The below email was sent to undergraduate students on Jan. 25, 2024
Dear Students,
As the new semester unfolds, we hope you had a good Winter Break and returned to campus renewed and restored for the months ahead.
In December, we shared that Bryn Mawr would move forward this semester with a variety of actions and initiatives to center on student learning and discovering solutions together. Accordingly, over winter break, college administrators and staff across campus spent time reflecting on last semester's challenges and growth opportunities. While the state of the world remains painfully turbulent and the suffering – especially in the Middle East – is nearly unfathomable, we recognize the places of pain that exist among us. We hope to begin this semester with common values, expectations, and actions that will ground us in our lives together on campus and help to identify ways we can support student advocacy.
As an institution, we are looking to strengthen our community this semester through a variety of actions, including:
- Continuing educational sessions offered by faculty
- Offering training in restorative practices
- Connecting students and staff over shared meals
- Continuing The Dialogue Project * – an opportunity for students, staff, and faculty to come together to build skills for dialogue, connection, and creating community
- Expanding dialogue and input opportunities for broader student cohorts/leadership groups in structured settings
- Continuing “Holding Space” opportunities at The Impact Center for students most closely affected by the violence in the Middle East
- Supporting free expression and activism
- Offering opportunities to learn more about community organizing and social activism
- Offering a session with our Chief Investment Officer to share information about College investments and investment practices
- Exploring a possible community gathering to acknowledge the collective grief and loss associated with the violence in the Middle East
These are a few of the initiatives and action items we hope to engage in this semester – with your help and participation. We are open to additional ideas and suggestions. If you have ideas or would like to get involved, contact Associate Dean for Equity, Inclusion, and Community Life A.T. Ortíz at aortiz3@brynmawr.edu.
As an educational institution, our mission is to create spaces for learning that advance knowledge and build the skills needed to engage with complexity. This means that we support the expression of differing perspectives and strive to create an environment that does not demand, espouse, or privilege a single perspective, no matter how compelling some may find it. Doing so stifles debate, silences others, and suggests that those with different viewpoints are not welcome in our community of learners.
Holding space for divergent perspectives is hard and requires balance. We certainly don’t always do it perfectly. But we will continue to work to create an environment that fosters support, care, and concern alongside the discomfort that may come from living with and learning from difference. We urge the campus community to focus especially on these three values to help shape Bryn Mawr into a place that is inclusive of many different perspectives:
Empathy – Striving to understand the feelings of others and being willing to consider other perspectives about a given situation, all whebringing deep human understanding to places of pain and vulnerability.
Care – Looking out for one another and being unafraid to extend a hand of friendship or kindness when someone is hurting or alone.
Respect – Honoring the basic humanity of one another; expressing divergent views in a respectful manner that does not demean or disparage those who disagree; being willing to listen to one another and to leave room for learning and growth – even where there may be disagreement.
We hope sharing this vision for moving forward together is helpful. Kindness and compassion for one another can remain at the root of social change and activism of all sorts and across differing perspectives.
We look forward to working with you.
Kim Cassidy
President
Karlene Burrell-McRae
Dean of the Undergraduate College
Tomiko Jenkins
Dean of Student Life
