Bryn Mawr President Wendy Cadge sent a campus-wide email on Jan. 23 following growing concerns about a deterioration of trust between students and senior staff. Tensions on campus reached a critical point last semester after multiple students alleged being misled into meetings with private investigators. In her Jan. 23 statement, Cadge wrote that “the investigation is not ongoing, and the College considers the matter closed.” But for some, lingering questions remain over Bryn Mawr’s future, and growing suspicions between students and the administration looms large.
“The actions I took reflected my responsibility to protect our community and campus, and to ensure that basic functions such as Admitted Students’ Day and Reunion take place safely and not be disrupted by actions that violate Bryn Mawr’s values and the law,” Cadge wrote in the Jan. 23 communication. Questions raised by students regarding the practices employed by the outside contractors—such as whether or not they followed students off-campus, the procedures implemented during the meetings, or even the name of the firm that the College employed—were not addressed in the email.
Last semester, in response to the allegations first reported by the Bi-Co News, Bryn Mawr’s community voiced its distress over the College’s investigative procedures in various ways. Students circulated a list of demands on social media, faculty members publicly condemned the behavior of the College, and an alum-run petition calling for more transparency from the College garnered over 100 signatures.
The actions I took reflected my responsibility to protect our community and campus, and to ensure that basic functions such as Admitted Students’ Day and Reunion take place safely and not be disrupted by actions that violate Bryn Mawr’s values and the law.
WENDY CADGE
Willa Hollinger was one of three students who detailed allegations against Bryn Mawr’s administration. She says that she and her parents have repeatedly asked for clarification from Dean Tomiko Jenkins and President Cadge on the College’s investigative procedures. Hollinger says the College would not answer questions regarding why she was summoned to the meeting or the “lack of representation” she had once there.
“My parents and I made concerted efforts to meet with members of the administration regarding my experience, but the resulting meeting which occurred did not produce the resolution we had hoped for,” Hollinger told The Bi-Co News. “We were told that many of our questions could not be answered, at least in that moment, and at this time, we are still awaiting the formal response from the administration which was promised.”
As of publication, Hollinger says neither she nor her parents have received a formal response from the administration.
Samara Sit, Bryn Mawr’s vice president for communications and marketing, sent the Bi-Co News the following statement when asked about the campus concern over unanswered questions:
“At Bryn Mawr, we believe that tackling our most challenging questions is a collective responsibility. We are working with the whole community to intentionally create more structured opportunities—such as the Dialogue Project—for everyone in our community to engage in facilitated, community-based discussion. President Cadge meets regularly with the SGA, the Presidential Student Advisory Council, the faculty, and the staff association. Members of the Senior Staff are hosting monthly lunch conversations with faculty and attending regular student events, including Pizza with the President. Several members of the Senior Staff hold office hours for students, and all are open to conversations when approached by students. We want our students and faculty to know that their concerns are being heard and that we are actively listening so we can work through issues together, ensuring a climate of mutual respect and continued support.”
“Not The Bryn Mawr That I Know”
Nina Jankowicz (BMC’11), the co-founder and CEO of the American Sunlight Project, a nonprofit focused on combating disinformation within the U.S., told the Bi-Co News that her “heart sank a little bit” when she first read about the hiring of private investigators.
“It’s sad to see Bryn Mawr associated with behavior that, according to [the Bi-Co News’] reporting, includes potentially following on and spying on students, along with kind of duping them into meetings under false pretenses,” Jankowicz said. “That is not the Bryn Mawr that I know.”
“As somebody who has had to deal her fair share with lawyers and investigations, even at the Congressional level, my heart really goes out to these students who were not given a chance to represent themselves or have legal representation with them in what they were told was a meeting with their dean,” she told The Bi-Co News.
Other alums have expressed similar concern.
As somebody who has had to deal her fair share with lawyers and investigations, even at the Congressional level, my heart really goes out to these students who were not given a chance to represent themselves or have legal representation with them in what they were told was a meeting with their dean.
NINA JANKOWICZ
Talia BarNoy (BMC ‘22) attended a “Meet the President” alumni event in New York on Nov. 20. BarNoy said they were looking forward to meeting up with old friends, and hearing updates about the governance of their alma mater. Instead, BarNoy said they came away concerned that the Bryn Mawr they know is slowly disappearing.
“It ended up making me care again about Bryn Mawr, and its legacy,” they said, adding that they care about Bryn Mawr’s leader being someone who can enrich that legacy. “You (President Cadge) are the wrong person to do it,” BarNoy continued. “You say that you took a year to learn about Bryn Mawr, and you did not.”
For them, the event marked the first in a sequence of alerts about the changes President Cadge was making at the College. BarNoy told the Bi-Co News that President Cadge gave a presentation during the event about various goals she had for her first year in office. According to BarNoy, this included the outline of her initiative centered on upgrading student common rooms, referred to as the “Student Spaces Project.”
Sit wrote in an emailed statement to the Bi-Co News that “President Wendy Cadge’s remarks at the November 20th alum event, attended by more than 160 alums and their guests, centered around our campus strategic direction, known as the ‘Next Chapter.’”
She noted that the topics covered by Cadge during the event included the “record number of undergraduate applications,” the “robustness” of Bryn Mawr’s endowment, the “headwinds the college faces due to changing federal rules and regulations,” in addition to the update on the comprehensive campus plan project, which Sit said will “guide the future of our buildings, landscape, and physical infrastructure; and much more.”
