Nearly all undergraduate seniors at Bryn Mawr complete a senior capstone, which often takes the form of, but is not limited to, a thesis. This is not officially required by the school, but a motion to change this policy is underway.
Dr. Timothy Harte oversees all academic departments in his role as Provost and is an invited member of the Committee on the Undergraduate Curriculum. According to Harte, the committee is in the process of deciding whether to codify senior capstones as a school-wide requirement. No departments would need to change their curriculum requirements as a result of this because capstones are already a part of each major.
Because each major offers one, Bryn Mawr reports that nearly all students participate in a senior capstone, even though it isn’t officially part of the school’s policy.
“Since we have been reporting the value of 100% for this metric, the College and Curriculum Committee wanted to ensure that this was indeed the case,” Harte said about the motivation behind the proposal.
Bryn Mawr and Haverford have differing policies about capstones, which could be another influential factor. Haverford is one of a few institutions nationwide that requires a senior thesis for every student. Since Bryn Mawr doesn’t currently do so, officially implementing this requirement could be a way to create unity between the schools’ policies.
If the motion is adopted by the committee, any new major would have to include a senior capstone and all current majors would have to retain theirs. While it’s unlikely, as of right now, a department that wanted to remove their requirement for one or a newly proposed major that didn’t want to include one could bring this request to Curriculum Committee, according to Harte. “Curriculum Committee could, if it wanted to disregard current practice, approve such a modification to an existing major or new major,” Harte said. “But if Curriculum Committee made such a decision, the College would have to change what it states publicly about our Senior Capstone.” If passed, the codification will ensure the school’s commitment to a capstone for all seniors.
