Haverford College ( ) is a private

liberal arts college A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in liberal arts and sciences. Such colleges aim to impart a broad general knowledge and develop general intellectual capac ...

in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), began accepting non-Quakers in 1849, and became coeducational in 1980. The college offers

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

and Bachelor of Science degrees in 31 majors across

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at th ...

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...

s and

natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of Nature, natural Phenomenon, phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer re ...

s disciplines. It is a member of the

Tri-College Consortium The Tri-College Consortium (also known as the Tri-Co) is a collaboration among three private liberal arts colleges in the Philadelphia suburbs: Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, and Swarthmore College. The consortium allows students to cross ...

, which includes Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore colleges, as well as the

Quaker Consortium The Quaker Consortium is an arrangement among three liberal arts colleges, Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, and Swarthmore College, and one research university, the University of Pennsylvania, all located in the greater Philadelphia area. ...

, which includes those schools as well as the University of Pennsylvania. All the college's approximately 1300 students are undergraduates, and nearly all reside on campus. Social and academic life is governed by an

honor code A code of honor or honor code is generally a set of rules or ideals or a mode or way of behaving regarding honor that is socially, institutionally, culturally, and/or individually or personally imposed, reinforced, followed, and/or respected by cer ...

and influenced by Quaker philosophy. Its suburban campus has predominantly stone Quaker

Colonial Revival architecture The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archi ...

. The college's athletics teams compete as the Fords in the

Centennial Conference The Centennial Conference is an athletic conference which competes in the NCAA's Division III. Member teams are located in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Eleven private colleges compose the Centennial Conference. Five of ten members of the Centenn ...

of NCAA Division III. Haverford is considered one of the most selective colleges in the U.S. Among faculty and alumni are 4

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfre ...

recipients, 6

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

recipients, 20

Rhodes Scholars The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

, and 38 Fulbright Scholars.

History

Haverford College was founded in 1833 by members of the Orthodox Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends to ensure an education grounded in

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

values for young Quaker men. It was the earliest Quaker liberal arts college. In 1849 it opened enrollment to non-Quakers. Originally an all-male institution, Haverford began admitting female transfer students in 1969 and became fully co-educational in 1980. The first woman to graduate (the wife of a faculty member) is a member of the Class of 1971. The first black student to graduate from Haverford did so in 1926. For most of the 20th century, Haverford's total enrollment was kept below 300, but the college went through two periods of expansion during and after the 1970s, reaching a total of about 1350 students in 2020.

Thomas R. Tritton Thomas R. Tritton was the twelfth president of Haverford College, serving from 1997 to 2007. After his presidency, he served as president in residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. From 2008 to 2013, he served as president and CEO o ...

was president of the college between 1997 and 2007 and oversaw the construction of several new buildings, including the Marian E. Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center and the Douglas B. Gardner Integrated Athletic Center. In the fall of 2020, much of the student body went on strike, sparked by anger at the administration's response to the killing of Walter Wallace in Philadelphia. The strike later expanded into a broader protest over concerns of racial injustice at the college. Some students opposed the strike, arguing that strikers were demonizing students who expressed concerns and suppressing dissenting views. After two weeks, the strike ended when the administration agreed to most of the organizers' demands. Wendy Raymond has been president of the college since 2019.

Honor Code

In 1897, the students and faculty of Haverford voted to adopt an

to govern academic affairs. Since 1963, every student has been allowed to schedule his or her own final exams. Take-home examinations are also common at Haverford. These exams may include strict instructions such as time limits, prohibitions on using assigned texts or personal notes, and calculator usage. All students are bound to follow these instructions by the code. Haverfordfounders

Originally conceived as a code of academic honesty, the honor code had expanded by the 1970s to govern social interactions. The code does not list specific rules of behavior, but rather emphasizes a philosophy of mutual trust, concern and respect, as well as genuine engagement, that students are expected to follow. A student (or other community member) who feels that another has broken the code, is encouraged not to look the other way but rather to confront and engage in a dialogue with the potential offender, before taking matters to an honor council which can help mediate the dispute. Every student is required to sign a pledge agreeing to the honor code prior to matriculation. The honor code is entirely student-run. It originated with a body of students who felt it necessary, and it is amended and ratified by current students annually at an event called "Plenary." Student government officers administer the code, and all academic matters are heard by student juries. More severe matters are addressed by administrators. Abstracts from cases heard by students and joint administrative-student panels are distributed to all students by several means, including as print-outs in mailboxes. The trial abstracts are made anonymous by the use of

pseudonyms A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

who are often characters from entertainment or history. The honor code failed to be ratified in 2013 and 2018, although on both occasions it was reinstated following special assemblies of the student body.

