Bryn Mawr College recently welcomed its 10th President, Wendy Cadge, to the community. Soon after her official move to the on-campus president’s residence, the Bi-College News sat down with her to discuss her life before Bryn Mawr and her transition into her new job. Cadge spoke about fostering conversation and uplifting all voices.
Could you talk about your connection to Delaware County and how it might feel coming back to the area?
I lived in Media as a baby and then moved to Springfield, to the house…that my dad had grown up in…I lived in Springfield until I was 17, when I moved to Swarthmore [College], still in Delaware County. So my formative years were spent here and most of my family is still here, so to have been away and not come back presents a lot of fun chances to connect with them, to reconnect with my cousins and other people in the area that have been harder to be in touch with [in person]…We’ve come regularly since the kids were born so they kind of know the area and they’re learning about all things Philadelphia…that they were less familiar with, like hoagies and the Eagles.
Cadge relayed that most of her grandparents were also born in Delaware County, specifically discussing her grandmothers, whom she has previously invoked in one of the statements she released to the community earlier this year.
You talked in one of your statements about how one out of your four grandmothers had gone to college and I was wondering how that has affected this process, coming to a historically women’s college and thinking about the history of women’s education?
I think about my grandmothers every day…It’s been a blessing to have known my grandmothers and to have had not just two, but five, because my parents were divorced [and] their parents were divorced. So, to have had these five very different but amazing women in my life who taught me everything from, you know, how to make egg salad to, you know, really how to work hard and how to work hard when you have not had a lot of opportunity for education…I don’t like the metaphor of standing on people’s shoulders because it makes it sound like you’re pushing them down, but [My arms are certainly] linked with them every day when I come in here. I think about how…their hard work made it possible for me to be here…They were all creative in different ways, and a lot of their creativity took the form of needlework…I have a lot of their cross stitches and crochets and things hanging up in my house, because it’s also just part of the way I think about and honor them. On my first day here, I had a necklace from my grandmother, and I wore that. So I really think about them all the time.
Both Bryn Mawr College and Swarthmore College, Cadge’s alma mater, were founded by members of the Religious Society of Friends, more commonly known as Quakers. Both schools cite this history as an essential building block to what they are today. Swarthmore even has a Quaker Meeting House on campus.
I was wondering how attending a school with Quaker roots has impacted your approach to being a leader in higher education?
I didn’t know much about Quakerism when I went to college, and it was very interesting for me to learn. Both formally – I took a course in Quakerism – but also just in terms of how the college worked. So, I wasn’t familiar with consensus processes. I wasn’t familiar with Quaker architecture, right? I mean, it was a lot of different pieces.
Cadge emphasized the, “Quaker approach…to clear and simple speech, and making places for all viewpoints, even when some of those viewpoints are things about which we disagree passionately.”
When I was at Swarthmore…when there were difficult issues on campus, there were often meetings in the Quaker Meeting House. There were not enough Quakers in the student body or the faculty to necessarily know the usual procedures for how things work in a Quaker Meeting House, but we sat together and we talked, and it was very uncomfortable and difficult, and it’s one of the central skills that I learned as a college student. And being back in a college with a Quaker history is really meaningful to me, and I think now, especially given all of the issues about which people have strong opinions, I’m hoping we can work together to model and to practice sitting with those with whom we disagree. I think it’s gotten only harder with social media, where it’s really easy to make statements but not have to sit in a room with the person you’re talking to. And that approach, I think, is fundamental. I think it reflects the Quaker approach and values, and many other approaches and values also, and is something I hope we can work on together this year.
She also underscored this approach when discussing protests on campus. Cadge is entering the Bryn Mawr community in the wake of the spring pro-Palestine encampment and during ongoing student activism in support of the liberation of Palestine. Cadge explained how she anticipated working with students to foster dialogue about the Israel-Hamas war and how she would address student protest.
