How Does It Work?
The President’s Office at Bryn Mawr College implements the strategic direction and focus that the Board of Trustees plans. Projects that the office is currently working on (as of 2026) include topics like “Raising Bryn Mawr’s Scholarly Profile” and “Expanded Funding for Student-Faculty Research”. This team has an incredible amount of money available to them and is split into three general teams: Senior Staff, President’s Office Staff, and a research team.
In relation to the Board of Trustees, the President is an automatic member of the Board. The President sits in on parts of the Board’s meetings and has the ability to propose and speak on topics her or she deem important. The direct line of communication that the President enjoys with the Board puts them a unique position to influence the Board’s perception of campus and what the community desires. The position itself is partially meant to bridge the student and on-campus community to the Board, whose many members are removed from campus and often live out-of-state.
When a new President has to be hired, the Board creates a search committee that includes selected members of the Bryn Mawr community. This group can field the opinions of students and staff but is not required to implement those opinions. Importantly, this means that whoever is selected for the position is essentially hand-picked by the Board.
Read more below on how the President and the President’s Office operate.
President Cadge
It would be impossible to talk about the culpability of the College and its President’s Office without discussing Wendy Cadge.
President Cadge began her tenure during the summer following the 2023 People’s College for the Liberation of Palestine. She succeeded President Kim Cassidy, who sanctioned countless students for their association with the PCLP. Unburdened by the blow to public opinion that President Cassidy incurred following her campaign of Deans Panels, President Cadge had a unique opportunity to change course. Within her power was the ability to switch from the prosecutorial perspective that President Cassidy took to one of conversation and cooperation. She chose to begin her tenure by stalwartly standing by, and extending upon, her predecessor’s precedent of targeted discipline.
What the Bryn Mawr community has experienced for the past two years is not only a continuation of past waves of sanctions, but an escalation. President Cadge chose to Dean’s Panel students last year, 2 years after the initial Dean’s Panels and President Cassidy’s promise to not further target students. She chose to hire outside lawyers to investigate students this past summer of 2025, with no precedent within the Honor Code or published college guidelines for such actions (https://bicollegenews.com/2025/12/01/private_investigators_bryn_mawr_college/). She chose to place high definition cameras, the same brand used in prisons, across campus without student input. She chose to not attend any of the BMC Strike Week events in 2025, and she chose to deprioritize club funding for campus groups, especially affinity groups. Her tenure has been fraught with calculated errors in judgement and demonstrates a common pattern across universities.
President Cadge has consistently chosen to surveil, sanction, and vilify her own students, a strategy that many other university presidents have employed in the past two years to silence pro-Palestine and BIPOC voices on campuses. Although she has attempted to distance herself from the draconian actions of her fellow university presidents, she has been quietly following suit.
Of all of the “outside forces” she warned us to beware of at last year’s Big Cheese, she seems to be the most formidable.