented QR codes at mapped locations that linked to content and performances from featured artists.
Also this summer, Assistant Professor Lela Aisha Jones joined Brenda Dixon Gottschild, the author of Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance, for an installment of Deep Roots Bold Future, a series of intergenerational Zoom conversations presented by the Painted Bride.
4. In Translation
“At a time when foreign language departments in many colleges are endangered,” says Director of Multilingual Writing Betty Litsinger, “it's important to highlight the critical role languages and translation play in creating beauty and supporting humanity.”
To that end, Litsinger launched a new website, In Other Words: Bryn Mawr in Translation, that features short works created and translated by students, faculty, staff, and alumnae/i.
This summer, the site published its first submission by an alumna/ us, a translation from B.J. Epstein ’01 of an excerpt from The Sea by Swedish novelist Mats Kempe.
Funded with a Digital Bryn Mawr Seed Grant, the site was built by Litsinger; Director of Digital Scholarship Alicia Peaker; and Millicent Auma ’21, a psychology and computer science double major from Kenya. Students, faculty, staff, and alumnae/i can submit material through the website.
5. Remote
6. Investment Strategy
Brooke H. Jones has been named Bryn Mawr’s first chief investment officer. Jones comes to Bryn Mawr from Carnegie Corporation of New York, where she served as a managing director of investments for the investment team. Named one of Crain’s New York Business 40 Under 40 in 2019, she will provide full-time expertise to the management of the College’s endowment. One of her first efforts will be to recruit a strong and diverse team, which will be based in New York City. Jones herself will be on campus weekly.
7. Energy Savers
In a recent report from PennEnvironment, Bryn Mawr ranked among the top colleges in the U.S. in embracing renewable energy. The College gets all of its electricity through renewable sources, largely by purchasing renewable energy credits (RECs), which allow institutions to purchase renewable power generated on their behalf.
Bryn Mawr began purchasing RECs years ago and by 2015 had obtained 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources. The College also has dropped its gross emissions by more than half since 2008 through energy-saving methods.