Quaker Roots

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How do you think this influenced the school, not having an official Quaker affiliation? How much of its Quaker roots do you still see in the school?

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<p>Swatparent: I hope that you don't mind if I moved this to a new thread. It's time to starve the two year old drive-by shooting thread to death.</p>

<p>One of the consistent themes in Richard Walton's "Swarthmore College: An Informal History" is the tension, from day one, between those who envisioned the college as a Quaker school intended to train young Quakers and those who envisioned the school as an academic powerhouse. At every key juncture, the "academic" side of the argument prevailed.</p>

<p>The official connection with the Society of Friends was never all that strongly established. The true impact on Swarthmore came from the Quaker people involved in its history.</p>

<p>For example, the ghost of founder Lucretia Mott has shaped Swarthmore for a very long time. As the first woman to call for equal rights for women at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, there's no doubt that Mott was a primary mover behind Swarthmore's by-law requiring 16 men and 16 women on the school's Board of Managers.</p>

<p>There's also no doubt that Mott's ghost has some impact on Swat alum Alice Paul.</p>

<p>Lucretia</a> Mott - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>

<p>An article from the Swarthmore Gazette from last year about a panel that met to discuss this topic:</p>

<p>Friendly</a> panel moved to shed light on Swarthmore's Quaker roots The Daily Gazette</p>

<p>"As Densmore noted, the values of Quakerism are certainly not exclusive to the Religious Society of Friends. However, the way they are embodied here, however subtly at times, is a crucial part of the Swarthmore experience. First-year student Nate Erskine mentioned the egalitarian notions about how to create a community that led to the existence of a single, community-enhancing dining hall, while junior Meg Perry valued the Quaker tradition of addressing everyone by their first name which some professors follow that offers the "opportunity to be on equal footing with the people you are learning from.'"</p>

<p>I would say the sense of community and the concensus decision-making are maybe the strongest elements of the Quaker traditions. There's a mutual respect among the three constituent groups on campus: students, faculty, and administration.</p>

<p>A big part of what makes it work is mixing first-year students in with the general population. This makes for a quick transfer of the campus culture to each incoming class.</p>