Bryn Mawr College

Students and faculty of the Bryn Mawr Geology Department spent Fall Break visiting the mountains of the Iberian Peninsula, where Department Chair Arlo Weil has been involved with groundbreaking research on the breakup of the Pangea supercontinent. Sixteen students and faculty members atop the ancient lower crust of North America, which was transferred to Europe (here, the north coast of Spain) during the formation ... Read more »

This year, Information Services will take its annual Halloween festivities to Canaday Library's Lusty Cup Cafe. Students, faculty, staff, and their families are invited to join ghouls and geeks, lycanthropes and librarians to view examples of the College's collection of public-domain horror films, learn about Halloween and Day of the Dead traditions around the world, eat, drink, and be merry. Costumes are encouraged, but not required. The party will take place on Thursday,  Oct. 30 ... Read more »

Photos from the inauguration of Jane Dammen McAuliffe as Bryn Mawr's eighth president on Oct. 3 and 4.

What effect do food stamps have on the long-term health and economic success of their recipients? It’s a difficult question to answer because so many variables besides food stamps contribute to health and economic outcomes. But Professor of Social Work and Social Research Thomas P. Vartanian has created a research model that compares several types of statistical analyses to present a more accurate picture of the ... Read more »

On Thursday, Oct. 30, from 4:30 to 6 p.m., the undergraduate Residence Council will sponsor trick-or-treating in the residence halls. All faculty, staff, students, and their friends are invited to bring their children to trick-or-treat in Denbigh, Haffner, Merion, Pembroke East, Pembroke West, Radnor, Rockefeller, and Rhoads North and South.

Saskia Subramanian ’88 will present and discuss her documentary film Beyond Breast Cancer: Stories of Survivors, on Monday, Oct. 27, at 7:30 p.m. in Carpenter B21. The event, sponsored by the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center and the Department of Sociology, is free and open to the public. Beyond Breast Cancer chronicles the experiences of nine courageous breast-cancer survivors who find that their health struggles continue ... Read more »

Professor of History Sharon Ullman recently appeared on 98.5 Ben FM's "Woman of the Week" show to talk about GLBT History Month (streaming audio is available on Ben FM's Web site; Ullman is the second person interviewed in this clip). Ullman had been asked by Equality Forum, an international nonprofit that works toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender civil rights through educational outreach efforts, to ... Read more »

Harpist Gillian Grassie ’09 is among the finalists for the prestigious New York Songwriters Circle Contest.

Fresh from a sold-out run as one of the 2008 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival’s most talked-about performances, CAR comes to Bryn Mawr on Friday, Oct. 24, and Saturday, Oct. 25, as a special free event in the College's 2008-09 Performing Arts Series. CAR is the inventive site-based movement installation by choreographer and Pew Fellow Kate Watson-Wallace and her company, Anonymous Bodies. It takes place in ... Read more »

Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman, a molecular biologist, will open a lecture series on science and leadership on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 7:30 p.m. in Wyndham's Ely Room, with a talk titled “To Boldly Go Where Men Have Gone Before: Women Scientists and Academic Leadership." Tilghman is the first of four lecturers who, over the course of the academic year, will discuss the challenges and opportunities ... Read more »

Author Jim Shepard, whose short story collection Like You’d Understand, Anyway has recently become available in paperback, will give a reading  on Wednesday, Oct. 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Ely Room at the Wyndham Alumnae House. Free and open to the public, Shepard’s appearance is part of the College’s yearlong Creative Writing Program Reading Series, which features award-winning poets, fiction and nonfiction writers, and ... Read more »

BBC Radio's Steve Evans has been taking a bus tour of the United States and reporting on the places where he stops and people he meets. At a stop in Gettysburg, he had Madeline Birkner '10 and another young person read the Gettysburg Address with him. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Gettysburg teenagers Madeleine Birkner '10 and Paolo Ciocco at the Gettyburg battlefield."]... Read more »

From the dance floor to the dais, optimism and high spirits were in evidence as delegates from more than 40 colleges and universities around the nation joined hundreds of members of the extended Bryn Mawr College community to celebrate the inauguration of Jane Dammen McAuliffe as the College's eighth president last weekend.

NBC's Luke Russert visited Bryn Mawr last Thursday to gauge students' reactions to Sarah Palin and Joe Biden in the vice-presidential debate.

