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Photo courtesy of Jim Graham

Rebecca Chopp speaks to the gathered campus community at her inauguration in early May.

BY JACQUELINE SMALL

In print | Published August 26, 2010

Lucretia Mott, one of Swarthmore’s founders, would have been happy to attend President Rebecca Chopp’s inauguration.

Not only is Chopp an accomplished scholar and administrator, her official induction as the college’s first female president this May was a clear victory for Mott’s vision of equal rights.

The weekend of the inauguration was marked by a symposium of professors and alumni who spoke on panels about civil discourse and sustainable living.

Alumni and faculty also participated in arts performances and readings at a program on Friday evening called, “A Celebration of Community: Performances in Honor of Rebecca Chopp’s Inauguration as 14th President of Swarthmore College.” Many of them attended the ceremony itself, as did Swarthmore students and representatives from neighboring institutions such as Haverford, Bryn Mawr, University of Pennsylvania and Widener University.

One of the six speakers at the ceremony was the provost of the college, Constance Hungerford, who spoke of Chopp’s merits as an individual.

“We hail you especially as a fellow scholar, who brings a distinguished record of ground-breaking research in feminism and theology, a pursuit of inquiry and writing that you have sustained even through the distractions of administrative responsibility at Emory, and then the Yale Divinity School and, finally, at Colgate,” she said.

Nathaniel Erskine ’10, who served a term last year as StuCo vice president, gave a speech at the inauguration praising Chopp’s accessibility to students.

“President Chopp [is] an attentive and reflective listener. She continually welcomes ideas and stories whether they are about a freshman’s transition to Swarthmore, budgetary policy, or her beloved discipline of theology. Students are glad to have a leader who proactively values their contributions.”

Several speeches mentioned that Chopp’s interest in progressive religious movements and how those movements are influenced by women will suit the college’s history as a school founded by the Society of Friends.

Barbara Mather ’65, who is the first woman to be chair of the Swarthmore Board of Managers, opened the ceremony. In her welcoming speech, she said, “The inauguration of any president is a momentous occasion, but the inauguration of Rebecca Chopp is a long-awaited and very welcome affirmation of the vision of [our] founders and each of our foundational cornerstones.”

Swarthmore was one of the first coeducational institutions in the United States, admitting female students like famed feminist Alice Paul and hiring women as faculty members, such as Maria Sanford, before it became standard. But 146 years passed with only male presidents. In May, Rebecca Chopp was inaugurated as Swarthmore’s fourteenth president, and first female, to hold that position.

“I think the glass ceiling has decisively been shattered at Swarthmore, once and for all,” Chopp said in an interview after the inauguration, adding that the college has already had women in important positions such as provost and treasurer.

Many of the other speeches referred to the progressiveness of the founders, especially Lucretia Mott, who was a suffragist and abolitionist.

David Cohen ’77, chair of the University of Pennsylvania’s board of trustees, who Mather called one of “our friends in higher education,” said in his speech.

“I think [Mott] would be pleased and delighted to see Rebecca Chopp inaugurated as the first woman president in Swarthmore’s illustrious history.”

Cohen also asked rhetorically why it had taken “so long” for a woman to be hired as president.

Chopp later said in an interview, “My sense is that it didn’t take all that long, in light of the fact that women didn’t become the presidents of any colleges until the ’70s or ’80s. … Women had to work their way up the administrative ladder in regard to college administration.”

She also pointed out that former President Al Bloom’s “immensely successful tenure of 18 years” overlapped with the beginning of this phase of equality in higher education.

Although women have been reaching the rank of college president for a few decades, Chopp said in the interview that women in academia still face many challenges.

She said that the difficulties of balancing family obligations remain an obstacle for faculty and staff, especially for women who have young children. Also, she said that in spite of the presence of “very successful women in the sciences as professors and certainly as students,” women are still underrepresented in the natural sciences.

While Chopp stressed in the interview that differences in gender should not be regarded as inherent parts of human nature, she said that she thinks women “tend to be more focused on consensus and they embrace getting lots of voices at the table.”

She added that in her studies of collaborative religious communities founded by women, she has found that “at this point in our history, women tend to think very holistically … and this is something we see played out in women presidencies.”

Chopp also said that she believes many more women will continue to become college presidents, and that she is eager to see more women of color in the position.

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