Harris Wofford at BMC
Leading in STEM
A Mawrter Remembers
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p. 37
p. 45
The Bulletin celebrates Bryn Mawr’s fifth president.
The College undertakes a major renovation of Park Science Center.
Fall 2017
Alumnae Bulletin
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Jacqueline Badger Mars ’61 shares memories of BMC.
View From the Hill
On the steps of Canaday after Lantern Night 2017. Inset: On November 19, graduate students gathered in the Sunken Garden for their first-ever lantern tradition. Pictured above, Mathematics Graduate Student Samantha Pezzimenti with her lantern.
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View From the Hill
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Table of Contents
On the Cover From the desk of Harris Wofford. Photograph by Aaron Windhorst.
FEATURES
32
The Courage of Our Contradictions The Bulletin celebrates Harris Wofford at Bryn Mawr, 1970–1978.
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Bryn Mawr builds a 21st-century facility for women leading in STEM.
Mawrters around the globe host send-off parties for the incoming class.
Park Science Center
By Nancy Schmucker ’98
By Elizabeth Mosier ’84
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Welcome, Class of 2021
Table of Contents
DEPARTMENTS
ALUMNAE BULLETIN FALL 2017
Chief Communications Officer Jesse Gale jgale@brynmawr.edu Editor Nancy Brokaw nbrokaw01@brynmawr.edu Associate Editor Nancy Schmucker ’98 nschmucker@brynmawr.edu
4 Letters 6 President’s Message Engaging with Our Past
8 Archways
In the Know: Looking to the World By Elliot Krasnopoler
Art Director Jodee Winger
Class in Session: The Theory of (Curating) Art By Louisa Wilson
Class Notes Liaison Robin Parks rparks@brynmawr.edu
For Starters: On fireflies, computers, Mary Patterson McPherson, Athletics Homecoming, and more
Bryn Mawr Woman: Even with Their Nails By Tania Romero ’05
Lore: A Mawrter Mystery
Dispatch: We Are Alone By Amelia McCarthy ’19
GSSWSR: Storiez Time By Nancy Brokaw
Books: What If?
GSAS: Doing the Math By Isaac Craig
41 Our Bryn Mawr
Student Profile: Living History By Nancy Brokaw
19 Discourse
Debate: How Should We Remember M. Carey Thomas? Faculty Profile: Chemistry Professor Sharon Burgmayer Crowd Source: The Memory of Science U-Curve: Mawrters in Midlife By Elizabeth Mosier ’84
Photographer Aaron Windhorst
Contributing Writers Matt Gray Maureen McGonigle ’98 Louisa Wilson Editorial Advisory Board Alison Kosakowski ’01, chair Julia Kagan Baumann ’70 Elizabeth Mosier ’84 Magda Pecsenye ’94 Saskia Subramanian ’88, M.A. ’89, Alumnae Association President (Ex Officio) The Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin (USPS 068-360) is published quarterly in February, except April (May), except July (August), and November. © Bryn Mawr College Alumnae Association, Vol. 99, No. 2, Fall 2017. Periodicals postage paid at Bryn Mawr and other offices. Postmaster: send form 3579 to Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, 101 North Merion Avenue, Wyndham, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2899. Please send address changes to the address above, or email to bmcalum@brynmawr.
Welcome, Class of 2021 Mawrters host send-off parties around the globe Association News: From the Alumnae Association President By Saskia Subramanian ’88, M.A. ’89 Where We Are: A Report on the Campaign for Bryn Mawr Alumna Profile: A Mawrter Remembers Class Notes
101 Generations
Back to School As told to Patricia Wilkins
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Contact us alumnaebulletin@brynmawr.edu
Letters
Going Digital
When we launched the redesigned Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin this past winter, we promised a new digital version. The new site made its debut with the summer issue, and we’re excited about its updated features, not to mention its good looks. We invite you to explore articles from the past three issues in this updated format, which features bigger, bolder images, improved navigation, and more.
What's New?
The new, up-to-date discussion feature means more interactive commenting that will ping you when there’s a response to your post and can be integrated into your social media feeds. Stories are easier to share through social media and email and are easier to print out. The Campus News feed provides daily updates on what’s happening at the College. (You’ll find it by scrolling down to the bottom of the homepage.) The richer reader’s experience features web-only content and links to related content on the College site. As ever, we’re eager to hear what you think. So send us your feedback! —NANCY BROKAW, EDITOR
We’d like to hear from you!
Corrections
The Bulletin welcomes letters expressing a range of opinions on issues addressed in the magazine and of interest to the extended community. Letters must be signed in order to be considered for publication and may be edited for length, clarity, accuracy, and civility. Comment online at bulletin.brynmawr.edu, or send letters to alumnaebulletin@brynmawr.edu or to Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, 101 North Merion Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2899.
The Bulletin editors note that remarks attributed to Meiko Takayama ’91 (in “Welcome to the Working Week”) were paraphrased from a talk she gave on campus in September 2016 and were not written by her for the Bulletin. We regret that, as a result, some of the quotes were out of context and may have misrepresented the tone of the talk and Ms. Takayama’s perspectives on gender in the workplace.
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Comment online: bulletin.brynmawr.edu
Send letters to: alumnaebulletin@brynmawr.edu
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Letters
Follow-Up Michelle Zauner ’11, who headlined “The DIY Music Scene” [Spring 2016] played on National Public Radio's Tiny Desk series in October. “As Japanese Breakfast, Michelle Zauner writes sparkling, opulent dream pop about grief and love (and, occasionally, robots),” writes NPR’s Marissa L0russo.
YOUR LEGACY.
BRYN MAWR’S FUTURE.
Give a gift and receive income for life SAMPLE RATES FOR A SINGLE ANNUITANT Carol Bowe ’17, featured in “Posse Power” [Winter 2017], has been named a Woodrow Wilson Georgia Teaching Fellow. Offered by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the fellowship recruits recent graduates and career changers with strong STEM backgrounds and prepares them to teach in high-need secondary schools. Fellows commit to teach for three years in the urban and rural Georgia schools that need strong STEM teachers. A physics major, Bowe is studying at Kennesaw State University.
AGE
RATE (%)
70 5.1 75 5.8 80 6.8 85 7.8 90+ 9.0
Support Bryn Mawr’s legacy of excellence. To learn more about gift annuities, visit giftplanning.brynmawr.edu
OFFICE OF GIFT PLANNING 610-526-6597 giftplanning@brynmawr.edu
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President’s Message
Engaging with Our Past Drawn from President Kim Cassidy’s remarks delivered on September 16, 2017, at Bryn Mawr College’s Alumnae/i Volunteer Summit. Bryn Mawr College’s abiding work and core commitment is to sustain an educational community in which students study with rigor, embrace complexity, and pursue the excitement and challenge of discovery. And this is the commitment we’re putting at the center of our engagement with Bryn Mawr’s past. For several years, a series of discussions has taken place ... about the legacy and symbolism
of M. Carey Thomas as Bryn Mawr’s spiritual founder, because of renewed awareness of racist and anti-Semitic statements and actions during her tenure as president. Last spring the College ... announced the formation of a broadly focused Working Group to address issues of exclusion and resistance across Bryn Mawr’s rich history. National events kicked this discussion into high gear, [and in the late summer], I declared a temporary moratorium on the use of her name to designate buildings and spaces on campus while we took up the question together in a full and thoughtful way. For some ... that decision didn't sit right. It seemed like
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a capricious act of historical revisionism, a placating of loud voices in the passion of the moment. But this temporary moratorium is not a rash move, nor is it about intolerance or political correctness run amok. Quite the contrary: by declaring a temporary moratorium while we assess the question, we have taken a concrete step to make it clear ... that the College rejects the racism and anti-Semitism that comprised part of the vision that shaped this institution Sometimes remaining silent is not an option, because silence can be understood to speak volumes.
President’s Message
The temporary moratorium does not end a controversy, then, but rather starts a conversation where we can do what Bryn Mawr does best: engage in a free, honest, rigorous dialogue, in which all members of our diverse, global community can encounter each other, consider positions based on intellectual and ethical merit, and emerge with a set of solutions and actions that leave us better than we were before. The Working Group will facilitate that dialogue, which will culminate in a set of concrete recommendations. During this process, we will ask a lot of our students ... [and] they will ask a lot of us. We understand that if you’re going to challenge young adults to push boundaries, analyze issues critically, and pursue their passions, then they’re not going to do that only in the classroom. They’re going to question their campus community, and its history, and push for change. This is by no means a sign that they are intolerant, fragile, or dismissive of our history. To the contrary, this is a sign that they’re doing exactly what we hope and expect them to do. ... Our longest-serving president, Martha Carey Thomas ... created the organizational and academic structures that still guide us today. A living argument for the necessity and value of a world-class women’s college, she persisted through the institutionalized sexism of three different graduate schools across two continents to earn her Ph.D., and she produced scholarship that remained highly regarded for nearly a century. She was a leader in the suffragette movement and an early advocate for an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. She set the highest standards for Bryn Mawr.
... She also is distinctive because so few women helped to create institutes of higher education. Other places that educated women early on, even many of the Seven Sisters, were founded and guided by men. ... M. Carey Thomas is a towering figure at Bryn Mawr and beyond, and nothing will or should change that. But a towering figure casts a large shadow, and it is time for us to deal with that shadow, fully and forthrightly. Alongside the record of her accomplishments sits a record of explicit racism and antiSemitism, in both word and deed. Deeply influenced by the
She publicly fretted over the potential loss of America’s and Bryn Mawr’s “intellectual heritage” from the mixing of what she called “inferior” races with the “superior.” ... She blocked the hiring of Jewish faculty and the admission of Jewish students. She argued that “beyond doubt,” the “pure Negroes of Africa” had “never yet in the history of the world manifested any continuous mental activity,” and she worked against the admission of African American students. How do we weigh the facets of who she was and what she represents? I can imagine many possible responses, options, and
The temporary moratorium does not end a controversy, but rather starts a conversation where we can do what Bryn Mawr does best: engage in a free, honest, rigorous dialogue.
scientific racism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she saw the world in eugenicist terms of superior and inferior races, and racialized nationalities and religions; and she wove that racism into her feminism. In her opening address for the 1916 academic year, she argued ... that “If the present intellectual supremacy of the white races is maintained, as I hope that it will be for centuries to come, I believe that it will be because they are the only races that have seriously begun to educate their women.”