So I think Bryn Mawr College, like all colleges, is fundamentally an educational institution. We have non-profit status, and we are required by local, state, and federal law to follow particular guidelines, whether any member of the community likes them or not. That is the legal and political context in which we live. And I think we have to start there in being aware of what those guidelines are. Most recently, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has written a Dear Colleague Letter…[the OCR] writes Dear Colleague Letters to make sure that people are aware of different kinds of guidelines. Title IX is the one people are most familiar with. This most recent..letter is about Title VI, which pertains particularly to making sure that people who have different religious and ethnic backgrounds, as well as nationalities, are safe and protected on college campuses, even as we make space appropriately for free speech. So I think that my approach begins in being informed by local, state, and federal law, and thinking within that context about what our job is as an educational institution.
I believe our job is to make space for all viewpoints, and to engage with people with different viewpoints, and expressing them in respectful ways that engage others, in which we can learn. And I have never learned from someone talking at me through a bullhorn. I think we learn when we hear our stories, when we take things slowly, when we build relationships, and see what we have in common, rather than just how we differ. And that’s the approach I aim to model. Ensuring that all students here are both able to complete their education, as that is our mission, and are able to express and engage across their different views, regardless of who they are and what they believe and what the strength of their opinion is.
So, turning back to some of the statements that you have made, in your joining the Bryn Mawr community statement, you mentioned that you had spent time on board container ships. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about that, because that particularly piqued my interest.
Cadge and three other authors recently had a book, Chaplaincy and Seafarers, Faith at Work, released.
So, we actually have a new book. It just came out from Oxford University Press. It’s called…Chaplaincy and Seafarers, Faith at Work…This book is based on five plus years of research…we interviewed chaplains who work in different ports in the UK. Before that, I had spent quite a long time actually doing research about port chaplains and container ships and cargo ships in Boston. My daughter is 10, and I started doing this research when I was pregnant with her, so that was, what, 11 years ago? And I stopped when I was too pregnant, when I was pregnant enough that people were noticing on board the ships, because I just didn’t want to discuss that with them.
But in brief, at least 90% of all of our consumer goods are made and trained outside of the U .S. and transported on ships…But there’s been very little thinking, at least in the popular press, about how those goods get here. And they come on container ships, most of them. They are staffed mostly by people from the global south, especially the Philippines. They tend to work nine month contracts, and they tend to be supporting entire families at home. And when goods come into…[U.S. Ports], customs and the Coast Guard looks at the vessel and the goods, but nobody looks at the people. Container ships are, at the present time, staffed by 10 to 15 people…They are sometimes able to get off the ships, but sometimes, depending on the company, they have visas where they’re actually not allowed off the ships.
So port chaplains go on board, and they bring phone cards and newspapers and local snacks, and they visit. And they see if these mostly men who have mostly been at sea for a very long time need anything. If they’re having any kind of medical issues, they can help arrange doctors. If they’re having issues with getting paid, they actually work in a network across ports. So if your ship has come into Philadelphia and you haven’t been paid, but your ship is next going to Newfoundland, they’ll call ahead. And so it’s a kind of global safety net that is helping invisible workers.
I learned about this when I was doing research about chaplains that work outside of hospitals…I was really intrigued [and] moved by the importance of this work, not because it’s religious in any traditional sense of the word, but because it’s meeting people where they are as they are. And it’s bringing voice and recognition to people that most of us never see.
So yes, I wore a hard hat. I had a bright yellow vest and a backpack. We took cookbooks to the chefs, to the cooks on board. We took bandaids and all the things. And we just went up and visited. And if people needed assistance, we then made connections.
How do you plan or anticipate strengthening the ties between the graduate and undergraduate communities on campus?
That’s a great question, and one that I’m actively thinking about. What I think I can say now is that I think that part of what makes Bryn Mawr special is its graduate programs, and I’m really committed to working with the community to think about how we [can] make sure that we have the strongest possible connections between undergraduate and graduate students…that’s something I’m really still learning about, and it’s important for me to keep learning and hearing from others as I join the college.
President Cadge will be inaugurated on October 26.
