<p>I’m not arguing semantics. I’ve been asked this question many times and I can recommend many excellent schools that are similar to Swarthmore in one aspect or another. I have never been able to come up with an alternate that offers Swarthmore’s defining degree of intellectual inquiry and collaborative learning environment. The relationship between faculty and students and between students and students, combined with the level of intellectual inquiry or rigor is unusual. </p>
<p>I can name some schools that are similar in one of those aspects, but not both. For example, Brown may well match Swarthmore in collaborative learning environment, but there is no way that I would put Brown in Swarthmore’s category of intellectual inquiry. Brown isn’t even near the top of the Ivy League in “intellectual inquiry”.</p>
<p>My alma mater, Williams, is an excellent school by every measure, but it doesn’t match Swarthmore in either of those categories, let alone the combination. In fact, I would say that the biggest challenge Williams’ leaders face today is a certain weakness in the “collaborative learning enviroment” characterized by fissure lines between groups of students, between students and faculty, and between students and administration. These fissure lines are not specifically “academic”, but it’s hard to have a “collaborative learning environment” with those kinds of fault lines.</p>
<p>I’m certainly willing to entertain nominations. All things considered, I would probably cite a few of the top women’s schools as being the closest in culture. I also don’t discount the possibiity that places like Grinnell, Carleton, and Pomona come very close. I just don’t know that much about those schools.</p>