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outcomes that would enable us to honor the complexity of what M. Carey Thomas means to the diverse members of today’s Bryn Mawr community. And that’s what the Working Group will do: look at the issue from multiple perspectives, engage the community, and consider options for how to make the fullness of her legacy visible on campus moving forward ... a thorough, ethical process enriches us all, and produces outcomes we can respect. I have faith in this process because it draws on the essence of what makes Bryn Mawr Bryn Mawr.
In This Section
Lore p. 12 GSAS p. 14 Student Profile p. 15
Archways A Science Fellow
Adolescence can be a tough time of life, particularly in our increasingly interconnected and globalized world. Yasmine Nahim ’18 wondered whether multi-ethnic teens faced more challenges than their mono-ethnic peers. To find out, she is looking into the differences in the psychological well-being of mono-ethnic Korean adolescents and their multi-ethnic peers with one Korean and one non-Korean parent in South Korea. To fund her Summer of Science research, Nahim received a Frances Velay Fellowship, which supports young women scientists.
Read more
bit.ly/2xT3Akn
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For Starters
2. Photo Jeff Fusco Photography, courtesy aPA.
A Wired World
Cai Guo-Qiang: Fireflies (2017) by Cai Guo-Qiang, commissioned by aPA with Fung Collaboratives.
1. Fireflies
When Cai Guo-Qiang’s Fireflies public art project launched a fleet of pedicabs, festooned with 900 lanterns, onto Philly streets, some lucky Bryn Mawr students were on hand to observe. Enrolled in a course on art and the environment in East Asia taught by Assistant Professor Shiamin Kwa, the students saw firsthand how art transforms our understanding of ordinary objects. “Cai’s art is experiential,” says Kwa. “The experience of being there, surrounded by hundreds of other people experiencing the same thing at the same time, is not something that can be replicated on film or in print.”
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brynmawr.edu/news
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On track to becoming one of Bryn Mawr's most popular departments, Computer Science hit a record number of major declarations this year. And while some students enter with a definite plan, many find their way to the major in unexpected ways. “Originally I was into Psych,” says Madeline Perry ’19, “and I switched over to Cities. I didn’t think CS at all.” So what changed? For an internship working on a Seven Sisters history archive, Perry had to build a website, becoming proficient in CSS, HTML, and Javascript— none of which she’d ever used before. Oh, and she picked up a second major. It’s this attitude— creativity mixed with entrepreneurial spirit mixed with a recognition of technology’s relevance— that sets CS students apart. One terms it “global minded and socially conscious,” another “well rounded.” Regardless, the sheer number of students interested in the field speaks to its appeal. “Computer science is very relevant now,” says Department Chair Dianna Xu. “It has a lot to do with what’s going on around us—the pervasiveness of big data and how that’s driving the world.”
For Starters
3.
The Perfect Fit
As president of a highly selective liberal arts college and mother of a college-bound high school senior, Kim Cassidy knows a thing or two about college admissions. So, this fall, “in the spirit of reducing stress,” she offered up some hard-earned wisdom to Huffington Post readers: “Create the set of schools that you think is right for you, complete the application fully and honestly, and then (try to) relax. You may get into your top choice. And if you don’t, but you were careful in creating your larger set of choices, the school that selects you will be lucky to have you.... By the time you graduate, you’ll find yourself saying, ‘I couldn't have made a better choice.’”
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5. A Prized Poet
The Academy of American Poets recognized the work of Creative Writing Major Sanam Sheriff ’18 for her poem To a Lover, Miles Away with the 2017 Bryn Mawr College Prize in Memory of Marie Bullock and publication on the Academy website.
4. China Studies Since 2013, Tri-Co students have been earning master’s degrees in China studies through a partnership with Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. According to Marian Slocum ’15, one of the most recent graduates of the Master of Chinese Studies program, “It was an incredible learning experience, in and out of the classroom, and probably the most personally challenging experience I’ve had so far in my life. I learned so much about the world and myself.” With students from all over the world, Slocum explains, class discussions featured a wide range of perspectives. “I was exposed to new ideas and angles from which to examine historical trends and events,” she says. “I especially enjoyed our Chinese history class. As an American, I had not had the opportunity to learn about China’s extraordinary development from the Chinese perspective.” Open to any interested Tri-Co student, the program can accept as many as 15 students each year with a full scholarship that includes the costs of instruction and on-campus housing and dining.
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Read Sheriff's poem
bit.ly/2urzB4P
bit.ly/2wKG6Bs
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For Starters
7.
A Postbac Partnership
6. A Rare Breed At Reunion 2017, President Emeritus Mary Patterson McPherson, Ph.D. ’69, took a little time off from the festivities to sit for our camera crew. She told them, “Bryn Mawr gives you a kind of educational experience that is quite rare today ... where communication and engagement with other people is valued.”
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Watch the video bit.ly/2yMcFjl
8. Let the Games Begin In October, Bryn Mawr hosted its first-ever Athletics Homecoming with a full complement of varsity and alumnae/i sports, photo ops, and a Cambrian Row tailgate. Returning Owls played basketball, field hockey, soccer, tennis, and volleyball, and the weekend kicked off with a Homecoming Eve alumnae panel on life after Bryn Mawr: Aigné Goldsby ’11 (cross country and indoor/outdoor track & field), Heather McKay ’04 (lacrosse), and Avary Taylor ’15 (volleyball).
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brynmawr.edu/postbac
See the pictures smu.gs/2zldhxs
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The Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program’s consortial option gives accepted students the opportunity to start medical school immediately following the completion of their year at Bryn Mawr. This summer, the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine became the 18th consort school and the first dental school to join the program in many years. Pre-dental students have not had a linkage option available since a previous agreement with Penn Dental ended more than a decade ago. It was a bit of a reunion: Olivia Sheridan, D.M.D., assistant dean for admissions at Penn Dental and a 1986 graduate of Bryn Mawr’s postbac program, successfully linked to Penn Dental herself before the program was disbanded. “I know firsthand the quality and rigor of the Bryn Mawr postbac program,” says Sheridan. “I’ve had the privilege of working with and teaching other postbac alums at Penn Dental Medicine and very much look forward to many more years of alliance.”
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Lore
A Mawrter Mystery Mariel Rosati ’08 knew there was a connection between her employer, Wyck House in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, and Bryn Mawr: former residents Jane Bowne Haines and Mary Troth Haines graduated in 1891 and 1914, respectively, and family descendant Margaret Howell Bacon was from the class of 1918. Plus, the College was represented in its collection of more than 10,000 objects saved by the family over nine generations, including notes and papers from Jane’s student days. And after a bit of sleuthing, Rosati found a lantern tucked away on the third floor. “I instantly knew it was a Bryn Mawr lantern,” she says. Enter student intern Hannah McMillan ’19. The two set out to determine the lantern’s owner and quickly eliminated Jane, who graduated in the 1800s, then Mary and Margaret, when descriptions of their lanterns did not include green glass. Was there a fourth Mawrter living at Wyck? A trip to Canaday’s Special Collections dated the lantern to 1907, and a search of the 1907 yearbook unearthed Anna Jones Haines. Anna wasn’t listed on the family genealogies, but further research showed her to be Mary’s older sister, who moved to Russia after graduating. Rosati and McMillan speculate that Anna gave her lantern to her sister before going abroad. They continue to dig for more Bryn Mawr connections—and maybe even some tidbits about Anna’s Russian adventure.
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Wyck House
A National Historic Landmark house, garden, and farm in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Wyck House served as the home to a distinguished Quaker family from 1690 to 1973. The clan, which included Milans, Jansens, Wistars, and Haineses, represented the city’s leadership in business, natural history and science, and education reform.
GSSWSR
Storiez Time
A social worker draws on trauma-informed practice— and creativity—to help people heal. BY NANCY BROKAW
“There’s no rewind button for life,” says Meagan Corrado, M.S.S. ’09. But while there might be no way to go back in time to erase painful experiences, there are ways for people to heal from them. A doctor of social work and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in traumainformed practice, Corrado works largely with inner-city youth in Philadelphia and Camden. As she explains it, traumainformed practice is, at its core, social work in action. “It’s creating safe spaces for clients to talk about what happened to them,” she says. “It’s using a strengths-based approach that looks at the sources of pain and shame but also at the sources of resilience and creativity—at how people are able to keep going. It’s meeting the client where they are and helping them to achieve wholeness and healing at whatever stage they are at.” Corrado is also the creator of the Storiez Trauma Narrative intervention, designed to help those who have had difficult life experiences create, voice, and honor their narratives. “I was always looking for creative ways to support trauma survivors,” she says. “Storiez integrates my personal experiences of trauma and my formal education. My master’s program at Bryn Mawr opened my eyes to the different experiences of trauma survivors, and for my doctoral work at
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT SOCIAL WORK IS THE VERSATILITY I WORK AS A CLINICIAN, HELPING PEOPLE HEAL FROM TRAUMA. I WORK IN THEORY DEVELOPMENT, CREATING TRAUMA-FOCUSED RESOURCES. I INSTRUCT MSW STUDENTS IN THE CLASSROOM AND FIELD. I SIT ON THE BOARD OF THE CAMPAIGN FOR TRAUMA INFORMED POLICY AND PRACTICE.
the University of Pennsylvania, I decided to formalize the trauma narrative process. I looked at the common factors among trauma treatments and how to infuse it with creativity, to incorporate social work principles into how we help people tell their stories.” And so the Storiez intervention was born. For some, Corrado explains, it seems that processing trauma has to entail talking about “the
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nitty-gritty, the pain.” But, she continues, “it also includes looking at the strengths, looking at the creative ways that people heal.” Working in whatever format they choose—music, dance, art, writing, rap—Corrado’s clients create a narrative to express what has happened to them. “For me, being creative has always been part of who I am as a person,” she says. “I've always been a writer, and recently I found mosaic and collage as a form of expression. When I created the Storiez intervention, I decided that incorporating the creative process into trauma processing was an essential tool in helping people heal.” Colleagues took note. “When fellow clinicians started asking, ‘How did you go about doing that?,’ I realized that not everyone necessarily knows how to facilitate the creative process with traumatized clients,” Corrado explains. To answer those questions, Storiez provides an array of resources— guides, trainings, videos—for therapists, teachers, parents, and community leaders. But the people who are benefiting most from Corrado’s intervention are the trauma survivors she works with. As one young Philadelphian says of the Storiez experience, “It was good to talk about all of the things I’ve been through. It made me feel better about myself because sometimes you can’t always hold stuff in. It was good getting it out and talking about it.”
