I wanted to point out that someone raised the question up thread several entries ago about whether two women’s schools–Bryn Mawr and Barnard–would fare as well if they weren’t associated with respectively Haverford and Columbia U. Leaving aside why that person thought that women’s colleges might need to borrow prestige from anyone, much less their male-heavy co-colleges–you know why choose only them?–it’s somewhat understandable to assume that a massive institution the size of Columbia might influence the smaller institution like Barnard, especially when they’re located across the street from each other and share many facilities. But it’s surprising to me that the assumption was that Haverford would have lent Bryn Mawr intellectual and academic prestige.
Despite Columbia’s oversized presence, it’s possible to argue that Barnard, as a premier women’s institution in the City of New York would be a major powerhouse on its own without Columbia. It’s after all a Premier Educational Institution in the City of New York, for goodness’ sake. The faculty are top notch, faculty would metaphorically kill to live in New York City in such a pretty area of the town so attracting faculty is hardly an issue, and they have unique departments there that Columbia is very happy to make use of. In other words, the flow of traffic from one campus to the other is not all one way, from Barnard to Columbia. If a Columbia College student wants to major in theater, they would spend a lot of time on Barnard campus, for example. Then there’s the culture of the two schools. Women at Barnard are quite happy to be at Barnard!
Bryn Mawr is a storied college in and of itself, apart from Haverford but also enjoys a deep historical relationship with Haverford. BMC offered women some of the first Ph.Ds, for example, has produced women leaders in virtually every field, including a Nobel Prize winner, and it still has a graduate program that male students attend.
BMC and Haverford work more as co-campuses, in that each offers some unique programs that the student population of the other college make use of. H for example offers the studio arts department which is quite rigorous and BMC offers geology and other facilities and departments that Haverford relies on. Haverford has notoriously less money than BMC and it culturally is less open to fundraising. The colleges are only 1 mile apart with buses running constantly. What is most important that sets BMC apart is the educational environment at BMC which is somewhat shared by Haverford. I think it’s this latter quality that makes it unique and may have secured its 5 pens. The course load is rigorous, that goes without saying, but it’s the method of teaching and consequently the students it attracts that sets it apart.
The students who attend BMC tend to be ones that value learning over grades. It’s worth saying another way. For many students though they don’t discount grades, the primary importance on that campus places the act of learning over grades. This is codified on campus somewhat, as a culture. And it’s sufficiently prominent that it’s mentioned as a unique feature of BMC elsewhere on the internet–Niche for example. As a point of comparison, to understand this difference, recently a student at an Ivy League school laughed when I explained this learning environment to her. She said that at her school the students were mostly interested in figuring out what they had to do to get the grade they needed. BMC’s system she said would require a unique set of students because their system “wouldn’t work” at her school. I think that’s true and finding a pool of students seeking that environment is something possible at a smaller school.
To my mind it’s this learning culture, in addition to its rigorous academics, that possibly earned BMC the 5 pens rank.