The inauguration of Jane Dammen McAuliffe as president of Bryn Mawr College will be celebrated this week with a series of events including a picnic, performances, and presentations by student-faculty research teams. The festivities will culminate in a formal investiture ceremony at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 4. All alumnae/i and friends of the College are invited to attend the weekend's events, but for those who can't be there, the College will offer a live ... Read more »

This summer Associate Professor of Geology Arlo Weil and his colleagues published a groundbreaking report offering a new explanation of the process by which the supercontinent Pangaea broke apart and ultimately gave shape to many of today’s mountain ranges and other major geographic features. “Pangaea was this nice stable supercontinent. The question is, ‘Why did it break up into a lot of pieces?’” says Weil. [caption id="attachment_685" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A map of Pangaea, illustrating the Paleo-Tethys sea ... Read more »

When the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard drew the nation's attention to the issue of hate crimes based on sexual orientation, Paige Walker '09 never heard much about it. She was 10 years old, and most adults in her conservative community didn't discuss such matters with children. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="230" caption="Paige Walker '09"][/caption] That sort of silence about the effects of homophobia is precisely what Walker hopes to counter ... Read more »

Annalisa Crannell '87 is one of the "Class Acts" in this photo spread of academics showing off their sense of style and fashion.

In conjunction with the Arden Theatre's production of Candide—a staging of Leonard Bernstein’s musical version of Voltaire’s classic satire—the Hepburn Center has organized a discussion led by Artistic Director Terry Nolen and Managing Director Amy Murphy, a 2008-09 Hepburn Fellow, about the background of the play, the major themes and issues it raises, and the process of adapting it for the Arden. The discussion will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 7:30 p.m. ... Read more »

"Helping Teens Help Themselves" features the work of the Railroad Street Youth Project and its founder, McBride Scholar Amanda Root '08.

“Documenting Ethnic Wedding Traditions in America: The Photographs of Katrina Thomas,” an exhibition of work by Katrina Thomas ’49, opened on Tuesday, Sept. 23, in the Canaday Library Class of 1912 Rare Book Room. The exhibition was curated by Tracie Wilson, 2007-08 Postdoctoral Fellow in Scholarly Information Resources, and Jenny Castle '09. The images in the exhibition were selected from a ... Read more »

"All the Campus Is a Stage" reports on the innovative use of nontraditional venues for this year's Performing Arts Series as a result of the $19-million renovation of Goodhart Theater. Note: The Chronicle of Higher Education limits access to articles to those with a subscription. If you have a Bryn Mawr account, you can find the article via Lexis/Nexis.

Hannah Upp '07, who disappeared from her New York City apartment more than two weeks ago, has been found. The Bryn Mawr community's thoughts are with Hannah and her family.

Who is Melanie Bruchet? Archaeology major Melanie Bruchet ’09 will appear in the first “Jeopardy! Kids Week Reunion” on Monday, Sept. 15. We sat down and asked her about being on the game show. However, we didn’t require her to phrase her  reply in the form of a question. Jeopardy! airs locally at 7 p.m. on ABC. You can see Melanie as an 11-year-old contestant at http://www.jeopardy.com/mini_sites/kidsreunion/ How did ... Read more »

How do you run a Performing Arts Series without a theater? After more than two decades of presenting stellar dance, theater, and music performances in historic Goodhart Hall, the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series faces this challenge as Goodhart undergoes much-needed renovations until fall 2009. “I wanted to take advantage of this season to highlight artists whose work is designed for nontraditional and intimate settings,” ... Read more »

Congratulations to the staff of Wyndham Alumnae House on its Best of 2008 award from Main Line Times. Naming Wyndham the "Best Low-Key Lunch Spot" on the Main Line, MLT said, "Perhaps Wyndham Alumnae House is one of the best-kept secrets in the area because many assume it's available only to Bryn Mawr College alumnae and faculty. Actually, it's a fine dining restaurant ... Read more »

For the second time in three years, the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research's Sanford Schram has won the American Political Science Association's annual award for the best paper on public policy. Schram and GSSWSR doctoral student Linda Houser presented the paper at the annual APSA meeting last year and received the award in Boston on Aug. 28. The paper, ... Read more »

Bryn Mawr alumna Julie Beckman '95 and Keith Kaseman designed the 9/11 memorial discussed in "As Pentagon tribute opens, others years away."

"To the Class of 2009" offers words of wisdom to seniors from the gainfully employed Sarah E. Caldwell ‘08.

"Skills-swap spawns education by twos" reports on a program created by aHaverford student based on Bryn Mawr’s Empowering Learners Partnership.