GSAS
Doing the Math A polymath with a passion for math and history, Bill Dunham has written award-winning books, lectured worldwide, and unearthed a bit of Bryn Mawr history. BY ISAAC CRAIG, PH.D. CANDIDATE
“Read Euler, read Euler, he is the master of us all!” urged the French scientist/mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace. Few have taken this quote closer to heart than Visiting Professor and Research Associate William (Bill) Dunham. A math professor and historian, Dunham is one of the world’s leading experts on the Swiss mathematician, Leonhard Euler (1707–1783). As an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, Dunham had a hard time choosing between history and math. After settling on the latter, he went on to study topology at Ohio State, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1974. Around the same time, he attended a number theory seminar where he met fellow mathematician and future wife Penny Higgins Dunham. “It was a very romantic experience,” he recalls. But even with his academic career well underway, he found something missing. “I never abandoned my love of history,” he says. “In particular, I wanted to know how mathematics got started, where it came from, and what it looked like 200 —or 2,000—years ago.” He started by reading the original works (in Latin) of some of his favorite mathematicians and was soon writing articles that reinvigorated the beautiful proofs he found. This all
eventually led to his first book, Journey Through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics— and the rest is history. As the Truman Koehler Professor of Mathematics at Muhlenberg College, he taught math and its history. Penny accepted a position a year later, and for 20 years, they happily taught math together. Over those 20 years, he wrote five more books, received multiple awards in teaching and writing, and formed lasting relationships with the community at Muhlenberg. The shift to math history, he says, was frightening. “But sometimes when you’re given an opportunity, you just have to take it! There’s this great quote from Graham Bell that comes to mind: ‘Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods.’” Soon after the Dunhams retired from Muhlenberg, they took research associate positions at Bryn Mawr, and given the amount of mathematical history at Bryn Mawr, it was a perfect fit for Bill. True to character, he immediately got to work on a new project: Bryn Mawr’s relationship with the English mathematician and philosopher Lord Bertrand Russell, who married two Bryn Mawr alumnae—Alys Pearsall Smith (Class of 1890), his first wife, and Edith Finch ’22, his fourth and last.
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EULER, EULER, EULER! The Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler made important discoveries in infinitesimal calculus, graph theory, analytical number theory, and topology. One of the most prolific mathematicians ever, he is responsible for 60 to 80 volumes.
Dunham’s research uncovered an animated narrative between Russell and Bryn Mawr. The lectures Russell was invited to deliver—six in all—focused on the axioms of Euclidean and projective geometry. But, ever rambunctious, he presented an extra talk on ‘‘Socialism, the Consummation of Individual Liberty’’ to the Graduate Club. Dunham turned his findings into an article, later published in the Mathematical Intelligencer, and gave his first talk on the subject to Bryn Mawr’s Distressing Math Collective seminar. Most recently, Dunham offered a spring course on the history of mathematics that explored some of the greatest achievements in mathematics and the mathematicians that go with them—Archimedes, Newton, Gauss, and, yes, Euler.
Student Profile
Living History For her summer internship, Leah Baer ’19 experienced history firsthand at Gettysburg National Military Park. Working as an interpreter, sometimes dressed in period costume, the history major facilitated connections to the historic landscape for visitors. But for the much-anticipated anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, she appeared as a Union soldier. Why this particular internship? In the summer, Gettysburg receives approximately 1,000 visitors per day. I wanted to help people comprehend the complex and tumultuous events that occurred here and how the universal themes embedded in the battle resonate today. With this internship, I got to apply all the skills I acquired as a history major on a grand scale. What was your part in the battle anniversary? Thousands of people come to Gettysburg on the first three days of July to partake in programs that delve into the campaign and battle. For the anniversary, I depicted German immigrant Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Füger of Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery. I had to write an outline about his accomplishments during the battle. In the beginning of the internship, I developed a Third Day Program about Pickett’s Charge and its role in the battle and overall war, which I presented to the public a couple of times per week. I centered my theme around the role of immigrant soldiers in the Union Army and their pivotal role in
actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor. Overall during the war, he was present at 63 battles and skirmishes.
helping General George Meade achieve victory. When conducting research about immigrants in the Union Army, I stumbled across Füger's story. I was fascinated by him, so when the opportunity arose to portray a figure from the battle, I jumped at the chance. What did Füger do at Gettysburg? When his commanding officer was killed during Pickett’s Charge, Füger assumed command. He directed battery fire and then fought hand-tohand to drive the Confederates back to Seminary Ridge. For his
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What was your favorite part of the internship? The children’s program! Called Join the Army, it explains what the typical soldier experienced and also teaches children some commands and lets them wear Union kepis, a Frenchstyle infantry cap. The children are so inquisitive about Gettysburg and the soldiers who fought there. And when they are allowed to participate and mimic what we’ve told them, they absorb everything. What’s next for you? Now in my junior year, I’m taking classes that focus on American history while also exploring other areas. Next year, I plan to write a thesis, possibly on some heavily immigrant Philadelphia regiments, such as the 69th Pennsylvania Volunteers, which was made up of mostly Irishmen. Then, I plan to attend graduate school for a master’s degree in public history. If I choose to work for the Park Service, this path will help me maneuver my way through the institution.
HOW DO YOU
DEFY?
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KAYLA PATTON ’18 PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY / ANTHROPOLOGY MAJOR CHILDHOOD AMBITION / Comic book illustrator or graphic novelist. FAVORITE SPOT ON CAMPUS / Sitting in the grass under any tree. It keeps me calm and focused. FAVORITE CLASS / Last year’s Migration and Borderlands 360° Course Cluster. I loved looking at the issue through three different disciplines, and our trip to Arizona and Mexico closed the gap between the classroom and real world. We attended a court hearing under the Operation Streamline policy, worked with the people at BorderLinks.org, and peered over the giant steel wall along the border. The people and voices became real, not just writing on a page. As part of our final project, a few of us started Bryn Mawr’s new Migrant Rights Coalition and are doing activist work, including visiting local middle schools to educate students on the issues. HOBBY / I’ll bike anywhere. I rode to Philly for a field trip recently. BRYN MAWR SOUNDTRACK / As Cool as I Am by Dar Williams [Mawrters know it as I Will Not Be Afraid of Women]. The lyrics are really powerful and I love when we sing it together at Step Sing. HOW HAVE YOU GROWN AT BRYN MAWR? / Bryn Mawr changed me from an art student to an academic by giving me a toolbox for looking at the world. For example, I spent this past summer doing manual labor—weeding flowerbeds, chopping tree roots, and breaking concrete. Before Bryn Mawr, I would have viewed that job as just a way to make money while being outdoors. Instead, I lived it through my anthropology “lens,” analyzing the skill and energy required for that kind of work and how society devalues it and the people who do it. Bryn Mawr turned that part of my brain on, allowing me to get so much more out of the experience. HOW HAVE YOU DEFIED YOUR OWN EXPECTATIONS? / I used to consider myself just a visual artist. That’s it; that was my path. I don’t box myself in like that anymore. Now, I try everything without worrying about whether I’ll be good at it. I’ve tried four sports and 10 clubs at Bryn Mawr because, well, why not?! Bryn Mawr has given me the confidence to challenge myself. FAVORITE TRADITION / May Day. It comes along just when we need it most! WHAT’S NEXT? / I’m leaning toward law school and want to use my anthropology skills to help underrepresented people. But really, I’d love to do my undergraduate work all over again.
SUPPORT THE NEXT GENERATION. Learn more at brynmawr.edu/giving
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1
3 1. EXPEDITION TO ANTARCTICA JANUARY 11‒25, 2018
Co-sponsored with Harvard and Yale
2. CUBA: AN EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE EXPERIENCE BY LAND AND SEA JANUARY 7‒16, 2018 With Darlyne Bailey, Dean Emeritus and Professor, GSSWSR 3. LANDSCAPES OF PORTUGAL* MAY 11‒20, 2018
With Ines Arribas, Lecturer in Spanish
2
EXPLORE THE WORLD WITH
BRYN MAWR PROVENCE WALKING TOUR* JUNE 16‒25, 2018
JEWELS OF ALPINE EUROPE* AUGUST 6‒18, 2018
EXPLORING ICELAND* AUGUST 7‒17, 2018
AMONG WOMEN: RUSSIA SEPTEMBER 2018
ISLAND LIFE IN ANCIENT GREECE OCTOBER 1‒9, 2018
INSIDER’S JAPAN* OCTOBER 13‒25, 2018
Co-sponsored with Smith
with Don Barber, Associate Professor of Geology
Co-sponsored with Duke, Vassar, and Dartmouth with Pamela Webb, M.A. ’83, Ph.D. ’89 *EXCLUSIVE BRYN MAWR DEPARTURE
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THESE TRIPS, PLEASE SEE OUR WEBSITE AT BRYNMAWR.EDU/ALUMNAE/TRIPS OR CONTACT CAROLYN GODFREY AT 610-526-5225 OR CGODFREY@BRYNMAWR.EDU BRYN MAWR //
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In This Section
Discourse
Debate p. 20 Mawrters in Midlife p. 24 Dispatch p. 29
Bring Up the Dead
When backhoes turned up human bones at an Old City Philadelphia construction site last fall, no city agency claimed responsibility—so forensic archaeologist Kimberlee Moran ’00 stepped in. Leading a team of volunteers, she raced against the private developer’s deadline to recover remains at 218 Arch Street, the former First Baptist Church and graveyard, relocated and reinterred around 1860.