Rachel Sadaty-Ellerson (BMC ‘19) heard about the event through Baroy and was equally unnerved following its conclusion. “It just seems so random,” they said, adding that as an alum, “the aesthetic of Bryn Mawr isn’t on my list of concerns.”
BarNoy said that they first learned about recent, controversial changes to the protest guidelines from a friend who accompanied them to the event. That same friend also sent over the Bi-Co News article which detailed allegations that the College had contracted private investigators as part of an internal investigation.
It was then that BarNoy and Sadaty-Ellerson started to talk about what they could do to support current students, and expressed their frustration with the college’s trajectory under President Cadge.
“I realized alums have a lot of power,” BarNoy told the Bi-Co News. “They send us requests for money; that’s our bargaining chip.”
So, on Dec. 10, 2025, BarNoy and Sadaty-Ellerson, along with a group of other alumnae, helped drafted a letter to the alumnae/i office and the Board of Trustees, outlining their concerns. Grievances included the installation of numerous security cameras, the institution of new protest guidelines without faculty or student input, and the administrative actions revealed by the Bi-Co News article of Dec. 1.
The group listed four requests from the alumnae/i office: revision of the protest guidelines, with student input, increased transparency with the student body regarding security camera surveillance, reinstating monthly meetings with the SGA Executive Board, and issuing a public apology to students named in the Bi-Co News article of Dec. 1, along with its authors and the SGA Executive Board.
“We understand that the work is never done and that this letter is not the end of our Response,” the letter read. “We loved our time at Bryn Mawr and recognize the importance of alum support. We will not be donating to the college so long as this administration continues to erode the traditions that make Bryn Mawr great and that made it our home.”
Sadaty-Ellerson told the Bi-Co News that they have experience with organizing, having worked with advocacy groups in New York. They said they knew that the next step was building solidarity. Both they and BarNoy participated in the effort to contact alum networks, sharing the letter in group chats and on social media in the hopes that fellow alums would sign. They attempted to post the letter to multiple Bryn Mawr Facebook groups, but say that the requests were not approved.
We will not be donating to the college so long as this administration continues to erode the traditions that make Bryn Mawr great and that made it our home.
Eventually, though, the letter racked up over 100 signatures. Most were from “gold” alumni (graduates from within the last decade), with one signee from the class of 1995. BarNoy and Sadaty-Ellerson said they sent the letter once support reached 100 signees. The first goal was to express upset—if that message wasn’t heard, the next step was building up a larger coalition. For the time being, they asked anyone and everyone to send the following email to President Cadge:
“I am reaching out on behalf of concerned alums to forward this letter to you. We hope to hear back from you by February 1st. We will continue to send this email until we receive a confirmation that you have received and are reviewing the contents of this letter.”
Within two weeks, they received a reply from Gabrielle Gary, Associate Vice President for Constituent Engagement in the office of alumnae relations.
“We hear your concerns about student safety and privacy, protest guidelines, student governance, and student journalism,” Gary wrote. “The articles written by the Bi-Co News in December were impactful for so many of us. We are deeply committed to protecting the College – both people and property – in today’s challenging social and political environment. President Cadge will be sending an email to the campus community on this topic after students and faculty return from break next week.”
Gary wrote that the email would be forwarded to Baroy and Sadaty-Ellerson. If they had any further questions, they could set up a meeting with the Alumnae Association.
But Sadaty-Ellerson and BarNoy still have lingering questions. BarNoy set up a meeting with the Alumnae Association contact Gary offered, hoping for further clarifications. They’ve been in contact with students, and listening to what is needed most on campus. They told the Bi-Co News, “efforts are ongoing, and Bryn Mawr students are not alone.”
In a comment to the Bi-Co News, Sit noted that Gary and Sally Bachofer ‘97, the president of the Alumnae/i leadership council, met with a “selected point person for the alum group who signed the letter.”
“The 90-minute discussion was robust, centering around questions the alum representative brought on behalf of the group, with answers given in real time,” Sit said. “The Alumnae/i Relations and Development division deeply values every piece of feedback they receive, as they strive to act as a dedicated conduit for building meaningful bridges between our intergenerational global alumnae/i community and the college administration.”
Haverford Responds
President Cadge has repeatedly asserted that the College’s contracting with private investigators was fully aligned with college policy. In order to contextualize the claims, the Bi-Co News looked into Haverford’s investigation policies.
“Haverford launches investigations when there is a need to establish facts about alleged violations of College policy,” Haverford’s Dean McKnight said. “The goal is to understand the impact of any harm to those involved and to the broader campus community. Investigations are most often conducted internally by a highly-qualified, designated member of the Campus Safety team. The College can utilize outside investigators for complex or time-intensive cases. Neither internal nor external investigators determine case outcomes or assign sanctions.”
Though the respective policies are largely aligned, the Bryn Mawr community is voicing concerns not about the employ of private investigators, but about the College’s actions which diverge from how outside contractors should conduct investigations.
Correction: This article previously stated that Sadaty-Ellerson and BarNoy were the primary organizers of the alumni group. In fact, the two were part of a larger coalition headed by several organizers who aided the effort. The Bi-Co News apologizes for this error.
1 comment
I am impressed with the current level of journalism at the bicollege news-excellent article, but I am disturbed that recent events and the actions of this administration make such investigative journalism necessary. I can also think of many other potential uses for funding that might serve the campus community better than more random remodeling projects. As an alum, I am not planning to donate until the administration provides more transparency.