What does the Swarthmore student call themself? Current students and admissions officers would invoke the term “Swattie,” a term of endearment for the student body and a way to make the institution more amiable. It’s a nickname that represents the way Swarthmore wishes itself to be perceived — as an affable, sincere community. This nickname, however, has not always been in vogue, and if you were to ask the same question 70 or so years ago, you’d come across a very different answer, and one which signified different values. Historically, the term to refer to Swarthmore students was “Swarthmorean.” Learning of this name change naturally demands a series of questions. Why do we no longer use the term “Swarthmorean,” and why are current students unaware of its existence? What values did this term represent, and why have we moved away from them? What has been the legacy of this change, and does that legacy say anything about our current situation? This article will analyze the term, and seek to connect it to the complicated contemporary situation.
The term “Swarthmorean” reveals a historical pretension and snobbery of our school, a quality of which in recent years we have attempted to cleanse ourselves. On a rhetorical level, the term “Swarthmorean” just seems archaic to modern Swarthmore students. It exudes this affectation, this image of the student in the ivory tower of academia fundamentally separated from a vulgar and uneducated populace. Additionally, the term reflects the pretense of Swarthmore’s Ivy League contemporaries, the term “Swarthmorean” being in the style of “Princetonian,” invoking Swarthmore’s status as an elite liberal arts college and a “Little Ivy.” However, as antique as we find “Swarthmorean” in the modern day, it was the standard term for Swarthmore students up until the past forty years. In historical publications of the Phoenix, one can find the term “Swarthmorean” used in much the same way that one would use “Swattie” today. A common repetition of the term inculcated this notion of superiority and affect, but since there was no alternative it sufficed as an impersonal label.
Why, then, has the term “Swarthmorean” been culled from the Swarthmore dialect? In researching this topic, I attempted to find any modern usage of the term — see if it at least held symbolic meaning for contemporary Swarthmore — and the only occurrence of the term appeared to be as a reference to qualities associated with Swarthmore, rather than people. For example, in a 2016 SwatStories article, an anonymous blogger, in discussing her fascination with the thesis carrels in McCabe Library, refers to the notion of a “Swarthmorean tradition” — referring to Swarthmore’s scholarly tradition and the goal to contribute to global change. Discussing the term “Swarthmorean” with peers of mine brought raised eyebrows, laughter, and general confusion. In fact, when proposing this article, I received some pushback from an editor who perceived there being no argument. This misunderstanding is understandable in the context of modern life, where the term has become so separate from the Swarthmore experience that it only appears tangentially in Ville-related media.
I propose two principal reasons for the shift away from the term “Swarthmorean” and towards “Swattie” — those being rejecting affectation and embracing community. As discussed previously, the term “Swarthmorean” reads as antiquated in the modern day, and to some extent it is meant to. In Jeffrey Lott’s diatribe against the term “Swattie,” he describes “Swarthmorean” as being akin to “Mozartean,” an apt comparison which exhibits the affluent connotation of the term. While it is ostensibly the more grammatically correct term, its association with high class and status goes against one of the core ethics of Swarthmore, which as articulated by our first President, Edward Parrish, is “parting with the aristocratic idea of an educated class.” Whether or not this ethic has been put into practice across the board is, of course, debatable (students commonly invoke the number of students who are not on financial aid), but admissions seems to have been faithful to the ideal in at least a nominal sense. Separating ourselves from the term “Swarthmorean” and adopting a more common and approachable term creates an image of Swarthmore less fundamentally linked with elitism and aristocracy.
The second half of my claim requires me to describe the adoption of the term “Swattie,” a grassroots endeavor to remove the pretense and adopt a “cooler” name. The terms “Swat” and “Swattie” both originated at around the same time, the late 1980s and early 1990s, as reactions to the formality and affectation of the term “Swarthmorean.” They existed in a greater context of people attempting to find a name that stuck — contemporaries were “Swarthmoron” and “Swatter.” These terms were generally juxtaposed against the term “Swarthmorean” as they attempted to show the Swarthmore community as it truly was, without the heightened language. They became adopted widely by the student body, and were oftentimes the preferable “cooler” option which was used conversationally, while “Swarthmorean” was relegated to the administration and admissions publications. While initially the change proved extremely controversial, with faculty and alumni finding the changes stupid and mundane, its benefits were later realized, and it became adopted by the administration. The shift marked a profound change for the school, as it moved closer to the values it claimed to profess, and shed the aristocratic nature which had marked it for so long.
Nowadays, the argument of naming conventions has been reborn through the requestioning of institutional values, and the discordance between those of the college and those of the students. In an era where there is a greater general awareness of the political state of the world and Swarthmore’s involvement therein, students have become increasingly wary of the administration, and generally seek a degree of separation. The name “Swattie,” as I have discussed, is more popular and colloquial than “Swarthmorean,” but it contains within it a certain cutesiness which does not fit with its political identity. Though it has created a better image for Swarthmore students as a community not defined by its affluence, its kitschiness has made it an inappropriate term for referring to an institution with the power that Swarthmore has. For this reason, some students have taken to referring to themselves only as a “Swarthmore student.” This phrase, intentionally more analytical and disconnected from the institution, serves in much the same way as “Swattie” did during its infancy as a way to challenge the image of the institution through the language used to describe it.
The labels which we use to describe ourselves generally have meaning, and that meaning is doubly important when the label is used to connect oneself with an institution. In describing the history of the terms “Swarthmorean” and “Swattie” I hope that people understand it not simply as trivia about the school, but as a statement about perception and values. We chose to call ourselves “Swatties” because we are a school that seeks to separate ourselves from an aristocratic notion of education, and be open to all. We choose to present ourselves as “Swatties” because everyone, regardless of class, can be a “Swattie” and a member of that community, where “Swarthmorean” exudes an affectation unique to the aristocratic class. In much the same way, I see the current shift away from “Swattie” and towards the nebulous “Swarthmore student” as a statement about values. As Swarthmore students we align ourselves with the institution in point of fact, but choose to separate ourselves from the kitschy, community based term until our institution reflects our values.