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Read more
bulletin.brynmawr.edu
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Debate
Q: How Should We Remember M. Carey Thomas? In 2017, the Bryn Mawr community grappled with the College’s legacy of racism. In accordance with its model of shared governance, the College has formed a Working Group of faculty, students, staff, trustees, and alumnae/i to lead the discussion of the College’s history and the legacy of M. Carey Thomas, who espoused racist and anti-Semitic views. In August, President Cassidy announced that, as the group does its important work, a temporary moratorium has been placed on the use of Thomas' name on buildings and spaces on campus. Alumnae/i response to the announcement has been all that one would expect: serious, thoughtful, and respectful. Herewith, the Bulletin offers a representative sampling.
I am writing to support President Cassidy’s thoughtful and, quite frankly, moving letter to the community. To say that I love the College, credit it for who I have become in my professional life, my personal life, in my parenting, in my moral compass, would be an understatement. I carry with me the feminism of the College, the ethics of the College, the ideology of the College in my heart every day. I also teach at the University of North Carolina, where we are grappling with these issues in a more public way and in a way that has, unfortunately, divided our community. I so appreciate Bryn Mawr’s ability to engage in this discussion in a civilized and respectful manner. — BETH POSNER ’89 CLINICAL ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF LAW UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
We don’t change history by trying to eliminate those parts that now are offensive. Instead we should try to understand people’s actions and beliefs in the context of their world, not ours. Fortunately many of us have the good fortune of living in more tolerant, understanding times and places. The bottom line is that without M. Carey Thomas, Bryn Mawr would not exist, nor would its history and the contributions of her alumnae. I say celebrate her even more and, yes, understand her in the context of her world. Most of all, move forward on our current inclusionary trajectory. —BARBARA BAUMAN MORRISON ’62
To read more about the temporary moratorium, read the President’s Message on page 6.
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Debate
I am glad that Bryn Mawr is reflecting on its “institutional histories of inclusion, as well as resistance.” Such a reflection must include a deep understanding of M. Carey Thomas. I assume that the Working Group that Dean Jennifer Walters is leading is aware of Lefkowitz Horowitz’s 1984 biography The Power and Passion of M. Carey Thomas. In the 1970s, some alumnae, including me, returned to Bryn Mawr to speak, and we hoped that we might help all of us to see this complex, flawed woman as clearly as possible. What I find less easy to assume is the wisdom of the declaration of a moratorium. Once a name is erased, it is difficult, for many reasons, to restore it. I first encountered Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at Bryn Mawr. As I read President Cassidy’s letter, two lines from that play haunted me. “The evil that men do lives after them;/The good is often interred with their bones.” Dean Walters’ working group will do valuable, necessary work, but let us not bury the good as well as expose the evil. — CATHARINE R. STIMPSON ’58 UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR AND DEAN EMERITA NYU GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Just wanted to send a note in gratitude for this process of discernment. It’s incredibly important that the current students be seen as key stakeholders in this process and the voices of alumnae/i be secondary. All things must evolve, and reflection on the impact of the Thomas name on the College’s current climate is necessary. — NORA LANDON ’01 TRADITIONS MISTRESS ’99-’00
BRAVA, Bryn Mawr! Well done! — NEALIA KHAN ’95 PRESIDENT, BRYN MAWR CLUB OF RHODE ISLAND
Thank you for announcing the College’s consideration of Bryn Mawr’s history and the naming of important places on the campus. As we openly acknowledge the College’s history—for better and for worse—parts we can be rightfully proud of, some we look back on with shame. Yes, many considerations of the times and cultural differences may explain, but not excuse.
I am proud of us for doing both the moratorium and the Working Group! — NANCY P. MASLAND ’56 CO-PRESIDENT, CLASS OF 1956
I too was surprised by the news. M. Carey Thomas was always an important role model and example for I think all of us. But I certainly hadn’t heard any of these allegations, even if not entirely surprising given the moment in history and the maids and porters system we arrived to. But others in our history have had similar views—e.g., Woodrow Wilson, another Bryn Mawr name, who has a school named for him. However, in these times of hyperbole and loss of rational public discourse, I thought taking time for more reflection and not jumping to make any decision in the heat of the moment, but taking temporary action to quiet the conversation was probably wise. Yale has handled similar issues terribly in my view while Princeton resisted the pressure to rename the Wilson school.
Many of us remember the “maid and porters”— beloved people in the dorm communities, but nonetheless…. This soulsearching is important!
I am hoping that the Bryn Mawr approach of time for further reflection and dialogue before making a decision will help it all come out the right way. And I am rooting for keeping the name!
—NANCY BLUMENTHAL MANN ’72
—BARBARA PAUL ROBINSON '60
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Faculty Profile
SAY WHAT?
SYNTHESIS
Molybdenum isn’t as well-known as iron or zinc, and it’s not likely that one would take a dietary supplement for molybdenum deficiency.
Burgmayer's research team “mixes things up and makes new molecules” that serve as models for experiments.
A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY
Humans don’t need large quantities of molybdenum, but it’s a metal that’s critical for neurological development. FUTURE SHOCK
The number of chemists doing this kind of research is dwindling, and it’s become harder to get funding for the type of synthetic chemistry I do.
DETOX
One of its most important functions is detoxifying sulfite, which is a by-product of the body’s normal bio-chemical processes. Molybdenum turns sulfite into sulfate, which is not as toxic.
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Sharon Burgmayer, a chemistry professor and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, focuses on two areas of bioinorganic chemistry: modeling the catalytic site of molybdenum enzymes and the study of ruthenium complexes that bind DNA.
Read more here
bulletin.brynmawr.edu
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Crowd Source
The Memory of Science
Mawrters recall a slow reaction and a loud bang, strontium isotopes and surfing, minerals, and human brains—and, of course, getting lost. @voithmactavish: The first time I was on the BMC campus, I was 14! My mother had a BMC master’s degree in chemistry, so she knew Park well. At that age, I LOVED geology, so she brought me to see the awesome rock collection there. I still remember that visit, almost 50 years ago.
Maureen Basedow ’83
Went outside to take a break during a make-up lab while waiting on a long, slow reaction. Had just laid down on the lawn when I heard a loud bang and a piece of my fractured crucible flew out the window. That was my last day as a science major. The forces of the universe had spoken.
@navastreiter: I got lost in Park Science three years ago, and I’m still there. I’ve been living on mineral samples and sunlight. Please send help.
Tia Radford ’92 I remember on the first day of neurobiology, Dr. Grobstein’s lecture, and slowly realizing that the brain he was holding up the whole time was dripping and, therefore, must be a REAL human brain. Deepak Kumar That was a real brain. In a class he co-taught with me (Biologically Inspired Models of Learning), he passed it around the room. Everyone held it, thought it was creepily real. Later, after class, he confirmed that it was.
Stephanie Nebel ’05
The hours I spent in Don Barber’s office discussing everything from strontium isotope analysis to surfing. We spent hours talking over the years, and I learned so much from these interactions. One of the most valuable (and perhaps unique) aspects of the Bryn Mawr education is the personal relationships that develop between students and teachers. These relationships defined for me what education should be, and I strive to incorporate this into my own teaching today.
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U-curve
Mawrters in Midlife
As they face the challenges of aging and physical pain, alumnae contemplate the wisdom of the body. BY ELIZABETH MOSIER ’84
At nearly 55, I’ve amassed a body of published work—and this work has damaged my body. When competitive keyboarding immobilized my right arm with tendonitis, I sought help from a physical therapist. After a season working the prescribed “thrower’s program,” my arm is back to normal, but I’m still trying to reconcile my new
physical caution with my old sense of myself as invincible. As Daphne Goldman ’82 puts it, “We all hold onto mental images of ourselves as young, healthy, and strong, even when it’s no longer the case.” An avid hiker and world traveler, she began experiencing terrible pain 10 years ago, whenever she walked or stood for long periods.
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Today, she says, “Just figuring out if I can make it from point A to point B with bearable pain is a daily issue. I keep a chair in the kitchen to use when I cook. My world has become much smaller.” Though she laments gaining weight as a consequence of her suddenly sedentary life, the biggest blow to her self-image was receiving her
U-curve
accessible-parking card. “I don’t like thinking of myself as disabled, but it is what it is,” she says. “I’ve had to change the way I think of myself and the way I live.” For Goldman, who has “never been good with the unknown,” this meant cultivating an attitude of acceptance, after years of consulting specialists and trying treatments including medication, surgery, acupuncture, a glutenfree diet, and water therapy. “Patience is a virtue, but not one of mine,” she says. “I came kicking and screaming to the realization that I may not find an answer.” She has found relief through regular massage, and a way to cope by reframing situations to focus on what she can do. She can travel (more expensively, with a private guide to accommodate her need for breaks), attend Phillies games (with careful planning), take art photos (from her car window if necessary), and weave (on one of three looms she keeps at home). She’s grateful for a shared commute with her spouse and for employment in an organization expansive enough to normalize telecommuting. Her work as a trust and estates attorney, which previously involved advising clients compelled by parenthood or aging to face their own mortality, has made her more receptive to living in the moment. “Though my condition is chronic, it’s not really degenerative,” she says. “I’ve learned to be happy that it’s
not something I could name that might be worse.” At midlife, our bodies are a record of experience. “Who can say why one things sticks, another floats away?” asks poet Alison Hicks ’82 in At the Acupuncturist’s, comparing the practitioner’s needle to a pinpoint on a memory map. In new poems and a non-fiction work-in-progress, she taps and interrogates the migraine headaches she’s suffered since adolescence. “I don’t get the auras, but I’ve always thought it would be cool to have those visions,” she says. “Part of me thinks there’s a
Western and Eastern remedies: vitamins, Frovatriptan, nortriptyline, Botox injections, steroids, acupuncture, yoga, and meditation. Only recently did she begin to make use of her migraines as literary material. “Migraines are a mystery,” she says. “More people have them than have diabetes, but there’s no way to compare yours to somebody else’s. We know the pain is caused by the triggering of the trigeminal nerve in the brain to release a cascade of chemicals that irritate and cause blood vessels on the surface of the brain to swell. But nobody knows why human beings have migraines.”
