The below message was sent to faculty, staff, students, alumnae/i, current parents, and the Board of Trustees on August 26, 2025.
Dear Bryn Mawr Community,
This is a big and exciting week – and one that can bring up a range of feelings. Returning students are traveling back to campus from across the country and around the globe. New students (and their parents/guardians) are packing, traveling, unpacking, and starting their own on-campus experiences. Faculty are wrapping up summer projects and preparing for the first week of class. And our staff, who make the college run, have been working all summer to keep the campus beautiful, operational, and ready for everyone to arrive. Late summer is a special time on campus, and nothing beats the atmosphere at the start of the academic year.
In this week of transition - and the butterflies in the stomach that may bring – know that you matter here. The senior staff and I can’t wait for so many in our community to be together again on campus, living and learning in ways that can only happen at a place like Bryn Mawr. If - or when - the butterflies start dancing, take time to connect and share with those around you, be they students, staff, or faculty. Our coming together this week starts another year of learning and connecting as we stay curious, look up from our phones, really listen, and build the deep long-lasting connections that happen in special ways on our beautiful campus.
As we welcome new faculty and new undergraduate, graduate, and postbac students to campus, I am reminded again of those who came before us and those who will follow. This fall marks the 140th anniversary of the College’s first class. Join the birthday party on Friday, September 19, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Taylor Drive and pick up a commemorative mug. I have been thinking a lot about the College’s next chapter, or strategic plan, as well as plans for our physical campus that we will be collaborating on with the architectural firm DLR this year. As we take our places in Bryn Mawr’s multi-generational community at the start of this 140th academic year, we do so with an eye to the College’s 150th anniversary in 2035 and the students we will welcome then (who are starting fourth grade this fall).
The commitment we make in our mission statement to “educate students to the highest standard of excellence to prepare them for lives of purpose” is as central an idea today as it was in 1885 and will be in 2035. Honor this week, in all its betwixt and betweenness. Say the goodbyes and celebrate the hellos. Begin talking with acquaintances and strangers, as many will become life-long friends in your Bryn Mawr extended family. Be easy on yourselves and each other, knowing that it is in these transitional times that the space between what is and what will be is the thinnest, and we are often the most open to serendipity.
Plan now to join us at a short Convocation ceremony to formally start the academic year on Tuesday, September 2, from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., featuring student speakers Nethmi Dharmasena ‘27, Jamie Higgins ‘98 M.S.S ‘26, Clio Morbello ‘26, and Sara Pratt ‘26. As our new students add their voices to the Anass this week, they join with so many before them and our global alumnae/i community, 25,000+ strong, in celebrating and loving Bryn Mawr. With our mission statement as our sacred text, we begin the new academic year grateful for the enduring legacy and innovation core to Bryn Mawr College and stronger for living and learning together.
May those butterflies take us all to new yet to be explored places, together.
As always,
Wendy Cadge
President and Professor of Sociology
Bryn Mawr College
101 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Pronouns: she/her
brynmawr.edu
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The College’s Anass, chanted in Greek, first appeared in print in a 1900 issue of the student publication the Fortnightly Philistine and was likely written by an undergraduate student in the 1890s.
In Greek: Anassa kata, kalo kale, Ia ia ia Nike, Bryn Mawr, Bryn Mawr, Bryn Mawr!
In English: Queen, descend, I invoke you fair one. Hail, hail, hail, victory, Bryn Mawr, Bryn Mawr, Bryn Mawr!
