The below message was sent to faculty, staff, and students on April 16, 2026.
Dear Bryn Mawr Community,
Last weekend, I hosted an amazing group of undergraduate alums, representing the classes of 1994 through 2009, who are carrying the College's values forward personally and through their leadership in an array of fields, including artificial intelligence, medicine, higher education, finance, counter terrorism, law, and philanthropy. Their courage, clarity, and commitment to the College are a deep source of strength for all of us. A special pleasure of the evening was an impromptu call and response of "Anassa Kata" between the alums in my living room and students across the way at Goodhart. Our best guess was that the student anassas were related to the theater performances of The Sleeping Beauty by The Barre Owls student group and The Watsons by the Bi-Co Theater Department. Regardless, the voices of our students and alums have stayed with me this week as we prepare to conclude the semester.
It is these voices, including those of our soon-to-be graduates in the class of 2026 and other alums who have been on campus recently, that have me feeling grateful - yet again - for the power and presence of the Bryn Mawr community across generations. The alums who convened on campus on Saturday started calling themselves "aunties" to current students and make themselves available to meet with students through the Career and Civic Engagement Center each time they visit. A similar generosity of spirit infused the recent campus visit of Catharine "Kate" Stimpson '58, one of the founders of women's studies and feminist criticism, who gave a talk about her documentary Love Letters, a landmark work of courage, persistence, and lesbian love and family to students, faculty, staff, and alums on campus. If you missed the screening, Love Letters is available through our library, and there will be a viewing in the coming months. Also last week, Lisa Lee '00, associate professor of art at Emory University, spoke to a full house about her research on the artist Thomas Hirschhorn.
The relationships between students, alums, faculty, and so many more make the College what it is throughout the year. With our mission statement as a sacred text and North Star, we draw on these relationships when, for example, we challenge the requirements imposed on colleges and universities by the federal government, as recounted in an Inside Higher Ed article earlier this week. These relationships are what allowed us to collaboratively draft and begin to enact The Next Chapter, the College's ten-year strategic direction, and they will help us to move it forward. I will share the final text before the end of the semester.
One month from today, we will be celebrating the graduation of the class of 2026. As students start to take graduation photos on Taylor steps (I saw them last week!), and the Taylor bell begins to ring marking the end of seniors' final assignments, I am so grateful for our work together and the opportunity to ground ourselves in this place and its mission today and in the days to come.
As always,
Wendy
P.S. Please don't forget to join me at the Campus Awards ceremony on Wednesday, April 29th, at 4 p.m. This gathering is new this year and allows us to honor student, faculty, and staff recipients of the McPherson Awards, members of the Community Building Honor Roll, academic department award winners, and others from many parts of campus whose accomplishments have strengthened our community this academic year. Please reach out to officeofthepresident@brynmawr.edu with any questions.
Wendy Cadge
President and Professor of Sociology
Bryn Mawr College
101 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Pronouns: she/her
brynmawr.edu
Instagram
Spark Wisdom