Academics

Academic program

Haverford offers

and Bachelor of Science degrees in 31 majors across

s and

s.
All departments require a

senior thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...

, project or research for graduation, and many departments also have junior-level seminar or year-long project such as in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditar ...

(superlab) and chemistry (superlab). The college also maintains a distribution requirement, spreading course work in all three areas of

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the o ...

and natural sciences, in addition to major course works.

Consortium

Haverford's consortium relationship with Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, and the University of Pennsylvania (the

) greatly expands its course offerings. Haverford and Bryn Mawr have a particularly close relationship (the Bi-College Consortium), with over 2,000 students cross-registering between the two schools. The campuses are only 1 mile apart and a shuttle called the Blue Bus runs frequently back and forth. Some departments, such as Religion and Music, are housed at Haverford, while others like Theatre and Growth and Structure of Cities are at Bryn Mawr. Students can major in these departments from both colleges. Furthermore, students of one of the Tri-Collegiate Consortium Schools (Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford) are allowed to pursue a major in a subject at a Tri-Collegiate institution apart from the one they are a student of.

Admissions

'' U.S. News'' deemed Haverford's admissions "most selective," with the class of 2024 acceptance rate being 18.4%. Applying for admission to the class of 2024 were 4,539 applicants; 835 were admitted. Of those admitted submitting such data, 94% were in the top 10% of their high school class. Of those admitted to the class of 2024, 46.1% identified as persons of color, and 11% of those admitted were international students.

Rankings

Haverford is ranked 8th among liberal arts colleges in the 2022 Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings, and tied for 15th among U.S. liberal arts colleges in the 2021 "Best Colleges" ranking by '' U.S News & World Report'', and ranked 18th for "Best Value" and tied at 23rd for "Best Undergraduate Teaching" among liberal arts colleges. '' Washington Monthly'' ranked Haverford 12th in 2020 among 218 liberal arts colleges in the U.S. based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service. The college was ranked 49th across 650 universities and colleges in the 2019 edition of '' Forbes'' "Top Colleges", and 18th among liberal arts colleges alone. Niche ranked the school the 7th best national liberal arts college for 2021.

Graduates

According to the National Science Foundation, Haverford is sixth among liberal arts college, and eighth among all colleges and universities in the United States, in the proportion of its graduates who went on to earn PhDs across all fields from 2008 to 2017. When limited to doctorates in science and engineering disciplines, Haverford ranks sixth among liberal arts colleges and tenth among all colleges and universities.

Campus

Haverford College is located on the Main Line northwest of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. The school is connected to Center City Philadelphia by the Paoli/Thorndale Line commuter rail system and Norristown High Speed Line (R100). The northwest portion of the campus is located in Haverford Township in Delaware County, and the southwest part of the campus is located in Lower Merion Township in

Montgomery County Montgomery County may refer to: Australia * The former name of Montgomery Land District, Tasmania United Kingdom * The historic county of Montgomeryshire, Wales, also called County of Montgomery United States * Montgomery County, Alabama * Mon ...

. The campus itself is situated in an affluent suburban neighborhood, adjacent to the Haverford School, the Merion Golf Club and the Merion Cricket Club, one of the oldest country clubs in the United States. Nearby attractions within walking distance include various food markets, grocery stores, restaurants, and

Suburban Square Suburban Square is a community shopping center in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, United States, in the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia. it has of gross leasable area. The center opened in 1928, and is notable as one of the earliest planned suburban s ...

, which hosts retail stores, restaurants and a local farmer's market. The campus is mostly in Haverford Township, with a portion in Lower Merion Township.

