Although 137 years have passed since Bryn Mawr opened its doors, the legacy of the College’s founders lingers in the physical spaces they built, the curriculum they designed, and the vision of communal life they imagined. Contending with an institution that was built with exclusion in mind remains an ongoing struggle.
We still grapple with restrictive ideas and realities about who belongs at Bryn Mawr and on what terms. Regrettably, some express their exclusionary views through harmful acts. Others mobilize to fight for necessary change in our community.
May 2022
Through the coordinated efforts of students, faculty, and administrators, a new undergraduate course requirement in “Power, Inequity, and Justice” is approved by the faculty
March 2022
During Welcome the First Years Week, transphobic graffiti is sprayed on the pavement in a central location on campus
February 1, 2022
On the first day of Black History Month, another instance of hateful anti-Black graffiti is discovered in the same on-campus residence hall
January 21, 2022
Hateful anti-Black graffiti discovered inside an on-campus residence hall
November 2021
The second Who Built Bryn Mawr? exhibition, “1960s Students Confronting Race” opens
January 2021
The first Who Built Bryn Mawr? exhibition, “A Beginning” opens, launching an ongoing institutional history project in response to students’ demands for greater transparency about the institution’s recognition of its problematic legacies
November 1-19, 2020
Black, brown, and first-generation low-income students formed the Bryn Mawr Strike Coalition (now the Black Student Liberatory Coalition) and led the longest strike in Bryn Mawr’s history in “response to the legacy of trauma and anguish and the historic lack of sympathy, true proactivity, and response from the College”
October 29-November 11, 2020
BIPOC and low-income students of Haverford College lead a strike to “Disrupt the Order” and acknowledge the College’s contribution to violent histories of disenfranchisement, genocide, oppression, and injustice
August 2017
The History Working Group is formed to examine histories of exclusion and resistance in the College’s past
2015
Senior students Grace Pusey and Emma Kiako pursue an independent research project that launches Black at Bryn Mawr, an ongoing program that surfaces underrepresented stories and experiences of African American students, faculty, and staff
2014
A Confederate Flag is hung and the Mason-Dixon line is drawn on the floor of a campus dorm. The incident receives national media attention and students organize a campus-wide protest and mobilization of solidarity against hate
2013
A student-made flier with anti-Black imagery is taped to the door of a Bryn Mawr professor’s office
This timeline includes empty spaces to mark events and incidents that have gone unreported or unaddressed.
Whose stories and experiences remain undocumented in the College’s archive?