Academic Excellence and Innovation

Bryn Mawr’s founding commitment to academic excellence is at the core of its identity. Bryn Mawr supports a faculty of scholar-teachers who bring contemporary research to the classroom, the power of liberal arts education as the best preparation for professional success and lifetime learning, and the value of a challenging and engaging undergraduate experience that prepares students for long-term success.  

President Cassidy is committed to recruiting and retaining a superb, diverse faculty whose research advances knowledge, informs dynamic teaching, and drives development of innovative programs with national and international reputations. Bryn Mawr is measured among the top liberal colleges for its support of research and faculty publication.

She advocates for the importance and expansion of undergraduate research, which students pursue during the academic year and in funded summer projects. The College has also expanded opportunities for students to achieve an advanced degree at the Bryn Mawr or with partner institutions. These and other high-impact educational practices contribute to Bryn Mawr being consistently rated among the top 10 liberal arts colleges in the U.S. in the percentage of students who pursue advanced degrees. 

Curricular innovation has been a hallmark of her work at Bryn Mawr as both provost and president. In collaboration with faculty colleagues, Cassidy led development of a rich array of educational programs that integrate rigorous coursework and complex problem-solving in settings in and beyond the classroom, including 360° multi-disciplinary course clusters, Praxis courses that combine classroom and fieldwork learning, and new majors and minors in fields ranging from Data Science to Neuroscience to Asian American Studies.