Buildings

Cherry Trees around Haverford College Founders Hall

The college operates more than 50 academic, athletic, and residential buildings, which are mostly stone and reflect Quaker and colonial design principles. The most recent additions are the Marian E. Koshland Integrated Natural Science Center and the Douglas B. Gardner '83 Integrated Athletic Center (colloquially referred to as the GIAC). Two dorms, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, began housing freshman and upperclassman in the fall of 2012. Haverford's Lutnick Library (formerly known as Magill Library) boasts more than a half million of its own volumes and has access to nearly two million more through its unusual Tripod computerized catalog system, which integrates its library with those of neighboring Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore Colleges. In addition to Lutnick's main resources, the college houses a number of special collections including the Quaker and Special Collections, the C.C. Morris 1904 Cricket Library, and numerous rare books and other treasures; the college also maintains three smaller music, science, and astronomy libraries on campus. In the fall of 2017, the college unveiled renovations to Ryan Gym, which now serves as a new Visual Culture, Arts, and Media facility (VCAM), housing the Visual Studies Minor, the Haverford Innovations Program, a Maker Arts Space, and the John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities and its Philadelphia Area Creative Collaboratives Initiative. The project, designed by MSR Architects, earned a 2018 Education Facility Design Award of Excellence from the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to ...

. The second phase of the college's Lives That Speak campaign involved a renovation of Magill Library, which began in Spring 2018 under the direction of Perry, Dean, Rogers Architects, and the library opened under the new name Lutnick Library in Fall 2019.

Haverford College Arboretum

Comprising the entire campus, the

Haverford College Arboretum The Haverford College Arboretum () is an arboretum comprising the entire campus of Haverford College, in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It is open daily, dawn to dusk, without charge. As of 2006, the arboretum contains mature oaks and maples, specimen ...

is the oldest collegiate arboretum in the United States. In 1834, a year after the college's founding, the English landscape gardener William Carvill was hired to design the plan for the campus. Carvill developed a design to replace the tilled fields, woodlots and pastures, using trees to frame and complement open spaces. He bordered the lanes with alleés of trees and planted groups of trees in odd numbers. Carvill also constructed grape arbors and a serpentine walk, reflecting the English landscape tradition of Sir Humphrey Repton. Carvill's mark is still evident today in the pastoral landscape which includes several original trees including a Swamp white oak, Quercus bicolor, and Bur oak, Quercus macrocarpa, on Founders Green. In 1901, a group of students and alumni formed the Campus Club to help preserve the campus landscape after discovering Carvill's original plan. Their work eventually led to the founding of the Haverford College Campus Arboretum Association (now the Haverford College Arboretum Association) in 1974, which continues to perpetuate Carvill's original design. To date, the arboretum's contain a nature trail, a pinetum with 300 different conifers, a duck pond, historic trees of diverse species, sculpture, as well as flower and Asian gardens.

Housing

Roughly 99% of the student body resides on campus, where housing options include apartments, themed houses and traditional dormitories. The minute fraction who choose to seek other accommodations do so nearby in neighboring townships. Approximately 60% of faculty also reside on campus. Themed housing options include La Casa Hispanica, which "supports the endeavors of students actively engaged in organizing programs concerned with the cultures and civilizations of the Spanish-speaking world", the Ira de A. Reid House, which seeks students active in the Black Students' League or members of the African Diaspora interested in the culture and politics of Africans, Cadbury house, which provides a substance-free and quiet living environment, and Yarnall, which has no permanent theme. Various housing and room arrangements exist, including suites of singles, doubles, and triples.

Student life

Journalism

Student publications include ''The Bi-College News'', a newspaper in collaboration with students at Bryn Mawr College that serves both campuses; ''The Clerk'', an independent, online newspaper; ''Feathers & Fur'', a fashion magazine also in collaboration with students at Bryn Mawr College; ''Milkweed'', a student literary magazine; ''Without a (Noun)'', the Haverford satire/humor magazine; ''Body Text'', an academic journal; ''Margin'', a student-edited creative magazine; and ''The Record'', the student yearbook.

