Tradition
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For those of you who might not be familiar, Bryn Mawr is a small, private liberal arts college in the Philadelphia suburbs. As one of the Seven Sisters, it's traditionally a women's college, although the college will now admit anyone who doesn't identify as male. That's a recent change to policy, and I think it's a good one. (The purpose of women's colleges in a world that is increasingly recognizing the problems with a binary concept of gender is an interesting question, but it's outside the scope of this entry.) There's a lot I could say about Bryn Mawr, most of it positive -- I credit my four years there with making me the person who I am today, and it was the first place I ever found a really solid group of friends, many of whom are still with me today. I was super-active in the Alumnae Association for awhile, was on the board of the local club and then the national organization for a couple of years. Then I burned out, and took a break that lasted almost 10 years. Until this year, at my 20-year reunion, where my friend A and I volunteered to be class presidents. So now that I'm back on the horse, I went to the annual volunteers training weekend for the first time in over a decade. That was the first weekend of October; it was a cold and rainy visit, but it was also energizing, and gave us lots of ideas about how to connect our classmates to each other and to the college. And of course I always appreciate the opportunity to renew my own connection. I've been to every one of my class reunions, and also a decade reunion for graduates of the 1990s in 2014, but reunion is always in the summer after the students are gone. This is the first time in ages that I've been on campus while classes are in session, so it was a real blast from the past to see the college alive with students and faculty. Not to mention that it was fall, with the leaves turning color and the greens turning to mud, which was yet another excellent source of nostalgia. I wouldn't relive my college years if you paid me -- I enjoy being an adult with money and free time, thank you -- but going back to Bryn Mawr always feels like coming home.
I would feel remiss if I didn't talk about Lantern Night, which was yesterday (and I suspect is part of the reason that
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If any members of the class of '19 happen to be reading this, welcome to the family! I hope you had a wonderful Lantern Night, and that being a part of the College is as good an experience for you as it was for me.
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Echoing lassarina's comments about feeling a little bittersweet but, on the other hand, I wouldn't want to trade the experience I had at a small handful of major research uni's either. But major research uni's aren't community or cohort focused in any way.
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Your description of the weather brings back such memories. The setting of Bryn Mawr was so beautiful, and has only become more Brigadoon-like since I moved away from any semblance of the same seasons. I miss it more, in some ways, than the forest and rural countryside where I grew up just an hour and a half to the south (in the country, where one gave distances in time not miles).
I'm glad to hear that you're involved in alumnae stuff again. I've always had a bittersweet relationship with the alumnae doings -- I feel like, somehow, I can't go back unless I'm successful, because I have the sense that so many of us went on to do Great Things (which I'm sure is not true). I'm ashamed to show my face, like Harriet Vane, although she became more sensible about it.
And yet like imaginary Harriet and her imaginary Shrewsbury, I still feel that umbilical cord. I wish the new class all the best — what color are they? — and I still think of Bryn Mawr as home. It's a feeling of comfort to know someone else out there who knows, who remembers, that sacred space.
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