After the U.S. women’s eight rowing team won its first Olympic gold medal in 24 years at this year’s games, team coxswain Mary Whipple said, “This is for the 1984 girls.” One of those "girls" was Bryn Mawr rowing coach Carol Bower, who recently took a few minutes to talk about competing in the Olympics and Bryn Mawr rowing. What’s your most vivid memory of the 1984 ... Read more »

It’s been a heady week and a half for the 377 students who make up the class of 2012. Since arriving for Customs Week, they have moved into dormitories and met with new roommates, faculty members, deans, various student mentors and what probably seemed like every administrator on the campus. There have been diversity workshops; presentations by Student Life, Campus Safety, and the Health Center; trips to Haverford; picnics; a dance party; a film festival; and ... Read more »

The Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center will be welcoming three Hepburn Fellows to campus this year: Amy Murphy, managing director of Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre Company; Maya Ajmera ’89, founder and president of the Global Fund for Children; and Ana María López, ’82, associate dean for outreach and multicultural affairs, associate professor of clinical medicine and pathology, and medical director of the Arizona Telemedicine Program at the ... Read more »

President Jane McAuliffe has announced a $1 million pledge from Ruth “Tulsa” Kaiser Nelson ’58 to inaugurate fundraising for “Smart Women, Strong Women,” a $15 million project to enhance athletics, fitness, and recreation facilities and programs. “Tulsa’s deep and abiding love for Bryn Mawr shines through in this magnificent commitment. She wants the College to continue to be a leader in higher education, and this means we must continue to attract and retain the very ... Read more »

Bryn Mawr College has a long history of leadership in providing low-income students access to a top-quality liberal-arts education. In its survey of highly selective liberal-arts colleges, the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education ranked Bryn Mawr among the top five institutions in the proportion of low-income students enrolled. In joining the CollegeKeys Compact, the College has now partnered with the College Board and hundreds of colleges, universities, and school districts throughout the United States as ... Read more »

During her first weeks in office, President Jane Dammen McAuliffe has been "enchanted by the stunning beauty" of the Bryn Mawr campus. She has also acquired a familiarity with furnaces, boilers, and ductwork that is unusual in a chief executive. As McAuliffe undertook a thorough walking tour of the buildings and grounds, her guides–Chief Administrative Officer Jerry Berenson, Facilities Services Director Glenn Smith, and Assistant Director ... Read more »

"College lending tight but available" quotes Dean of Admissions Jenny Rickard.

Trustee Cheryl Holland ’80 is featured in this story about the country's most successful independent financial advisers.

For centuries wine makers have understood the importance of terroir—or the combination of soil, climate, and geography that gives the grapes of particular regions their distinct qualities—in making great wine. But there remains to this day a great deal of controversy as to just what terroir really means and what environmental factors make the difference between a $5 bottle of wine and a bottle to ... Read more »

Ellie Herman '81 mentions her Bryn Mawr degree in this opinion piece about the arduous process of getting certified to teach in California.

Associate Professor of Archaeology Peter Magee is quoted in a story about renewed interest in the archaeology of the Arabian peninsula. Magee's work is also discussed in "Archaeological teams continue work in Sharjah," a story in Gulf News.

"Group Aims to Save African Stories" quotes Professor of Sociology Mary J. Osirim on the value of an effort to preserve oral histories threatened by the AIDS epidemic.

Lecturer in Creative Writing Daniel Torday penned Confessions of a Self-Googler, which was posted in the Kenyon Review Online before it appeared in The Huffington Post.

The Press of Atlantic City reports on Jill Breslin being named Bryn Mawr's tennis coach.

From the Bryn Mawr College Athletics Department -- Jill Breslin, formerly of Temple University, has been named Bryn Mawr’s new tennis coach, Athletic Director Kathy Tierney has announced. "Jill has an extensive and varied background in tennis. She is an outstanding teacher and motivator and I am confident that our scholar-athletes will benefit greatly from her leadership," Tierney stated following the announcement. While at ... Read more »

"Combining hoops and education" is an article about a camp created by Bryn Mawr GSSWSR student Mike Fratangelo and Haverford senior Greg Rosnick.

An article about the use of native species bees for crop pollination extensively quotes Assistant Professor of Biology Neal Williams and details the research he is doing on the topic with the aid of Bryn Mawr undergraduates.

Associate Professor of Geology Arlo Weil co-authored "Self-subduction of the Pangaen Global Plate," which appears on the Nature Geoscience Web site in advance of its publication in the next issue of the journal.

"Propofol," a poem by Bryn Mawr Creative Writing Program Director Karl Kirchwey, appeared in the June 30 issue of The New Yorker.

Last May, Bryn Mawr students Mansi Gupta '10, Marwa Nur Muhammad '09, and Shikha Prashad '09 applied for funding through the Computer Research Association's Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates program to create a course that would expose middle-school students to computing in a fun way through the Scribbler robots.