I’m still trying to reconcile my new physical caution with my old sense of myself as invincible. mystical world beneath this one, and the other part is scientific. I can’t fully give myself over to romanticism, but I can’t live completely in the evidence world, either.” Long misdiagnosed, Hicks’s migraines intensified after her son’s birth, bringing pain like a “spike in the back of my head” and a sensitivity to light and sound that interferes with her writing, teaching, and parenting. Depending on their frequency and severity, she works through pain or treats it with a mix of
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Who better than a Mawrter to mine the meaning from a disease that is both real and surreal, quite common yet entirely subjective? Speaking to the poet’s purpose, and to the reason for sharing the wisdom of our alumnae body, Hicks says, “My migraines are an early-warning system for any change—in hormones, humidity, or stress. Maybe there is an evolutionary advantage to having some of us stay home in the dark, quiet cave every now and then.”
In the Know
Looking to the World One of the art world’s premier events gathers artists from its margins. BY ELLIOT KRASNOPOLER, PH.D. CANDIDATE
Stepping off the tram in a run-down and industrial part of town, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had just traveled about 15 hours from New York to Germany for the international art exhibition documenta (with no capitals), which takes over the small city of Kassel once every five years. I didn’t really know what I was getting into there either: Organizers released almost no information about the chosen artists or the overall conception, and documenta’s short duration (only 100 days) meant that there were few photographs or reviews online. I went to documenta because I wanted to see what the curatorial team, led by the Polish critic and curator Adam Szymczyk, felt was the most important artwork of today. Who is the new avant-garde? In previous iterations, major artists, movements, and even genres have begun at documenta. The curators had selected few familiar names, focusing instead on artists typically overlooked by the art world’s implicit and explicit racism, classism, and misogyny. There was a persistent desire to select artists from the margins of the art world—recent immigrants from developing countries as well as displaced indigenous peoples from Europe and North America. Indeed, migration often featured as a subject of the works themselves. For example, a short film by the Iranian artist Hiwa K,
The View from Above, presented the Kafkaesque journey of an Iraqi refugee as he tries to establish asylum status in the German city of K (for Kassel). In one section, the camera slowly pans over a miniature model of Kassel showing its destruction from an Allied bombing campaign. The irony in this work sits on the surface—the German officials in the film fail to understand the life of a refugee from a destroyed town, despite the fact that their own country was so thoroughly bombed only 60 years ago. Hiwa K’s video, which critiques the developed world’s response to current political turmoil, was documenta at its best. However, as a whole, the lack of accessible and educational interpretative materials made it difficult to make sense of many installations, and after a while, the curators’ ironclad belief in open interpretations and multiple narratives became alienating. Although documenta is a pilgrimage for many artists and art historians, it is also one of the world’s most visited art exhibitions. With so many discombobulated installations speaking in a language tailored only to art-world insiders, I found myself wondering: What is the point of a progressive curatorial strategy if it does not also aim to be approachable to everyone? That said, both artists and curators at documenta were turning toward the world and its
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Appearing throughout documenta, archives-as-art complicate the relationship between aesthetics and history. Maria Eichhorn's Unlawfully Acquired Books from Jewish Ownership (pictured) shows a tower of books stolen from Jews during World War II.
problems, disseminating facts and history, and moving beyond purely aesthetic aims. Overall, the works that succeeded far outweighed the failures, and I hope more institutions take a risk on ambitious and challenging shows like this one. History of Art Ph.D. candidate Elliot Krasnopoler studies photography’s effect on contemporary art and its relationship to memory and place.
Class in Session
The Theory of (Curating) Art In a new 360° cluster, students learn about the practice—and the politics —behind curating contemporary art. BY LOUISA WILSON
Porte values What intentions how the two and ideologies are classes build negotiated in the on each other. conservation of “In Marianne’s contemporary art conservation and the curatorial class, we’re organization of its discussing the exhibition? legal obligations It’s just one museums have to question Tessa preserve objects,” Haas ’18 and Olivia says Porte. “Then Porte ’18 discussed From John Waters’ Study Art series, which appeared in Viva Arte Viva, the 2017 Biennale’s centerpiece international show. in Carrie’s class, we’re this fall in the 360° asking theoretical course cluster gallery to site-specificity and from questions about why art needs Biennials and Conservation. public art to relational aesthetics. to be preserved at all.” For these seniors, both history Porte connects all of this to A highlight of Biennials and of art majors and museum artist Kara Walker’s installation Conservation was a trip to the studies minors, the course is A Subtlety…, which used a Venice Biennale, one of the key to developing their views temporary, site-specific work world’s most prestigious art on the purpose and ethical to explore power, race, gender, events. Both students loved responsibilities of curatorial sexuality, slavery, and the sugar attending this global exhibit, work as they set their sights on industry. Says Porte: “Everything and for Porte, the Venice trip museum careers. we do in life is a political act. sparked bigger questions. She The question of ideology and I believe art gives one the says, “I started to think about the intention is a critical one for opportunity to self-actualize and market-driven aspects of large both—they are passionate about negotiate one’s political presence international exhibitions. What the curatorial practice as a means in our community.” pressures do artists and curators to bring more underrepresented The second class in the 360° experience to stay on-trend for the voices into the public spaces of cluster—Marianne Weldon’s Western stage? How are biennials contemporary art. Says Haas, Care and Conservation of a performance of wealth?” “I’m especially interested in how Contemporary Art—covers the With graduation nearing, curating can create a moretechnical aspects of protecting Haas and Porte are planning to inclusive canon of art.” objects and offers a hands-on work at a museum for a year Porte’s politicized view of component. “It’s exciting to go to while applying to graduate art history and art’s display is conservation labs in places like programs. Thinking beyond gaining a vocabulary in Carrie the Pennsylvania Academy of grad school, Haas sees Robbins Robbins’ class Contemporary the Fine Arts and the Hirshhorn as a professional inspiration: Art in Exhibition: Museums and Museum,” says Haas. “We get “She teaches, works on exhibits, Beyond, which historicizes the to see what it’s like to work in and publishes. She has a dream various theories and practices the field. Undergraduates don’t job, and I would love to be in a of exhibiting contemporary art, always have access to this type of similar role someday.” from the Modernist white cube experiential learning.”
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Bryn Mawr Woman
Even with Their Nails
A journey that began in the streets of Managua leads to a premiere at Cannes. BY TANIA ROMERO ’05
On a family visit to Nicaragua in 2015, I interviewed many women filmmakers. It was a passion project. I had no permits, no budget, no crew. I simply borrowed my uncle’s van, loaded it up with my video equipment, and solicited the help of my untrained 15-year-old cousin. We drove around the capital city of Managua, tracking down some of the country’s most prolific filmmakers from the last 40 years. I reached out to local journalist-historian Karly Gaitán Morales, who had just published the first-ever comprehensive book on the history of Nicaraguan cinema. The result was Even with Their Nails, a 30-minute documentary that celebrates women filmmakers in Nicaragua. The title originates from the Spanish idiom hasta con las uñas, which means pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. The title also reflects how filmmakers persist despite the many struggles in Nicaragua’s history. Film financing ceased after INCINE (1979–1990), the only government-funded production house, closed its doors. Since then, a sustainable national cinema has not been feasible given the urgent economic needs of the country. A national film industry has remained a dream in the collective consciousness, and filmmakers today, the majority of whom are women, have embraced a learn-by-doing
ON THE CIRCUIT Even with Their Nails premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner, was screened at Havana’s New Latin Film Festival, and won the Icaro Award for Best Documentary Short at the International Icaro Film Festival in Guatemala. It was also named Best International Documentary at New York’s Official Latino Film Festival. philosophy that makes them industrious in the absence of an industry infrastructure. In Central America, the increasing number of women working behind the camera is a significant trend that some attribute to the reconfiguration of gender norms that occurred after the Sandinista revolution. But access to digital equipment has also opened a space for women to acquire more leadership positions during production. Without a government-regulated film
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industry, there has been an ideological shift in the practice of filmmaking. This shift is reflected in the increase of women-centric narratives, socio-ethical perspectives, and concerns relevant to indigenous and youth communities. Given this context, Gaitán Morales’ book, A la conquista de un sueño: Historia del cine en Nicaragua, is a monumental endeavor. She spent 10 years collecting films, organizing unfiled documents, and tracking down people to interview. Even with Their Nails extends from her unprecedented research and is the first retrospective video to document the collective filmography of women filmmakers in Nicaragua. The film presents the work of Maria José Alvarez, Martha Clarissa Hernández, Kathy Sevilla, Rossana Lacayo, Belkis Ramírez, Brenda Martinez, and Florence Jaugey— women who paved the way for the new vanguard of filmmakers like Laura Baumeister, Rebeca Arcia, and Heydi Salazar. Although I’ve had my share of red carpet moments at international festivals, what should be celebrated and recognized are the achievements, resilience, and courage of Nicaraguan filmmakers. Nicaraguan-born filmmaker Tania Romero ’05 lives in Texas, where she teaches media production. A psychology major and film studies minor, she has an M.A. in media studies from the University of Texas, Austin.
