Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff Members, 

I’m pleased to share with you an update highlighting some of the work of the Swarthmore Forward Implementation Advisory Committee. As you will see, we’re making meaningful progress on multiple fronts; I remain excited about the work ahead. I am also grateful to the many members of our community whose sustained engagement is making this progress possible.

Early in the process, members of the Committee identified several overlapping themes among the plan’s goals. They have organized their work around these goals to coordinate their efforts and build on the natural connections and opportunities they present. Those themes are: 

• Curriculum
• Academic Initiatives
• Curricular & Co-Curricular Connection
• Well-being
• Campus Renewal

The Swarthmore Forward website includes more information on these themes, including some near-term priorities identified by the Committee. I want to briefly summarize some of the progress we’ve made in each of these areas. 

Curriculum

In line with Goal 1.1 of Swarthmore Forward, a comprehensive review of our curriculum is underway to ensure that Swarthmore’s academic program remains true to our mission while preparing students to thrive as global citizens. Informed by research reflecting student performance and enrollment patterns, an examination of peer approaches, and focused community conversations with the faculty, this team has concluded that while our institutional learning goals, mission statement, and curriculum are sound, opportunities for improvement exist.

Discussions have focused on enhancing how students fulfill the College’s language requirement, more fully integrating writing throughout the curriculum, ensuring student engagement with the breadth of curricular offerings, strengthening digital and quantitative literacy, and advancing multidisciplinarity. The Curriculum Review team has also engaged in collaborative conversations with the Curricular and Co-Curricular Connections team about developing a first-year experience, which directly supports Goal 2 of Swarthmore Forward: educating the whole student. We expect to finalize recommendations for discussion and approval by the faculty as early as this spring, or within the 2026–27 academic year at the latest, guided by regular faculty input and feedback collected since last spring.

Academic Initiatives

The Academic Initiatives group has been reviewing the College’s Honors Program. This group has reaffirmed the community’s strong support for the program and is considering ways to make it more accessible and flexible, while maintaining its rigor and distinctive character. For instance, the group is discussing allowing students to take some exams in their junior year.

This group is also advancing work to support interdisciplinary teaching approaches to the innovative, creative, and ethical uses and regulation of technology. A central objective of this work is to prepare our students to thoughtfully deploy emerging technologies, such as generative AI. To this end, we aim to elevate and connect the many existing efforts at the intersection of these areas, establishing a more coordinated campus resource that increases visibility, enhances coordination, and adds additional momentum to this work. Early conversations have surfaced a range of possibilities for enriching academic and co-curricular engagement tied to these themes, such as adding lab components to existing courses and incentivizing faculty to construct and expand course offerings. 

Curricular & Co-Curricular Connections

The College is in the process of designing a comprehensive first-year experience, beginning in Orientation and continuing throughout the year. The goal is to provide incoming students academic and co-curricular offerings that provide a foundational knowledge of Swarthmore’s community values and offer ongoing opportunities for reflection, connection, and engagement that foster community and well-being. As part of this effort, we are exploring the creation of a required, credit-bearing first-year seminar designed to bridge academic inquiry with essential skills, helping students navigate campus opportunities and build a strong sense of community among the first-year cohort. While we strengthen the entry point for our first-year students, we are also focused on broadening the pathways into the College for others. This year, we welcomed 19 transfer students, including six from community colleges — a vital step in our goal of developing a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community.

This group has also been collaborating with campus partners to map existing high-impact experiences that take place beyond the classroom, such as summer research fellowships, internships, or opportunities to study abroad, and identify barriers to participation. Next steps include centralizing these resources and developing a database to measure and assess students' access to on- and off-campus resources. 

Well-being

Work within the Well-being implementation group is centered on a broad, holistic vision for our campus — one that encompasses not only individual health and wellness but also our collective ability to live, learn, and work together in community.

In support of this effort, the implementation group has partnered with the Swarthmore Coalition on Well-being, which has developed a strategy called Well-being Everywhere. This plan aims to embed well-being priorities into every facet of the College, enabling members of the campus community to access wellness-related resources anywhere on campus. Based on community feedback and campuswide assessment, this plan describes the integration of well-being across four pillars: student well-being, employee well-being, academic integration, and facilities.

Last spring, we conducted a campuswide Culture and Climate Survey, and more than 1,100 students, faculty, and staff provided feedback. The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, in collaboration with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, Research & Assessment, has shared some key takeaways and the full report, which will serve as a vital roadmap for future work.

They’ve also launched several other initiatives to strengthen our culture of inclusion, including a newly formed Committee on Access, Inclusion, and Community and an institutional partnership with the Constructive Dialogue Institute to strengthen our collective ability to engage in dialogue across differences.

This group is also exploring ways to advance efforts to clarify the governance model on campus. Representatives recently met with the Committee on Faculty Procedures (COFP) to consider approaches for gathering campus feedback on various potential governance models, including decision-making matrices employed by peer institutions that spell out which bodies and constituencies are involved in institutional decisions. Members of the group also plan to meet with the President’s Staff Advisory Committee (PSAC) to discuss shared areas of interest, including governance and the faculty-staff relationship. By increasing transparency around decision-making, we aim to build a more resilient and connected campus.

Campus Renewal

We continue to make significant progress on renewing and enhancing our physical campus to ensure that our buildings and infrastructure support our mission. Our most visible and exciting recent milestone is the opening of Martin Hall, which was transformed into a vibrant, interdisciplinary hub for the departments of Computer Science and Film & Media Studies, as well as a new home for the Creative Media Commons (formerly the Media Center). If you have not had a chance to see the space in person, I encourage you to find some time to do so; it’s simply stunning.

I’m also pleased to share that 11 campus buildings are now running on our geoexchange system, and we anticipate that number to climb to 15 by the end of 2026 as we continue to implement To Zero by Thirty-Five, the energy plan that will enable our campus to reach carbon neutrality. The second phase of well drilling was completed in the fall, marking the end of drilling on campus for the foreseeable future. We will soon begin site restoration, and we expect to reopen the lawns in 2027. 

Our work on the campus master plan continues as well. The goal of this effort is to produce a comprehensive, 10-year plan that will guide the evolution of our physical campus in alignment with the goals of Swarthmore Forward. Last year, we formed a Campus and Library Master Plan Advisory Committee and selected Ayers Saint Gross to help with this initiative. They have worked together to engage stakeholder groups across campus to better understand our collective space needs, opportunities, and aspirations. The Advisory Committee is developing options for consideration by senior leadership that will shape the final report; we hope to complete this effort later this calendar year. 

Moving Forward

As we continue with implementation, our work will be guided by careful consideration of how we invest our time, energy, and financial resources. This process offers an opportunity not only to advance key priorities, but also to identify connections across initiatives and make intentional choices about where to focus our efforts. 

In the spirit of stewarding our resources, and in keeping with the plan’s call to guard against overscheduling and to create space for rest, recreation, joy, reflection, and connection, we may need to thoughtfully step back from certain activities to make room for new ideas and investments. Doing so will help ensure that Swarthmore Forward remains both sustainable and meaningful.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this important work, especially the members of the Swarthmore Forward Implementation Committee and Elizabeth Drake, assistant vice president for sustainability and strategic initiatives. Together, we are translating the aspirations of Swarthmore Forward into significant action. There will be continued opportunities for faculty, staff, and student participation as implementation progresses. If you have questions or ideas, please reach out to swarthmoreforward@swarthmore.edu.

Sincerely, 

Val Smith

President
Roy J. and Linda G. Shanker Presidential Chair