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The campus community gathered in Goodhart Hall Monday to welcome the start of the 2016-17 academic year. Below are some of our favorite quotes from the Convocation speakers.

"Bryn Mawr is a particularly good environment in which to become one of those passionate people who changes the world. This is the College’s founding principle, and its historic commitment to social justice is both documented and complicated. We have fought injustice, and we have also perpetuated it, and some of the passionate and brave actions that members of the ±©·ç×ÊÔ´ community have taken over the years both call out and make that history."

"To put it simply, Bryn Mawr beautifully combines the teaching focus of a small ±©·ç×ÊÔ´ with the research agenda of a graduate university. I have often heard it lamented from graduate students at large universities that they are used as 'teaching fodder,' and nothing could be farther from the truth here at Bryn Mawr. Whether it be teaching ancient languages to small classes, working together in a laboratory instructing students how to titrate, or excavating an archaeological site in the United Arab Emirates with a team composed of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates – as I have had the pleasure of doing – the Bryn Mawr experience allows us to develop teaching skills on the personal level."

"I like to think that I have always been surrounded by brilliant people in my life, but never was that fact as clear as it is today when I look into your faces. You are all brimming with so much intelligence and zeal that it is impossible not to feel excited for the lives that you will touch with your brilliance. At some point, or at many points in this academic year, you will doubt a lot of the good things that you believe of yourself and that’s ok. You might start to feel small at the prospect of navigating life outside of these walls and away from the care of our beloved community, and that too is okay. But I want you to envision this, every time you feel that way; you are a Bryn Mawr scholar and the minute you enrolled into this community was the minute you started to cultivate the fire in you."

"Academic engagement is crucial to informed, effective activism. In your fellow students, professors, and course materials, you have some of the best resources in the world for understanding and addressing the social, economic, humanistic and scientific dimensions of whatever issue concerns you, or motivates you to action. And when you engage with your academic work and colleagues, you build strong social ties. When you engage with ideas and with people around you, you become part of social groups that can be powerful forces for change. You become part of the larger Bryn Mawr community, an institution committed to improving itself and the world."

"A Bryn Mawr education will give you new stories and even break your heart sometimes, because this education wakes you up to a world of problems so pervasive, enduring, and extensive that some of us don’t even notice them as problems. This is an under-appreciated aspect of a ±©·ç×ÊÔ´ education. What to do with what you learn about the world? Especially when it breaks your heart...When your Bryn Mawr education opens you up to the world’s hurt, don’t be afraid. You will find tremendous energy, creativity, companions, and connections there."

Related Links

• 2016-17 Convocation Photos
• President Cassidy's Welcome Letter for the 2016-17 Academic Year