Dispatch
We Are Alone
This summer, Amelia McCarthy ’19 embarked on a voyage aboard the SSV Robert C. Seamans. Part of a crew of oceanographic researchers, the geology major studied conditions in the South Pacific—and contemplated the sun, the sea, and the stars. As part of a Sea Education Association summer session, McCarthy and 23 shipmates set sail from American Samoa to the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA). Composed of eight islands, the area is one of the world’s largest UNESCO World Heritage sites and represents one of Earth’s last intact oceanic coral archipelago ecosystems. Working with experts from Sea Education Association, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the New England Aquarium, McCarthy and a crew of students from around the country conducted research on the state of the ocean to help PIPA management develop an effective conservation plan.
birds, and less than a liter of zooplankton compose the sum total of life we’ve seen since leaving the harbor of Pago Pago on Monday afternoon. Truly, we are alone, in the most wondrous way, beneath the clear Milky Way and brilliant stars of night and the azure, cloud-dotted skies of day. You can almost imagine that we have slipped into a world without anyone else, here between the bluest seas and bluest skies of the tropical South Pacific. Here, when we stand still for a moment, it almost seems that we could feel the awe of the earliest voyagers of these swells.
One week out, McCarthy wrote on the ship’s blog: We have now sailed for more than 24 hours under sail and wind alone, without the engine—which, as one of my shipmates rejoiced, means no more half-hour engine checks; we were even able to set the tops’l for a time. More sails will have to wait for a change in course or wind, no matter how eagerly we await more sails. Sailing may mean fewer engine room checks, but our work has increased: between trimming sails and starting revisions for our papers from shore, we are settling into a routine with little time to spare. While the Seamans bustles with activity at all times, the ocean around us is but sparsely populated—two vessels, two
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SHIP'S LOG: JULY 13, 2017 CURRENT POSITION 9° 05.6' S x 170° 02.6' W SHIP’S HEADING & SPEED 355° PSC (per ship’s compass) at 5 knots. SAIL PLAN Sailing under single reefed main, mainstays’l, forestays’l, and jib. WEATHER Clear with scattered cumulus clouds and 32 degrees Celsius. Winds generally eastward and between 15 and 20 knots.
Books
What If?
For readers of all ages, recent works with a Bryn Mawr pedigree imagine alternate worlds.
Mossby’s Magic Carpet Handbook: A Flyer’s Guide to Mossby’s Model D3 Extra-Small Magic Carpet (Especially for Young or Vertically Challenged People) by Ilona Bray ’84, illustrated by Alejandro Lee, is a faux instruction manual for new magic-carpet owners that includes commands programmed in by the manufacturer’s “magicalists,” notes on proper care and storage, best practices for safe flying, aerial hazards, suggested recreational activities, basic survival techniques, and even career possibilities. In and around the fun are tidbits of actual information, such as the varying g-forces experienced by a child swinging, sneezing, and riding a roller coaster; the varying altitudes of flyers like bugs, bats, and commercial jets; samplings from world cuisines; and orienteering. Plus, this handy guide comes with an imprimatur from the Children’s Book Council, which put it on its Hot Off the Presses list of likely bestsellers. (The Innovation Press, 2017)
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Browse more books at brynmawr.edu/bulletin
Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer ’01 imagines the world in 2424 in the cadences of Enlightenment figures such as Diderot and Voltaire. In this putative utopia, the world is divided into hives that pursue different forms of government (monarchy, parliamentary democracy, corporate state). Narrated by Mycroft Canner, a criminal sentenced to live in service to others, the richly told story describes a society where religion is banned, surveillance universal, and gender-neutral language the norm. Along the way, Mycroft is tasked with hiding a child whose ability to bring inanimate objects to life threatens to destabilize society. The first installment of Palmer’s Terra Ignota trilogy, Too Like the Lightning has won a number of accolades: the John W. Campbell Award (for best new science fiction writer), a Compton Crook Award (for the best first English language novel in the field of Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror), and a shortlisted candidate in the 2017 Hugo Award (Best Novel category). The second book in the trilogy, Seven Surrenders, was published in March 2017; the third—The Will to Battle—is due in December 2017.
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The Dinner Plan: Simple Weeknight Recipes and Strategies for Every Schedule by Kathy Brennan ’89 and Caroline Campion. Between juggling work, family, and schedules, weeknight cooking can be a challenge. The Dinner Plan offers recipes and strategies—Make-Ahead, Staggered, One-Dish, Extra-Fast, and Pantry—to get dinner on the table. This indispensable guide for home cooks is rounded out with plenty of tips and a bonus section on healthful snacks called the Forgotten Meal. (Abrams, 2017)
Why Reading Books Still Matters by Martha C. Pennington ’71 and Robert P. Waxler. A wake-up call, this book argues for the value of literature and book culture in a screen-obsessed time. The authors maintain that a literature-infused curriculum is critical for the emotional, intellectual, and moral development of children. The selection of literary works discussed illustrates the power of literature and “the human arts” to instill values and foster change. (Routledge, 2017)
S AV E T H E D AT E
RELIVE FOND MEMORIES AND MAKE NEW ONES JUNE 1–3
REUNION
2018
THE COURAGE OF OUR CONTRADICTIONS
Harris Wofford at Bryn Mawr
1970-1978 BY ELIZABETH MOSIER ’84
HAVERFORD
In September, the College hosted a sneak preview of Harris Wofford: Slightly Mad, a new documentary about Bryn Mawr's fifth president. On hand for the event, Elizabeth Mosier ’84 sat down with Harris Wofford for a talk about his life and times.
As Haverford debated going coed, Wofford defended the two-college community as “rare, rich, and rewarding.”
WATERGATE
For his seminar on Law and Civil Disobedience, Wofford scratched his thoughts out on notes that now reside in Special Collections.
INAUGURATION
Wofford's inaugural address acknowledged the turmoil of the time: “The antidote is a deep respect for persons, an enjoyment of differences, and a robust readiness for dialogue.”
He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., worked in the Kennedy Administration as special assistant to the president for civil rights, helped launch the Peace Corps, authored books (most notably, Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties), practiced law, served as Bryn Mawr’s second male president during the rise of the women’s movement, established and directed the Pennsylvania Governor’s Office of Citizen Service as secretary of labor and industry, started the conversation on national health care reform during his 1991 senatorial campaign (to fill Senator John Heinz’s seat after his untimely death), promoted service learning through Americorps as CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, introduced Barack Obama before his 2008 speech on race at the National Constitution Center, and, 20 years after the death of Clare, his beloved wife of 48 years, married his late-inlife love, Matthew Charlton.
MEETING AGAIN For a man with such a weighty resume, Harris Llewellyn Wofford, Jr., is disarmingly light-hearted. “Over here they do everything in Welsh,” he says, laughing as he quotes a Haverford College student trying to translate his invitation to a reception at the Bryn Mawr College president’s house, where Wofford lived from 1970–1978. “Maybe Pen y Groes means RSVP!” Ninety-one now, he has returned to campus for a screening of a new documentary, Harris Wofford, Slightly Mad, in which Bryn Mawr claims a middle chapter in his fascinating life story filled with
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plot twists. Director Jacob Finkel followed and filmed his subject for nine years, to illuminate Harris Wofford’s life and career. At a pre-screening reception at Pen y Groes, I remind him that we’ve met before. In 1981, Wofford drove me and a few other students home from Philadelphia’s Forrest Theatre, where we’d been lucky enough to meet Katharine Hepburn after her performance in The West Side Waltz. Chatting with the alumna-actress, I mentioned that I’d drawn a dorm room at Haverford College that year. “Men and women living together!” she scolded. “I don’t approve!” Wofford eased that sting on our way home, telling funny stories about trying to coax the icon into speaking at Commencement—a gallant effort he now recalls as “one of the great pleasures of my time at Bryn Mawr.” (In 1973, Hepburn met with the senior class and gave an informal talk in Erdman Hall, pearls from which were reprinted in admissions publications for years to come, including: “Bryn Mawr isn’t plastic, it isn’t nylon, it’s pure gold.”) Back then when I first met Wofford, I was a sophomore in every sense of the word. I didn’t know that the “Bi-College Cooperation” I took for granted— a deeper and stronger relationship with Haverford that included consolidated academic departments, cross-registration and majoring, and (yes, Miss Hepburn) residential exchange— was shaped by the former president’s affirmative advocacy. As Haverford deliberated the issue of admitting women, President Wofford emphasized
that cooperation between the two institutions would improve education, not merely increase coeducation. Strategically, he focused on Bryn Mawr’s strength as the only women’s college in the world with (coeducational) graduate programs and worked throughout his presidency to expand our national and international role in educating women. Meeting Wofford again these many years later, it occurs to me that his good humor is a bridge-builder’s tool, serving as a social tie between cultures, countries, and conflicting ideas. And in all seriousness, I’m glad for the chance to thank this cheerful, big-hearted man for his steady stewardship of Bryn Mawr during a tense and pivotal time.
