President, Bryn Mawr College
Jane Dammen McAuliffe, an internationally known scholar of Islamic studies, became the eighth president of Bryn Mawr College in 2008.
Under McAuliffe’s leadership Bryn Mawr has continued its tradition as a premiere liberal arts college for women while broadening its academic and extracurricular offerings to meet the needs of today’s students.
A long-time advocate of increasing global connections in higher education, McAuliffe has pursued, and continues to explore, a number of mutually-advantageous relationships with academic institutions in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. At the same time, Bryn Mawr’s student body has become ever more internationally diverse – international students comprise a record 27 percent of the class of 2015.
On campus, McAuliffe led the successful “Smart Women, Strong Women” initiative to ensure students, faculty, and staff have a state-of-the-art athletic and fitness facility and playing field. She also oversaw the integration of student services for the college’s graduate and undergraduate offerings to maximize the college’s resources to the benefit of each group.
During her tenure, Bryn Mawr has re-energized its partnerships with Haverford and Swarthmore and set the groundwork for even greater collaboration in curricular coordination, student services, environmental sustainability, and more.
Through careful financial management and astute investment, Bryn Mawr became one of only four colleges and universities nationwide to receive a bond upgrade in 2010, a key indicator of the college’s economic strength.
McAuliffe sees Bryn Mawr using its prominence and prestige to shine a light on “the paramount moral challenge of this century” ─ the systemic oppression and brutalization of women across the globe. As part of that effort, the college brought together leading international educators, advocates, and NGO leaders for the “Heritage and Hope” conference in September of 2010 and is currently partnering with the State Department and the other Seven Sisters to launch the Women in Public Service Program.