EcoLit ESem

My explorations of the five assigned sites on campus were punctuated by a couple of unexpected meetings. I started in the Campus Center parking lot-- very near where I park as a commuting student. It's not an unpleasant spot-- the pavement a bit cracked here and there, though no plants actually grow through it. The plants in the mulched garden beds looked happy indeed. The way our assigned question was phrased-- where do I feel happiest?-- was conducive to my realization that I feel happy today, and in fact I felt noticeably happy in all five different spots; so thank you Anne for making me aware of that! I needed to go the campus Health Center to change an appointment, so I made the glassed-in staircase at Dalton Hall my next stop. Cold air-conditioned air greeted me, bringing the welcome interest of a change, though too cold to increase my happiness. I liked looking through all that glass at the trees outside, and I liked the light that pours in there, on this day of interesting and changing light. (Dalton also awakens distant memories and associations for me: when we first moved here in 1959, when I was 7 years old, the science building was not yet built, and my father's office in the Math department was on the third floor of Dalton. His colleague John Oxtoby was physically disabled, on crutches, and had to struggle up the two flights of stairs-- this glass stairway and elevator are much later additions, after the age of accessibility had arrived...)

Operating Budget
The operating budget for 2011-12 approved by the Board of Trustees is $95.7 million. It is projected to be in balance for the sixteenth consecutive year.
In 2011, student revenue (tuition, room and board) provided 51% of all revenue, and is the largest revenue source for the College. Students fund roughly half the cost of their Bryn Mawr education. Thirty-nine percent of the College operations are subsidized by philanthropy.

Major Grants to the
College for 2010
• $897,421 from the National
Science Foundation (NSF) for
the Robert Noyce Teacher
Scholarship Program
(Professor Victor Donnay is
the faculty principal
investigator)
• $735,000 from the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation for the
Teaching and Learning
Initiative
• $359,000 from the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation for the
Mellon Mays Undergraduate
Fellowship Program
• $300,000 from The Albert M.
Greenfield Foundation for The
Albert M. Greenfield Digital
Center for the History of
Women and Higher Education
(see page 13)
• $149,947 from the Teagle
Foundation for the Tri-College
Assessment of Student
Learning
• $56,000 from The Pew Center
for Arts and Heritage for the
Khmer Arts Ensemble (see
page 14)

The Mellon Foundation is funded by the investment of its original endowment of Andrew Mellon's aluminum and industrial money.  

Jones, Dick, The First 300: The Amazing and Rich History of Lower Merion, Lower Merion Historical Society (2000)

My research starts with The Lower Merion Historical Society's history of Lower Merion County as written and archived into The First 300.  I will not be using direct quotes here as the book's website indicates that doing so requires written permision.  However, the hyper link above accesses the entire text.

The Lenape Indians

The text includes some information about the area prior to being settled by the Europeans as it explains that the proximity to the Schuykill river made it a convenient site for the Lenape Indians, who inhabited much of the east coast.  The Lenape were a fishing and hunting tribe who travelled in bands through PA, DE and other East Coast states.  A point that I found interesting was that William Penn gained a "right" to the area when he purchased Pennsylvania, but still felt compelled to pay the Lenape Indians for their land despite the area having been settled by both the Dutch and the Welsh prior to Penn's purchase.  My intention is to research further into the lives and patterns of the Lenape bands.

The Pennsylvania Railroad