WOFFORD AT BRYN MAWR President Kim Cassidy tells the audience gathered for tonight’s screening in Goodhart Hall that Wofford—whom Senator Robert Kennedy once called a “slight madman” for his compassionate commitment to civil rights—“has always been open to ideas that challenge accepted doctrines and has had the courage to speak and act for change.” She cites his trip to India with his grandmother at age 11 as the source of his fascination with Mahatma Gandhi and the anti-colonial political strategy of non-cooperation. This serendipitous event also seems to have inspired his sense of duty to cooperate with good, as his long career in government, public service, and education attests. Bryn Mawr, with its traditions and tensions, its promise and problems, beckoned to Wofford in the spring of 1969, when Barbara Auchincloss Thacher ’40 called him on behalf of the Presidential Search Committee. As he told the story in the 1977 Bryn Mawr Report of the President, “We were in the midst of a student
sit-in (at the State University of New York’s experimental new College at Old Westbury, where he was founding president). Clare agreed to give me the message but told Mrs. Thacher she hoped that whenever we left Old Westbury her husband would go to something like a country grocery store and not to work in any college. Mrs. Thacher replied coolly, ‘Mrs. Wofford, Bryn Mawr is not any college.’ We came to learn how right she was.” His eloquent inauguration speech reveals that he could read Bryn Mawr’s contradictions in the original Welsh: the “high hill” that offered a vital retreat from the world and that threatened intellectual and political isolation. As the new president spoke on Merion Green that day in the fall of 1970, his colleagues John F. Kennedy, Jr., Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Coretta Scott King spoke at Bryn Mawr’s 1974 Convocation. In 1965, Harris Wofford marched with her husband in Selma. CIVIL RIGHTS
President Kim Cassidy tells the audience, “Harris has always been open to ideas that challenge accepted doctrines and has had the courage to speak and act for change.”
and Robert Kennedy were gone. Distrust in government was on the rise as the Vietnam War raged on. Some students in the audience had taken fall makeup exams in springsemester courses disrupted by anti-war protests and the Kent State shootings in May. President Wofford’s words would have comforted some and concerned others: “American higher education stands indicted for its readiness to invent atomic bombs and do weapons research, while neglecting questions of life and death like war, poverty,
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A TIME CAPSULE
Housed in Special Collections, the contents of Wofford’s office tell of a life of service—at Bryn Mawr and beyond.
discrimination, urban breakdown, over-population, and pollution,” he said. “We must find the way and the will to bring these problems from the outskirts of the Academy, where they appear mainly in extracurricular teach-ins or agitation, into the center of our study and research.” And that’s what he set out to do. Although outwardly— architecturally—Bryn Mawr’s campus was largely unchanged in that decade dominated by the energy crisis and an economic downturn, the important interior work of reshaping our institutional identity had begun. In an era of increasing student interest in community organization, social action, and attending law school, Wofford proposed a new master’s degree curriculum in Law and Social Policy at the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. Aided by the dynamic duo of Mary Patterson McPherson, Ph.D. ’69 (then undergraduate dean) and Director of Admissions Betty Vermey ’58, he increased opportunities for study and research abroad and doubled the international student presence on campus to nearly 10 percent. With “1976 Studies,” a four-year program of seminars and symposia, he connected theory and practice, “town and gown,” by bringing academic, civic, corporate, and political leaders to campus to discuss “the premises and promises of the Declaration of Independence in the light of modern American problems.” All this while fundraising for the Tenth Decade campaign, which surpassed its target to bring in 23.7 million dollars from 1973 to 1976. Of course, that’s not the whole story; the deeper truth is in the everyday details. In my research, I found President Wofford’s September 12, 1972, letter to Sisterhood, referencing the new Black Cultural Center at Perry House and the campus constituencies seeking the group’s input on curriculum, recruitment, career concerns, and freshman orientation. Wofford wrote to “renew the commitment of the College administration to take all steps possible to assure that the experience of Black students at Bryn Mawr is a full and good one educationally, socially, and in every way.” He copied student representatives including geologist Rhea Graham ’74, who would forge a career in environmental stewardship on her way to and from her appointment as the first woman and first African American to lead the U.S. Bureau of Mines. As President Cassidy puts it in her introduction to Finkel’s documentary, “Harris challenged what was then a very traditional liberal arts college to bring the strength of the academy to addressing the problems of the world around us, an orientation we still have at the College today.” Tonight, Harris Wofford is in the audience filled with his family, friends, and former colleagues, all of us eager to watch his well-lived life play on the screen.
IN THE ARCHIVE
Like a Mawrter, I immersed myself in Canaday Library’s Special Collections, digging into archive boxes of materials from the office Harris Wofford once occupied on the second floor of Taylor Hall. This ephemera of his presidency is a time capsule of the 1970s, offering a glimpse of the mortar and minutiae of running a women’s college: a circa 1920s Bryn Mawr Songbook; a 1978 copy of The News reporting the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board’s crackdown on campus underage drinking; a black binder labeled “Haverford,” thick with Bi-College Committee reports; and a magazine article on college women’s attitudes about sex and cohabitation. One box contains files for the seminar course he taught on Law and Civil Disobedience: his handwritten notes on Socrates, Thoreau, Gandhi, and King; a slip of paper that says, “… again touched by the better angels of our nature,” and another that bears a single word, “Watergate.” There’s a black-and-white image of Wofford at his desk, confirming the truth of the jocular comment he made during our conversation at Pen y Groes: “Katharine McBride (his predecessor) faced the hall to keep an eye on the faculty, but I always faced the window.” Opening these boxes releases a musty scent of nostalgia—for an age of private deliberation, of speech drafts penned on paper and then typed clean, of commemorative documents printed, bound, and circulated by hand. It’s tempting to believe that this is another college entirely and not—as reason reminds me—a point on Bryn Mawr’s trajectory to 2017, the year the College welcomed the most selective class in three decades and offered new majors in international and environmental studies, and an interdisciplinary 360° course cluster in Climate Change: Science and Policy.
PARK SCIENCE CENTER
A 21st-century center for women leading in
STEM Work has begun on a major project to reimagine Park Science Center. The two-phase renovation includes a 10,000-square-foot addition and is designed to reinvigorate Park as a collaborative learning center with technology-rich classrooms and labs.
*Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.
The path to the Complex will be redesigned to improve access from the campus core. A new entrance plaza will invite students into the community Commons, situated prominently in the new addition.
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*
PHASE I, BUDGETED AT $21 MILLION AND SLATED TO END IN FALL 2018, INCLUDES: • A new modern physics lab with all-new equipment and small “roomettes” for controlled experiments • A fully renovated electronics lab • A two-story learning commons, including new technology for faculty/student collaboration • An enhanced public space called The Science Crossroads that will feature state-of-the-art technology and video for science on display and also enhance circulation within the building • Nine student study and seminar rooms equipped with technology, blackboards, and whiteboards • Upgrades to seven classrooms and lecture halls • A new computer science teaching laboratory
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE RENOVATION, VISIT
brynmawr.edu/facilities/park-science-centerrenovation-and-addition TO SUPPORT DEFY EXPECTATION, THE CAMPAIGN FOR BRYN MAWR, VISIT secure.brynmawr.edu/campaign TO LEARN MORE ABOUT STEM EDUCATION AT BRYN MAWR, VISIT brynmawr.edu/academics/fields-study
The new addition will provide common areas and study space on all three levels of the building.
THIS PROJECT IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE SUPPORT OF OUR DONORS, WITH A SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR GENEROUS “NUCLEUS FUND” DONORS WHO HELPED MOVE IT FROM PLANNING TO GROUNDBREAKING: Johanna Alderfer Harris ’51 and William H. Harris HC ’47
Anonymous (1) Nancy L. Craig ’73 and Helen Lee McComas
Karen E. Kerr ’89 Karen and Bertrand Latil P’95
Mary Maples Dunn* M.A. ’56, Ph.D. ’59 and Richard S. Dunn
Myriam Curet McAdams ’78
Phoebe C. Ellsworth ’65
Patricia M. Mooney M.A. ’69, Ph.D ’72
Nancy Greenewalt Frederick ’50
Carolynn Cooper and Pratap Mukharji P’19
Katharine Blodgett Gebbie* ’54
Cynthia Burdick Patterson ’64
Cynthia Armstrong Graham ’72 and Walter Graham, Jr.
The Pew Charitable Trusts Ann K. Stehney ’67
*Deceased
?
HAVE YOU HEARD OF THESE BRYN MAWR TRAILBLAZERS IN SCIENCE
NETTIE MARIA STEVENS, PH.D. 1903 (1861–1912) discovered the XY chromosome system. A late-in-life scientist, she earned her Ph.D. at the age of 42. FLORENCE BASCOM (1862–1945) created Bryn Mawr’s geology department. American Men of Science voted her one of the top 100 geologists in 1906. EMILY NOETHER (1882–1935) developed work that led to a body of principles unifying algebra, geometry, linear algebra, topology, and logic. HILDA GERINGER (1893–1973) taught at Bryn Mawr in the early 1940s and is known for her pioneering work on the mathematical basis of Mendelian genetics. KATHARINE BURR BLODGETT, CLASS OF 1917 (1898–1979) was Cambridge’s first woman physics Ph.D. recipient and a G.E. researcher on monomolecular coatings for eyeglasses, lenses, aircraft deicing, etc. LILLI SCHWENK HORNIG ’42 (1921–2017), one of the only women scientists at Los Alamos, worked on plutonium chemistry and high-explosive lenses. KATHARINE GEBBIE ’57 (1932–2014) founded the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Physical Measurement Lab, where she mentored four Nobel physicists. CANDACE BEEBE PERT ’70 (1946–2013), a neuroscientist and pharmacologist, discovered the opiate receptor that binds endorphins in the brain.
STEM AT BRYN MAWR
Park became Bryn Mawr’s third president after having served as dean at both Simmons College and Radcliffe College. During her presidency, she led efforts to enrich the College’s curriculum, particularly in the areas of the fine arts, history of architecture and arts, and archeology. She also initiated Bryn Mawr’s cooperative programs with Haverford, Swarthmore, and the University of Pennsylvania. The Great Depression, rise of fascism, and beginning of World War II created many challenges, but Park provided steady, optimistic leadership throughout, notably joining with other U.S. institutions to employ refugee scholars from European universities.
•W e award approximately 3 times the national average for degrees awarded to women in STEM. • I n 2013, Bryn Mawr became the first women’s institution to work with the Posse Foundation to recruit a STEM Posse. •F rom 2013–2015, 11 percent of Bryn Mawr students majored in math, 14.6 times the national average for women. •M ath & biology are the top majors declared by current juniors and seniors. •T he natural sciences comprise 33 percent of all majors declared by current juniors and seniors. •O ur postbaccalaureate premedical program is one of the nation’s oldest with a consistent medical school acceptance rate of more than 98 percent.
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WHO WAS MARION EDWARDS PARK?
A scholar in the fields of Classics and English, Park earned her A.B. (1898), M.A. (1899), and Ph.D. (1918) from Bryn Mawr. As a student, she received the College’s European Fellowship and used it to attend the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece.
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In This Section
Our
Alumna Profile p. 45 Class Notes p. 48 Generations p. 101
Bryn Mawr Anassa Kata
Photograph by Paola Nogueras ’84.
