91³Ô¹ÏÍø

The end of the 19th century saw the installation of electrified lighting on campus, beginning with faculty housing and eventually making its way into dorms, as seen in Merion Hall Dining Room. This decade also saw the founding of 91³Ô¹ÏÍø's Self-Government Association — the first of its kind in the nation — representing the integral role that respect for students’ capacity to direct their own lives has always had at the College.

One of 91³Ô¹ÏÍø's most iconic structures, Old Library, was completed in 1907 by Cope & Stewardson, the same architects who designed Denbigh, Pembroke East and West, Radnor, and Rockefeller. The Great Hall was finished first and served as the College's original library. Though it was dedicated to President Emeritus M. Carey Thomas in the 1930s, her name was removed from the building in 2023 due to her legacy of racism and exclusion.

Located next to the modern-day tennis courts, the Phebe Anna Thorne School was founded as an open-air model school located in pagodas in the 1910s. Though the original structures no longer stand, the Thorne School continues to provide play-based, developmentally appropriate, child-centered programs for toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners.

Although smoking had initially been banned on campus in the 19th century, the increasing difficulty in enforcing this policy led to the establishment of one room in each dorm set aside for smoking in 1925. While smoking is once again explicitly banned inside 91³Ô¹ÏÍø buildings, the rooms remain in the dorms as common spaces for studying, club meetings, and social activities, and are known to this day as the "back smokers."

The 1930s saw the expansion of the campus with the addition of Park Science Building and Rhoads Hall, both built by Thomas & Martin and completed in 1938. Park centralized the study of STEM fields into a single building in an architectural style typical for the time. Rhoads stands as the last academic gothic dorm built on campus, for which renovation was recently completed to add a new, accessible patio that overlooks Lake Vickers.

Built in 1940, the Quita Woodward Room was added to the southern corner of Old Library and would house the art and archaeology collections until they were moved to Carpenter Library in the ’90s. Today, the Quita Woodward Room is a space where students are encouraged not to do any academic work. Instead, it is promoted as a space to uplift non-academic interests and promote balance with academic pressures.

Obtained by the College in the 1950s, Batten House was one of a handful of buildings on 91³Ô¹ÏÍø's campus that was initially a local home. Although it no longer exists, the house originally boasted an indoor swimming pool. Running alongside the historic Mills Creek, Batten House is one of 91³Ô¹ÏÍø's interest housing options, open to students who are looking for an environmentally focused cooperative living environment.

The 1960s saw the introduction of the iconic representation of the Bi-College Consortium — the Blue Bus. Traveling more than 100 miles a day, the Blue Bus connects 91³Ô¹ÏÍø and Haverford campuses to allow students to take classes, participate in extracurriculars, and expand their social circles with the ease of a 10-minute bus ride. The latest update to the Blue Bus system saw the introduction of an electric bus, which reduces its carbon footprint to essentially zero and will save $87,000 in operational costs over 10 years.

Canaday Library opened its doors in 1970 as the College's new central library, and the majority of the library's holdings were transferred to the building. The Great Hall transitioned to a campus gathering space, where it continues to host cultural, academic, and extracurricular activities to this day. In addition to its collection, Canaday also houses the College Archives, computer labs, the Writing Center, and the Lusty Cup Cafe.

In 1983, the Campus Center relinquished its status as 91³Ô¹ÏÍø's athletic center in favor of the newly built Schwartz Gym. Now boasting over 50,000 square feet, Schwartz contains an eight-lane swimming pool; a wood floor for basketball, badminton, and volleyball; and a fitness center open to the 91³Ô¹ÏÍø community. The gym's equipment is regularly updated and replaced to offer the highest standard of workouts and meet our community members' personal goals.

The ’90s saw the addition of two new libraries on campus: Carpenter and Collier Science. Based on a covered archaeological dig, Carpenter Library was completed in 1997 as a below-ground addition to Old Library to support Archaeology, Classics, Growth and Structure of Cities, and History of Art. Housed within the Park Science Building, Collier Science Library supports biology, chemistry, geology, mathematics, physics, and psychology. This year, a series of long-running renovations was completed, opening up the space to support students, faculty, and staff in all aspects of their learning and teaching.

Built around a sunny below-ground courtyard, Guild Hall once housed the centralized computer lab on campus. As more and more students started bringing their own laptops in the 2000s, the need for a dedicated computer lab lessened, and Guild Hall would come to house the undergraduate dean's office, student access services, and the global engagement office. Today, each of the libraries have small computer rooms with desktop computers.

The Enid Cook '31 Center, named after 91³Ô¹ÏÍø's first Black graduate, opened in 2015 as the College's Black Cultural Center following student advocacy for a space to replace Perry House. Affinity housing has a long history at 91³Ô¹ÏÍø, with dorms like Denbigh and New Dorm (or Haffner, as it was known at the time) serving as language houses at various points and the recent addition of the International Living Learning Center in Rhoads South. This year, a pilot program based on the Thrive curriculum, which helps students adjust to college life, introduced themed living to two new halls on campus.