Athletics

Haverford College competes at the NCAA Division III level in the

. Haverford is home to the only

varsity Varsity may refer to: *University, an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in various academic disciplines Places *Varsity, Calgary, a neighbourhood in Calgary, Alberta, Canada * Varsity Lakes ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

team in the United States. Its men's and women's track and field and cross country teams are perennial powerhouses in their division, with men's cross country winning the 2010 Cross Country Division III National Championships; its men's soccer team is among the nation's oldest, having won its first intercollegiate match in 1905 against

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...

, and in 2015 made it to quarterfinals of the NCAA Division III Championships; its fencing team has competed since the early 1930s and is a member of both the Middle Atlantic Collegiate Fencing Association (MACFA) and the National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association (NIWFA). Several athletic teams are highly competitive in the Centennial Conference; for example, women's basketball won the 2014 Centennial Conference Championship and progressed to the second round of the NCAA Division III women's basketball tournament. Women's softball also won Centennial Conference titles in 2006, 2014, and in 2016. The 2016 team advanced to the Super Regional tournament, a first for any Centennial Conference softball team. The Men's Lacrosse team won the Centennial Conference Championship in 2010. Despite the rest of the Centennial Conference choosing to play sports in the spring of 2021 (as well as their academic rivals in the NESCAC), Haverford decided to opt-out of competition due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...

concerns.

Notable people

File:Juan williams 5212922 (cropped).jpg, Juan Williams, journalist, author and political analyst File:Photo of DDK in 2021.jpg, Daniel Dae Kim, actor and producer File:Mark Levine.jpg, Mark Levine, Borough President of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...

File:John C Whitehead.png, John C. Whitehead, banker and former

US Deputy Secretary of State The deputy secretary of state of the United States is the principal deputy to the secretary of state. The current deputy secretary of state is Wendy Ruth Sherman, serving since April 2021 under secretary of state Antony Blinken. If the secretary ...

File:Dave-barry-post-hunt-2011.jpg, Dave Barry, author and columnist File:ChevyChaseMar10.jpg, Chevy Chase, comedian Notable graduates of Haverford College include a number of prominent businessmen such as Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick (1983), co-founder of MBK Partners Michael Kim (1985), Palantir Technologies co-founder and CEO Alex Karp (1989), and former co-chairman of

Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, Hong ...

and United States Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead (1943). Haverford also counts among its alumni five

winners, including George Smith (1963), a co-recipient of the 2018 chemistry prize, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Philip Noel-Baker (1908), Emmy award-winning journalist Juan Williams (1976), actor Daniel Dae Kim (1990), five winners of the

, including humor columnist Dave Barry (1969) and journalist David Wessel (1975), editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review Adi Ignatius (1981), Tony Award-winning

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

of Lend Me a Tenor and Crazy for You Ken Ludwig (1972), composer

Steven Gerber Steven Roy Gerber (September 28, 1948, Washington, D. C. – May 28, 2015, New York City) was an American composer of classical music. He attended Haverford College, graduating in 1969 at the age of twenty. He then attended Princeton University w ...

(1969), theoretical physicist

Curtis Callan Curtis Gove Callan Jr. (born October 11, 1942) is an American theoretical physicist and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He has conducted research in gauge theory, string theory, instan ...

(1961), professional sports executive Arn Tellem (1976), former CEO of NPR Ken Stern (1985), tech entrepreneur James Kinsella (1982), and architect Gil Schafer III (1984). Notable attendees who did not graduate include the early 20th century artist and illustrator Maxfield Parrish, as well as actors such as Chevy Chase, Judd Nelson, and

George Segal George Segal Jr. (February 13, 1934 – March 23, 2021) was an American actor. He became popular in the 1960s and 1970s for playing both dramatic and comedic roles. After first rising to prominence with roles in acclaimed films such as ''Ship o ...

. Fictional FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, from the television series '' Twin Peaks'', was a member of the class of 1976.

References

External links

Official website

Official athletics website

''The Bi-College News''
��Haverford and Bryn Mawr's official student newspaper * {{Authority control 1833 establishments in Pennsylvania Educational institutions established in 1833 Haverford Township, Pennsylvania Liberal arts colleges in Pennsylvania Philadelphia Main Line Private universities and colleges in Pennsylvania Quaker universities and colleges Universities and colleges in Delaware County, Pennsylvania