Jean Crawford Webber ’71 at the End of Summer Fest which opened this year's Alumnae Volunteer Summit.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. BOSTON
MONTCLAIR, NJ
2021 Welcome, Class of
CHICAGO
This past summer, the incoming class and their parents were the guests of honor at Send-Off parties around the globe. The College thanks all who participated, especially the parents and alumnae/i who hosted and the regional clubs who helped to plan the events.
PRINCETON
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HOUSTON
SAN FRANCISCO
SHANGHAI
PHILADELPHIA
NEW YORK CITY
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LOS ANGELES
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Association News
From the Alumnae Association President DEAR FRIENDS: In February, the Alumnae Association will launch the Project Mawrter initiative for our community to recollect and revel in those things that we each cherish about our past experiences as students at the College as well as our experiences within the alumnae/i community. I’ve been thinking about those experiences a lot over my first year as president of our Alumnae Association. In my role, I sometimes have the opportunity to see “backstage;” that is, I am afforded an operations perspective of the College that most alums do not have. One might think that this proverbial backstage is a cluttered, messy place with random people running about and periodically shrieking and waving their hands in the air. At least that is how I would imagine it were I not able to peer behind the curtain. But it’s not like that at all. I have come to appreciate the beautifully orchestrated dance that has to happen backstage in order for the College to operate and thrive. And that is no easy matter, you can imagine! As with most institutions, it is the people that make the place. I meet regularly with representatives from the staff at every level and in every conceivable role and am consistently blown away by their
level of devotion and dedication toward the students and the institution. Similarly, the faculty with whom I interact during each visit to the College, just as when I was an undergraduate, speak of their work, both as teachers and researchers, with such pride. This work in the wings by faculty and staff is what allows our students to shine. They consistently dazzle me, whether they are pursuing a physics degree with passion, seeking to solve environmental problems in far corners of the globe, or performing in an experimental dance troupe. You would easily recognize them, for they are us: bright, quirky, inquisitive, and ever critically assessing the world around them. Our admissions applications are at a record high, and the quality
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of our prospective students is enviable. Now, more than ever, the kind of education, the kind of experience, that Bryn Mawr provides is hungered for by a certain kind of young, promising woman. Despite these successes, I sometimes hear our alums publically critique the school on social media over some issue or another, sometimes without facts to support the critique. I am always a little perplexed by this—not the urge to be critical, as that is human nature and can be a healthy vehicle of change, but rather why from time to time so much energy seems to go into exploring the negative without equal thought and attention to the many wonderful things we can celebrate about Bryn Mawr. So, in anticipation of Project Mawrter, I ask you to think hard about the wonderful, unique experiences that make you proud to be a member of the Bryn Mawr community. Take stock of what sets us apart from other institutions and alumnae/i networks. Then, come February, we’ll be providing ways to celebrate that pride and shout it from the rooftops. Stay tuned for more details over the coming months. Best, Saskia Subramanian ’88, M.A. ’89 President, Bryn Mawr Alumnae Association
Alumna/us Profile
A Mawrter Remembers It's always a treat when Trustee Emeritus Jacqueline Badger Mars ’61 returns to campus. The Bulletin caught up with Mars when she visited this fall and asked her about her memories of life at the College.
What drew you to Bryn Mawr?
How did Bryn Mawr shape you as a person?
I was at an all-girls’ prep school and wanted a small highly rated college not so far north from my home in Virginia. I only applied to two colleges.
Bryn Mawr changed me from a protected naive WASP to a stronger all-around person and showed me a more diverse population than I had been exposed to previously.
What was the most exciting and important professor/course for you?
Now that you have been away for a while, what are you realizing about Bryn Mawr? I only began to appreciate through other academic experiences how lucky we were to have full professors teaching us, even as lowly freshmen. I am forever grateful for being exposed to this level of intellectual experience.
Dr. Eugene Schneider, Sociology, and Dr. Frederica de Laguna, Anthropology.
What aspects of the community— traditions, clubs, activities—were meaningful to you ? The ability to be part of class shows, be on the swim team, and of course Lantern Night.
Photos: Jacqueline Badger Mars' yearbook photo; Dr. Eugene Schneider, Mr. Harper, and Dr. Frederica de Laguna; Mawrters at the swimming pool.
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Defy Expectation
NEWS FROM THE CAMPAIGN
The Campaign for Bryn Mawr: Where We Are
DEFY EXPECTATION MINIMUM GOAL
$250 MILLION
TOTAL FOR THE BRYN MAWR FUND TO DATE
TOTAL TO DATE
MILLION
MILLION
>$37
$172
Yoseloff Scholarship Challenge You might recall from the August 2016 Bulletin that Nanar Tabrizi Yoseloff ’97 and husband Tony offered to match 10 gifts of $75,000 with $25,000 in challenge funds so alumnae/i can reach the $100,000 required to establish a new endowed scholarship. Well, the challenge was met in early November when the 10th alumna formally established her own scholarship with the Yoseloffs’ help. Anassa kata to the 10 donors and the Yoseloffs!
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Defy Expectation
NEWS FROM THE CAMPAIGN
SAVE THE DATE Join us at one or all of these upcoming campaign events WITH PRESIDENT KIM CASSIDY FEBRUARY 2, 2018 Orlando, Florida
Board of Trustees Issues Slade Society Challenge In 1919, Trustee Caroline McCormick Slade, Class of 1896, pushed the boundaries of women’s philanthropy by raising nearly $2.5 million in support of faculty salaries. Since 2000, members of The Slade Society have followed her remarkable vision by providing a strong base of leadership giving. This year, in conjunction with Defy Expectation, the Board of Trustees is challenging alumnae/i, parents and friends to join them in Slade leadership giving: Throughout 2017-18, the Board will contribute $50,000 to The Bryn Mawr Fund for every 200 Slade members. The goal is to reach a historic high of 800 members and thereby receive a total of $200,000 from the Trustees in support of our students, faculty, and the beautiful campus. As of December 7, we stand at 198 members.
FEBRUARY 3, 2018 Palm Beach, Florida
MARCH 13, 2018 Portland, Oregon
MARCH 15, 2018 Seattle, Washington
WITH PRESIDENT EMERITUS MARY PATTERSON MCPHERSON, PH.D. ’69 APRIL 10, 2018 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
See our events page at brynmawr.edu/giving/get-involved/ attend-campaign-event for further information and to register.
+
Learn more
www.brynmawr.edu/giving/slade-society
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Generations
Back to School
Not every Mawrter follows the traditional path to college. Two McBrides reflect on their experiences. AS TOLD TO PATRICIA WILKINS
Danielle Pigeon ’19
Minna Duchovnay ’98
In high school, I was groomed for fine arts but came to realize it wasn’t the path for me when I entered college. Accepting that I wasn’t going to be an artist was terrifying and made me feel extremely uncertain about my future. I took a long break from school. During my time away I found that I missed academia—reading, writing, and class discussions. I enrolled in classes at Bucks County Community College. My English professor there pulled me aside and told me I had a talent for writing. That was an incredibly important moment as I realized I could integrate my past ambitions into my current ones: I could study history of art. When the time came to transfer, my uncle, who went to Haverford, urged me to look at Bryn Mawr. I went on the tour and fell in love. I was convinced I wouldn’t get in and was happily proven wrong! My first history of art class was illuminating. The Bryn Mawr approach made me realize that my previous understanding of art history was very superficial. The class I took before Bryn Mawr was a broad survey that didn’t get into cultural and social intricacies, political environments, or anything beyond the basics. At Bryn Mawr, I was called to question everything. Imposter syndrome is something I deal with regularly. I am in constant awe of my peers; I marvel at their brilliance and wonder how I came to study in the same space. I’ll graduate in 2019 and hope to do the A.B./M.A. program in history of art. In the future I hope to pursue a Ph.D. and career in academia.
I was one of two students who did not go to college after graduating from Boston’s Girls’ Latin School. Instead, I trained to be an executive secretary. That career didn’t last long, but the skills I acquired helped me to get some creative jobs—publishing at Houghton Mifflin; operations manager at a small design firm; and, after a move to Philadelphia, facilities supervisor for a large corporation where I won an award from the then Pennsylvania Society of Architects. Before Bryn Mawr, I was a project manager at a large chemical company. At age 53, I took its early retirement package and enrolled in the McBride Scholars Program. The decision was a bit jarring, but as Henry David Thoreau once said, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” My goal was to get a master’s in counseling, but my love for the classics was reignited during my first year through the Latin Colloquia. So I adjusted my path and got a joint B.A./M.A. in Latin. After graduation, I was employed as the meeting manager for the then American Philological Association and later as executive director of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States. I’m retired now but continue my lifelong love of poetry writing and have been a member of several writing workshops. I am also engaged in a long-term project of translating the love poems of a 16th-century Dutch poet who wrote in Latin and serve as treasurer for my condo association.
101 NORTH MERION AVENUE BRYN MAWR, PA 19010-2899
Bryn Mawr Proud! LOANER LAPTOP $300
BOOKS $315
The Power of Participation.
M AY 2 6 - 2 8
RELIVE FOND MEMORIESBUILDING AND AN EVEN STRONGER BRYN MAWR FUND ensures MAKE NEW ONES AT that a Bryn Mawr College education remains
REUNION
second to none. Gifts to The Bryn Mawr Fund aggregate JOURNALS to provide&extraordinary experiences for today’s students eRESOURCES and enable us to seize new opportunities as they arise. SUBSCRIPTION $998 TO JSTOR $15
These figures represent approximate annual expenditures per student.
Every Bryn Mawr Fund gift, every day, every year, helps every student to defy expectation. . TRANSFORMATION AT WORK. WWW.BRYNMAWR.EDU/THEBRYNMAWRFUND During the 2015-16 fiscal year, 6,573 alumnae/i, parents, faculty, staff and friends collectively gave over $5.37 million in support of the students who attend Bryn Mawr today.
THE BRYN MAWR FUND | WWW.BRYNMAWR.EDU/THEBRYNMAWRFUND THE BRYN MAWR FUND | WWW.BRYNMAWR.EDU/THEBRYNMAWRFUND 2016_Summer Ad_Final.indd 1
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